Fans of The Handmaid’s Tale didn’t have to wait long to learn if June Osborne—the resilient, rebellion-sparking character played by Elisabeth Moss—would be in the sequel series The Testaments. June popped up at the end of the first episode and then appeared throughout the season as a mentor to Daisy (Lucy Halliday), a Toronto girl who infiltrates Gilead as a Mayday operative. At the end of season one, June agrees to let a frustrated Daisy try her own tactics—with an emphasis on minimizing collateral damage—as the plot to overthrow Gilead begins to gather steam. It’s a big moment for the former Handmaid, who’s used to calling all the shots; June is also forever thinking of her daughter, Hannah, who was kidnapped by Gilead as a toddler and is now the same age as Daisy. We know Hannah as Agnes (Chase Infiniti), who happens to be one of Daisy’s closest friends, and we get to see the moment where June realizes Daisy has a direct link to her long-lost child. In a new interview with the Hollywood Reporter, Moss talked about June’s role in The Testaments and why it was important for her to continue telling the character’s story.
“We always knew that June was going to be in it,” Moss said. “I had known for years from Bruce [Miller, who created both The Handmaid’s Tale and The Testaments] that June wasn’t going to get Hannah out [at the end of The Handmaid’s Tale].” The decision was further confirmed, she added, when “Margaret Atwood wrote the sequel [novel], and Hannah didn’t get out.”
