‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ looks at revolution in its final season. The cast says it’s a ‘call to action’: ‘Fight back. Pay attention.’

Rage, resistance and revolution mark the sixth and final season of The Handmaid’s Tale.

For star Elisabeth Moss, who also directs and executive-produces the dystopian series about the totalitarian state Gilead and the handmaids who are forced to repopulate a population in decline, one moment stood out as especially meaningful in her final days of production.

“It was a small day that was just a smaller, reduced crew, and I was only directing. And we were just shooting some elements that we needed for the final two episodes,” Moss told Yahoo Entertainment. “It was lovely. It was just us as a crew.”

She added, “I loved that that was how we finished. That was how we actually finished shooting the show. It felt really right.”

With Season 6 premiering April 8 on Hulu, it has been more than two years since Season 5 left audiences wondering what would happen as June (Moss) boarded a train with her baby — without her husband, like in Season 1 — only to find Serena Joy (Yvonne Strahovski), the woman whose home she once lived in as a handmaid, there too, along with her own infant.

As the two characters have their own uneasy relationship, they have at times found themselves on the same side while taking on the brutal regime in Gilead, which has taken over much of the United States and has forced many — including June and Serena — to flee to Canada as refugees.

That uneasiness has found striking parallels in the current political climate — one that echoes what happened in 2017 when the series premiered on Hulu. It’s something Strahovski told Yahoo Entertainment she and the cast didn’t expect.

“No one could have predicted the outcome of the political situation that aligns with when our show airs,” Strahovski said, adding that it “highlights the importance of actually having a show like this.”

Samira Wiley, who plays June’s friend and former handmaid Moira, felt similarly.

“It is not something I would have ever predicted, not something I would have ever wanted. But I do think that it shows how relevant this show is to America, to our world,” Wiley told Yahoo Entertainment. “It makes me feel an added sense of responsibility as an artist to get this story right, to tell women’s stor[ies], the truth of it. … I do feel grateful to be still telling this story at a time that is as relevant as it ever was.”

Bradley Whitford, who plays Gilead’s Commander Lawrence noted that the series had been criticized for being “too extreme” and sees the current moment as “a call to action.”

“It’s a reminder to us who do not aspire to fascism or misogyny or erasing people of color or erasing the value of women that … culture alone will not get us to where we wanna be. It will not create our moral vision,” he told Yahoo Entertainment. “We have to engage in resistance, and we have to engage politically because that’s how we got here.”

“Thank God for the show. I think it gives us a voice. And a way of stepping out of the despair and into something of action that leaves the living room and goes into the world and resistance,” Ann Dowd, who plays handmaid teacher Aunt Lydia, told Yahoo Entertainment. “Fight back. Pay attention. Put your phones down. Look at what’s happening and do something.”

While both the new season’s trailer and promotional materials for the show call out the word revolution as the handmaids appear to be plotting against their oppressors, the cast said that the final season is about inspiration and also joy.

“The key takeaway really is hope,” Strahovski said. “We’ve always carried that, you know. June is our symbol of hope. She’s always carried that.”

That also goes for Strahovski’s character, Serena Joy, a woman at times conflicted about her connection to Gilead.

“We see the hope that [June] instills in Serena,” the actress said. “She always has some version of hope for this character to change and be a better person and make better choices. And that’s really kind of a bit of a theme or part of what is new for Serena this season.”

Acknowledging the heartbreak that often happens in the show, Sam Jaeger, who plays American agent Mark Tuello, said that it was also important to “make sure that we provide some joy and some hope and some inspiration.”

The Hulu series based on the Margaret Atwood novel of the same name is ending with Season 6, but the Handmaid’s universe is continuing on.

The Testaments, an adaptation of Atwood’s 2019 follow-up novel to The Handmaid’s Tale, has been greenlit as a spin-off of the popular series. Moss will be an executive producer on the show, and Dowd will reprise her role as Aunt Lydia.

Dowd said that she’s “very glad that Lydia is continuing” but couldn’t give Yahoo Entertainment too many details about the project, which started production on April 7, according to Hulu.

However, she said that there was a possible difference between the show and the novel, which takes place 15 years after the events of The Handmaid’s Tale.

“[Lydia] is a different person now from what happened at the end of The Handmaid’s Tale that I thought was perfectly and beautifully done for her,” she said. “The novel, of course, picks up 15 years later. But I don’t believe we’re waiting that long. I don’t think it’s 15 years [in the new series]. But I think Lydia has been clearly affected by what happened at the end of Handmaid’s Tale and as a different person because of it.”

For Moss, it doesn’t yet feel as if The Handmaid’s Tale has fully reached its conclusion.

“It just doesn’t feel over yet. We have a lot more to do,” Moss said. “We’re legitimately still making choices about the show, and so it just doesn’t feel at all like it’s over.”

“Maybe it will in six months or so,” she added, “but it feels very much like the beginning of a new part of it, if that makes sense.”

The first three episodes of The Handmaid’s Tale start streaming April 8 on Hulu.