The Handmaid’s Tale’s Hannah to be placed with murderous stepmother who shuns her for new baby
THE Handmaid’s Tale saw dozens of children evacuated from Gilead at the end of season 3.
Unfortunately June’s firstborn daughter Hannah wasn’t among them.
Hannah, who was snatched during the rise of Gilead and reallocated to a Commander household, has since been renamed Agnes.
After a tip off about June (Elisabeth Moss) discovering her school and trying to make contact, she was moved out of reach, thwarting the desperate mother’s efforts to reconnect.
Unfortunately, if Margaret Atwood’s sequel The Testaments is anything to go by, June won’t be reunited with Hannah anytime soon.
Hannah was previously placed with Commander Kyle and his wife Tabitha, who treated her with nothing but kindness.
However, Tabitha ends up passing away, only to be replaced by the cruel Paula Saunders, who ends up marrying Commander Kyle.
Paula makes her disdain for Hannah clear and has even less time for her after their Handmaid falls pregnant.
The Handmaid dies in labour, but not before giving birth to a healthy baby boy, giving Paula the son she dreamed of, Mark.
What’s more, Paula’s bloody past shows that she’s capable of anything.
It transpires that Paula killed her old husband after embarking on an affair with Commander Kyle, stabbing him with a kitchen skewer.
She avoided punishment by framing her Handmaid, promising to smuggle her out of Gilead only to betray her and hand her over to the authorities.
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Ever the ambitious type, Paula tries to force Hannah into an arranged marriage to the influential Commander B. Frederick Judd.
Fortunately Hannah escapes the matrimony by choosing to become a Supplicant Aunt and is backed up by Aunt Lydia, who threatens to expose Paula’s murder of her ex husband if she doesn’t agree to sign over custody.
That being said, a life as an Aunt is no doubt worlds away from what June would have wanted for Hannah.
Given how closely the show followed the events of Atwood’s first novel The Handmaid’s Tale, it’s safe to assume Paula will pop up at some point.
The Handmaid’s Tale is expected to return to US streaming service Hulu and Channel 4 in 2020.