Warning: contains spoilers for The Handmaid’s Tale season six episode three “Promotion”.  Thank heavens for final seasons; they come in like Oprah handing out gifts. Moira, Luke, Rita, look under your seats. YOU get a plot, YOU get a plot. Everybody gets a plot!  Not just a plot, but in Moira’s case also some righteous dialogue that felt like her character had blinked awake after seasons spent locked under an enchantment. Moira speaking the words: “I cannot live your life anymore” to June was the incantation that broke the spell. After episodes spent in the background worrying about June, looking out for June and caring for June’s infant daughter, Moira asserted herself as a survivor of Gilead in her own right. Samira Wiley did that with her beautifully underplayed performance in the scene in which Moira volunteered for the Jezebels mission. Unlike the cocky belligerence of the Mayday leader’s speech, Moira spoke simply and decisively. There was no stridency in her words, just the truth, tinged with sensible fear. As a former Jezebel, this mission was hers. Until it was June’s.  Elisabeth Moss also played the hell out of her scenes, in which an increasingly unhinged June ran around that Mayday outpost like she was John Rambo instead of a heavily traumatised former literary editor. Her ‘I demand to speak to the manager’ mania was a bravely unflattering look for a lead character, but a necessary one. It led Luke and Moira to call her on her bullshit and claim their own stories: Luke as a bereaved parent struggling with the guilt of not having been able to protect Hannah; Moira as a rape survivor whose sexuality makes her a “gender traitor” punishable by mutilation in the eyes of Gilead; and both of them as BIPOC characters with every reason to go to war against that racist regime.  Also brought off the bench in “Promotion” was Rita, who, like June and her mother in “Train“, had something flat-out good happen to her. Years of watching this show and its cruel, hope-dashing twists has turned fans into shivering, timid strays who shrink away from outstretched hands in the flinching expectation of pain, but it’s starting to look as though we can finally trust again. Not everything is going to hit us; sometimes, a warm bed and a belly rub is really what’s on offer. That’s what we got with Rita, who blew past Serena and into her sister’s arms to give us the second of this season’s emotional family reunions.  Not only that, but it was thanks to Rita (and screenwriters Jacey Heldrich and Bruce Miller) that we had a rare and useful insight into the character of Nick Blaine. Nick’s “Safest place to be/Safest thing to be” answers about his New Bethlehem commander status were water in the desert to those of us still wondering who this character really is. With Rita’s help and that pithy dialogue, it makes sense that Nick was just a lost kid when all this started, and his every move since then, aside from the foolhardy risks he took for June, have all been about sheltering from the Gilead storm. Nick certainly isn’t in the commander game for the same frat boy reasons as newcomer Commander Bell, who arrived on screen this week in the unimprovable form of Timothy Simons (Jonah from Veep, playing Jonah from Veep but with hideous power). If this show was going to invent a character just so we could watch them – please please please – get blown to high hell by the Mayday plan, it couldn’t have done better than Bell. In just two short scenes, he was quickly established as the ur-commander: a misogynist sadist who derives his power not from virility, but from debasing and abusing women.  Commander Wharton continues to prove himself a different prospect. He’s… nice? A home cook who loves his daughter, is kind to his son-in-law, supports women’s political influence, and doesn’t frequent Jezebels? What is this man doing as a high commander? His status in Gilead though, means that despite every word he says, it still feels as though with every step she takes toward him Serena is walking into the open jaws of a crocodile. If Wharton does turn out to have a heart, then he’s not the only high commander with one now. Lawrence’s scenes with little Angela and the one with her mother Janine were a reminder of his character’s complicated decency, even as one of the decorated snakes in Gilead’s writhing pit. His continuing love for Eleanor (“my real wife”), distaste for Naomi, (“a real cunt”) and his promise to Angela that one day she would be able to read A Little Princess for herself showed Lawrence’s best side – just as those tender scenes showed off Bradley Whitford’s enviable range beyond his usual glib comedic delivery. The closing credits storytelling once again showed us the man who, instead of turning in the 86 children being smuggled out of Gilead via his house in season three, gathered them around him to read Treasure Island. Join our mailing list Get the best of Den of Geek delivered right to your inbox! In summary: “Promotion” gave everybody something good, and none was better than that final, beautifully acted scene between Luke and June. Now that June’s dropped her desperate, condescending yet understandable attempts to protect everybody, they’re all going to fight, together. Am I stupid to be feeling hopeful about their chances? The Handmaid’s Tale season six streams on Hulu in the US on Tuesdays. It will air on Channel 4 in the UK at a later date.