There were a few wishes from fans for the final season of The Handmaid’s Tale, and some of them happened. In fact, there were two characters who returned that we never expected to see again, simply because they’re not alive in the universe anymore. And it’s because of these returns that I refuse to believe the omission of one character was due to bad writing.
Yes, I’m talking about Esther, the young Wife-turned-Handmaid played by Mckenna Grace in The Handmaid’s Tale season 4. She was introduced early on as a bit of hope that the Handmaids would escape Gilead, and in the end, she became one of them. Her tale was another harrowing one, and there was some hope that she would at least be mentioned in the final season, but that didn’t happen.
Esther was a reminder of forgotten girls in The Handmaid’s Tale
When we first met Esther, we met a girl who was just trying to survive in The Handmaid's Tale. She hated the Gilead regime, explaining that she hadn’t just been raped by her husband — not that it could be called rape “under his eye” — but that the Guardians had also had their way with her. She wasn’t the meek and obedient type, and so she ended up helping June and the rest of the Handmaids as they hide from Gilead.
When June turned everyone in and found out that Esther was part of the plan, she was turned into a Handmaid. This girl would scream and shout, making her pain known, but she was discarded and made silent. The abuse against her continued, and while Commander Putnam was punished for his actions, Aunt Lydia had no sympathy for Esther.
She became one of the forgotten girls. Aunt Lydia saw her as a problem (and a threat to her favorite, Janine in The Handmaid’s Tale), and so, she was scheduled for a hysterectomy so that she could be sent to the Colonies since she would no longer be able to have children. Well, the fates had other plans, as she was pregnant at the time.
Forgetting Esther continued to be a poignant reminder in The Handmaid’s Tale
The last we saw of Esther, she was chained to a bed at a hospital, where she would remain until she gave birth. We had hoped that she would be saved in The Handmaid’s Tale season 6, or at least that someone would mention that she was still suffering in Gilead. Yet, she wasn’t mentioned at all, forgotten about just like so many other women and girls.
While this could seem like bad writing, it’s not. It’s a poignant reminder of Gilead and of how women are treated and discarded. Janine was remembered because of the bond that June had with her, but had it been anyone else, she would have been left to rot in Gilead as well. There were so many other women on the walls in Boston after the fall of Gilead, and yet, only Janine was the one on June’s mind. Sure, they wanted to get others out and bring down Gilead, but they were nameless women on the board.
It's a sad reality of war and of revolution. So many are forgotten about and left behind, and that’s the story of Esther. She was always a forgotten girl and then woman in the country of Gilead, and that’s the way The Handmaid’s Tale ends for her. We just remember her because of how much focus was placed on the character in The Handmaid’s Tale season 4, but what about all the others? She is the reminder for us that we would all need to do better.
The Handmaid’s Tale is available to stream on Hulu.