The Handmaid's Tale Season 6 Episode 9 Puts An Explosive End To The Love Triangle

Spoilers follow.

What happens when a double agent chooses the wrong side? What if it is someone you love? These are some of the many difficult questions that "The Handmaid's Tale" final season asks. Nick's meteoric rise from a driver to a Commander himself proved handy for June's covert missions throughout the series. But as the showrunners remind us in Elle, "he must have been doing something to contribute to that ascent."

Season 6 has broken the trance of Nick's smoldering presence. Nick wanted to whisk June away to Paris, completely ignoring — and not really caring about — June's mission to liberate Gilead. June's mother and Luke have also been warning her that Nick is a Nazi. The series hammers this message home when we learn that Nick was directly responsible for the Jezebels being lined up and executed by firing squad. At this point, June is sleeping with the very enemy that she is trying to take down.

The showrunners point out that "Nick has had many opportunities to leave and to leave with June. He's been in Canada and he has made the choice time and time again to go back to Gilead and to double down on Gilead." When Nick steps onto the plane to Washington D.C. and refers to the other Commanders as the "winners," he's no longer the wishy-washy figure playing for both sides. He makes his allegiance clear and proves himself just as weak as the other men who need to feel powerful by hurting others.

The plane explosion completely destroys any hubbub about team Luke vs. team Nick. It's the series' way of telling us that under this violently oppressive patriarchy, a good-old-fashioned love triangle and happily ever after is far-fetched. Nick's fate makes us reevaluate if June's ending will even involve romance at all.

Max Minghella told Elle that he was surprised by Nick's ending:

"I've always viewed the June and Nick relationship as a kind of reprieve from the darker, more intense elements of the show. So I thought it was a really bold and interesting choice to bring that story into this more nihilistic viewpoint."

Nick helped June experience sex during her enslavement that wasn't marred by pain and assault. June didn't know if she would ever see Luke again, so her romance with Nick was a bright light in the darkness of Gilead. Their intense bond became as strong of a motivator as saving Hannah. 

June was the only woman Nick had a connection with while being forced to marry others. While these pressures were stressful, Gilead men have freedom and upward mobility. The tragedy with Jezebels gave us a glimpse into the Gestapo-like orders that Nick was likely a part of. Nick's death is symbolic of the end of Gilead's grip on June. Once Nick made his allegiances clear, it was the only way June could truly be free. 

Even if June and Luke do "end up together," there's so much trauma between them that rebuilding a peaceful life will matter far more than rekindling romance. So many of June's decisions throughout the series have revolved around men — men being chosen for her, and her making choices to survive in a world built by and for them. Now is the time for June to let go of being a wife and lover and define herself beyond the boxes that men put her in; the Handmaids and Gilead women have already learned they are so much more than that.

The final episode of "The Handmaid's Tale" hits Hulu on Tuesday, May 27.