Mercy has become the enemy — fans are begging The Handmaid’s Tale to stop sparing its saints, as Gilead’s crimson-soaked world grows dull beneath the weight of too many survivors. What was once a razor-sharp rebellion now limps through polite resistance, tension flatlining with every moral compromise. Streaming loyalists want blood. Critics want consequences. And online, one plea rises above the rest: let the executioner swing — or let the show fade into mercy-drained irrelevance.

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The Handmaid’s Tale Needs to Raise the Body-Count—Here’s Why Season 6 Feels So Tame

(Spoilers for Season 6 below)

Eden Blaine and Serena sitting on a couch together in The Handmaid's Tale.

For a show set in one of TV’s bleakest dystopias, The Handmaid’s Tale has been remarkably reluctant to kill off major characters. Gilead executes people daily, yet across five-plus seasons the series has lost only a handful of supporting players—Eden in Season 2 and, of course, Fred Waterford in Season 4. Those deaths mattered, but they were narratively “safe”: Eden was peripheral, and Fred’s demise felt inevitable.

Joseph Fiennes as Fred Waterford wearing a suit in The Handmaid's Tale.

Now, in its sixth and final season, the series is supposed to be in full-scale rebellion mode. June, Moira, and their allies are staging risky missions, infiltrating Jezebel’s, and dodging bombs at the border—yet everyone keeps surviving. The result: the stakes feel strangely low. When Commander Lawrence swoops in (again) to pull June out of danger, the show repeats a pattern that drains tension instead of building it.

Cherry Jones as Holly Maddox in The Handmaid's Tale.

It isn’t that The Handmaid’s Tale lacks consequences—Janine’s trauma and Serena’s amputated finger prove otherwise. But a revolution against a regime this brutal should carry a higher human cost. Without it, Gilead’s menace—and June’s bravery—start to look abstract.

Madeline Brewer as Janine and Bradley Whitford as Commander Lawrence sitting together on a bed in The Handmaid's Tale.
Samira Wiley as Moira and Elisabeth Moss as June hugging and crying together in The Handmaid's Tale.

A meaningful loss could also push characters forward. Imagine if Moira died during the Jezebel’s raid: June would grapple with guilt and be forced to confront the price of her crusade, deepening her arc as the conflict reaches its climax. That kind of sacrifice would remind viewers what freedom truly costs.

Yvonne Strahovski as Serena Joy, standing alone on a beach, in The Handmaid's Tale Season 6, Episode 2.

With only a handful of episodes left, the show has promised us a final, decisive uprising. To make that payoff land, it may have to take the hardest step of all: let some beloved characters fall. If The Handmaid’s Tale ends without demonstrating the real price of rebellion, its last chapter risks feeling as safe as the ones before it—and that would betray everything these women have endured.

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