Editor’s note: The below contains spoilers for The Handmaid’s Tale Season 6.
After years of being sidelined, the sixth and final season ofThe Handmaid’s Taleis finally giving Moira (Samira Wiley) a storyline worthy of her strength and complexity. This week’s episode, “Janine,” shows Moira stepping up and rediscovering her fight, which has felt absent since she escaped Gilead. Themission to go undercover at Jezebel’s, the same brothel where she was once held captive and eventually escaped, becomes a powerful full-circle moment. It’s risky, and despite facing resistance about joining the mission, it’s deeply personal, culminating in a long-overdue confrontation with June (Elisabeth Moss). For the first time in a long time,Moira is facing the fight head-on and leading as she should be.
‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ Season 6 Puts Moira’s Fight in the Spotlight
After escaping Gilead, Moira fled to Canada and reunited with Luke (O-T Fagbenle), eventually helping raise June’s daughter, Nichole.Though she supported refugeesand adapted to life in exile, her role on the show was often reduced to supporting June’s arc rather than having one of her own. It was a disservice to both the character and to Samira Wiley,who consistently brings nuance, fire, and emotional depth to every moment she’s given. Moira has always been funny, resilient, and fiercely loyal, which we only got glimpses of in earlier seasons.
Season 6 finally gives her a storyline with real stakes and personal agency. With June away in Alaska,Moira and Luke work with Mayday to plan a high-risk mission: infiltrate Gilead, return to Jezebel’s, and plant explosives targeting high-ranking Commanders. It’s bold, dangerous,and deeply personal for Moira, who knows Jezebel’s better than anyone and is still grappling with survivor’s guilt. She insists on leading the mission, but whenJune returns to help save Moira and Luke, she inserts herself into the plan without telling anyone, claiming she’s better suited to lead.The move immediately causes tension between the threeand sets the stage for a rare but much-needed confrontation.
Thankfully, both Moira and Luke push back, frustrated that they’ve worked tirelessly to build this plan only for June to insert herself and try to take control. Ultimately, Moira and June head into Jezebel’s together to gather intel, but the tension between them continues to build. When they encounter Janine (Madeline Brewer), June’s guilt resurfaces, and she recklessly offers to take Janine with them now, which would have jeopardized the mission. Janine refuses,not wanting to abandon the other women, and instead gives them a stack of letters to get out from those being held captive. The moment, however, highlights just how far June is willing to go to ease her own conscience. What follows is a long-overdue reckoning between two best friends and survivors who have taken very different paths. And this time,it’s Moira who speaks her mind with honesty, power, and a claritythat’s been a long time coming.
“It’s a Lot”: Samira Wiley Explains Moira’s Dangerous Return to Gilead in ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’
“There’s just so many flashbacks, so many memories, you know.”
Moira and June Finally Have a Long-Overdue Reckoning in ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ Season 6
After Janine leaves, Moira confronts June about her reckless behavior,unleashing a wave of pent-up frustration that’s been buildingfor years. June admits her impulsive offer was driven by guilt for needingto leave Janine behind in Chicagoseasons before, but Moira pushes back hard, pointing out how everything always centers around June — her trauma, her friends, her guilt. Moira wonders aloud ifsheis allowed to have all those things, never feeling like she has the space to. It’s a heartbreaking exchange, raw and necessary, andboth Samira Wiley and Elisabeth Moss are incredibly powerful.
While thestakes around them are literally life and death, this moment between Moira and June could exist in any show about two friends struggling to reconnect. Amid the chaos,what they share is something deeply human,recognizing that comparing trauma only empowers their abusers, which neither of them is interested in doing. In many ways, it speaks to the show’s larger theme of howwomen are so often pitted against each other. Beneath the anger and exhaustion, their love for one another remains intact. It’s hard not to wonder who they might have been to each other if Gilead hadn’t taken so much.
That peace, of course, is short-lived. A Guardian enters, discovers the letters Janine gave them, and threatens them with violence. Moira fights back, and with June’s help, they manage to overpower him. In a fierce, brutal moment of self-defense, Moira kills him with a phone cord. The act will undoubtedly complicate their mission, butfor both women, it marks a pivotal shift in their relationship. The episode ends with their unexpected rescue by Commander Lawrence (Bradley Whitford), placing them all inan even riskier situation, but, crucially, they’re in it together.
Moira, long one ofThe Handmaid’s Tale’s most compelling yet underused characters, is finally getting the story she deserves. Season 6 gives her agency, emotional depth, anda central role in the resistance. Samira Wiley delivers a performance that’s layered, restrained, and deeply affecting. Watching Moira rediscover her fire and fight back on her own terms has been one ofthe best parts of the season. It’s along-overdue spotlight for both the character and for Wiley, and a reminder that Moira has always beenone of the show’s best.
All new episodes ofThe Handmaid’s TaleSeason 6 drop Tuesdays to stream on Hulu.
The Handmaid’s Tale
