Note: This story contains spoilers from “The Handmaid’s Tale” Season 6, Episode 10.
“The Handmaid’s Tale” showrunners Eric Tuchman and Yahlin Chang said the huge return of actress Alexis Bledel and the beloved character she plays, Dr. Emily Malek/Ofglen, was a wish the entire writers room hoped to bring to reality.
[Show creator] Bruce [Miller] really wanted to have Emily back,” Chang told TheWrap. “I think every season, Bruce, and the rest of us, the writers really wanted her back. It was a wish. We didn’t know if Alexis would go for it, and we were just so thrilled when she said yes. But it’s something that Bruce has wanted for a long time, and we were, so sad to not have her for a while.”
That’s right! Truly one of the moments “Handmaid’s Tale” fans have been waiting for was the return of Dr. Emily, June’s former right-hand-woman in the early plans to seek vengeance against Gilead. As O.G. fans know, Emily was introduced to viewers as handmaid Ofglen, June’s “walking partner” in the first season. Before June was June, there was Emily, as she was the one who put June on game about the Eyes and the secret resistance group known as Mayday. Emily stopped at nothing to return to her wife Sylvia (Clea Duvall) and son Oliver in Canada. By Season 4, with the help of Commander Lawrence (Bradley Whitford) Emily was able to escape to Canada where she then takes up task of helping rehouse parent-less children from Gilead.
In Episode 10, while June is revisiting a since-closed down business in Boston, where she used to live as a handmaid, a woman suddenly starts chatting with her. She turns around to see that it’s Emily.
“This used to be an ice cream place. They had this amazing salted caramel. Be cool if they reopened it, wouldn’t it? Blessed be the fruit,” Emily says to June in the episode.
“My f—king God,” June says with shock all over her face.
“That’s blasphemy,” Emily replies, sending a smile to June. The two then immediately embrace. After losing so many of her loved ones over the years, it’s in this moment that June gets to add another member of her family and friends back into her life.
Just like they used to, the duo go on a walk throughout the town, this time with their faces uncovered and their heads held upright. Emily explains to June that she went back into the fight, at one point becoming a Martha in Bridgeport for seven months. Even though she went back into helping with the resistance, Emily said she never left her family behind and would always contact them when she could, because “they’re the reason” she’s fighting in the first place. Her words bring comfort to an anxious June, who worries about separating from her family to continue to Mayday’s war against Gilead.
“Story-wise, it really fit into Bruce’s feeling that Emily does have an important thing to say to June, important wisdom for her, which is that [as] June tells herself, ‘How could you leave everyone?’ She is surprised when Emily says that ‘Ff course’ she’s talking to Oliver, her son and to Sylvia, her wife, like she hasn’t left them,” Chang explains. “They’re still a part of her life, they’re still her family, and that really helps give June the ability to say goodbye to little Holly (June’s daughter Nicole, who Serena renamed), and to know that she’s not abandoning her family, even if she’s continuing the fight, that she’s not abandoning them, and that there’s still a family and they’ll still be part of you. Other’s lives. I think it helps her, even with sort of the evolution of her relationship with Luke, which is, ‘I’ll see you there,’ right,? Like, ‘I’ll see you in New York. I’ll see you there.’ “
In May 2022, Bledel announced that she’d be leaving the series ahead of Season 5. In a statement obtained by TheWrap, she wrote, “After much thought, I felt I had to step away from ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ at this time. I am forever grateful to Bruce Miller for writing such truthful and resonant scenes for Emily, and to Hulu, MGM, the cast and crew for their support.”
In a statement to The Hollywood Reporter, Bledel shared her thoughts about the series and her character prior to the final season’s premiere. Bledel earned a Primetime Emmy award for the role in 2018.
“It was deeply upsetting to even imagine Emily going through something like that— being captured, powerless, with no say over her body,” Bledel said at the time. “I was actually offered the role and when I read the pilot script, I immediately said yes. Somehow, Bruce just knew I had Ofglen in me.”
Season 6 of “The Handmaid’s Tale” is streaming on Hulu.
