LOS ANGELES >> “The Handmaid’s Tale” ended in the early days of a new beginning, but with a battle that is still far from over. Is it hopeful? Time will tell.

After a planted bomb on a plane exploded and killed some of the top commanders of Gilead, the Hulu drama concluded Tuesday with June (Elisabeth Moss) and company figuring out a path forward as the occupation of the U.S. by the totalitarian regime begins to be dismantled, with liberation taking hold first in Boston and other parts in the Northeast. June, though, won’t rest until freedom reaches Colorado, where her eldest daughter, Hannah, is living under the regime.

While June’s central mission throughout the series has been to reunite with her daughter, the series ends with only the hope that it will someday happen. An emotional cliffhanger tied to logistics — a spinoff sequel titled “The Testaments,” based on the novel written by “The Handmaid’s Tale” author Margaret Atwood, in the aftermath of the show’s success, will launch later this year and focus on June’s daughter, who was renamed Agnes by her new family, and the other young women of Gilead.

Like the 1985 Margaret Atwood novel it’s based on, “The Handmaid’s Tale” provided a startling and harrowing look at what can happen when unchecked power and a totalitarian mindset, combined with religious extremism and social engineering designed to strip women of their autonomy, become codified. It was never supposed to feel like real life. But Yahlin Chang and Eric Tuchman — longtime series writers who took over as showrunners for the final season from co-creator Bruce Miller, who has pivoted to adapting “The Testaments” — are aware that some viewers see similarities between the fictional cautionary tale and reality.

The Times spoke with Chang and Tuchman about the real world parallels and bringing the series to its conclusion with Miller, who wrote the finale. Here are edited excerpts from the conversation.

Q June returns to the Waterford home where she records her monologue, a callback to what we hear in the very first episode. Was that always envisioned as the closing scene?

A Originally, Bruce envisioned it as the penultimate scene, but it became the ultimate scene because it became so clear, in my head anyway, that June was telling the story to Hannah and for Hannah, and that the whole series we’ve been watching has actually been her story to Hannah. Given that our hands were tied, unfortunately, and we could not bring June and Hannah together because of “The Testaments,” which was something that we really struggled with — I struggled with, speaking for myself — not giving people what they wanted or what I wanted, the idea of her telling the story to Hannah was just so emotionally captivating. I don’t think that Bruce was so worried about not seeing Hannah. There’s this whole sequel that focuses on Hannah. And Lizzie had a big part of this too; she influenced the writing of this scene between June and Holly [June’s mother, portrayed by Cherry Jones], where it evolved into a scene where Holly says, “This story is for the people who have lost, who have not gotten their children back; this is for them.”

A Knowing we couldn’t reunite June and Hannah, it was heartbreaking because we’re certainly aware of how much the audience was longing for that. It seemed to be what was driving June over the course of the whole series. But once we found out that we couldn’t do that, that there was that boundary that we had to respect, when I think about it now, it shifted what her emotional engine became: What does it mean to keep going when you don’t get what you want and what you are hoping for, and what if that might never happen? It actually feels like a really powerful message now — that you keep going; you never stop loving and hoping and wishing and dreaming and whatever obstacles come your way, certainly as a parent, you’re going to do whatever it takes to keep moving forward. Just to see Lizzie climbing those recreated steps of the Waterford house to Offred’s room and to end up sitting in that window seat in that iconic pose, felt like such an almost overwhelmingly emotional experience because it’s a complete full circle.

Q News broke in 2018 that Margaret was writing “The Testaments.” It had been in development as a sequel series, but an official order from Hulu didn’t arrive until April of this year. When did it become clear that you needed to shift how you wrapped “The Handmaid’s Tale”?

A If I’m remembering correctly, Bruce got an early look at that manuscript, so we knew pretty early on about this concern that we might not be able to reunite them. I think Hulu was very enthusiastic about trying to produce a sequel series, so the restriction about Hannah, we knew about by Season 4. We never stopped thinking about ways around it. Certainly this season, we had many pitches — and Yahlin had fantastic pitches, especially — about how to maybe satisfy that reunion without quite really reuniting them.

Q Care to share one of those pitches?

A Just as a mom myself, I kept thinking about, “What could I do, knowing that there’s the sequel.” I had pitched a couple deep flash forwards, like deep into the future. So it’s like “The Testaments” would have had to run for like 30 years. But I totally understand why we couldn’t do it.