Look What You Made Them Do: The Handmaid’s Tale Drops a Bombshell (and a Taylor Swift Surprise)
The penultimate episode of The Handmaid’s Tale doesn’t just explode the storyline—it detonates emotions, resistance, and reputation, with a bold soundtrack moment from Taylor Swift.
As The Handmaid’s Tale barrels toward its long-anticipated finale, the second-to-last episode of the series delivered a one-two punch: shocking sacrifice and an anthemic debut. In an audacious and cinematic move, the episode titled Executionunleashed not only a key twist in the fate of Gilead—but also the world premiere of Taylor Swift’s Look What You Made Me Do (Taylor’s Version).
From the very first notes of the re-recorded track, viewers knew something big was coming. Directed by Elisabeth Moss herself, the episode opens with a visual and emotional slow-burn as June Osborne and a battalion of defiant handmaids begin their long-brewing act of resistance. Swift’s lyrics become more than soundtrack—they become prophecy.
“I’ve been wanting to use a Taylor song for years,” Moss revealed in interviews. “This felt like the moment. It matched our themes of power, defiance, and reckoning.”
But Execution wasn’t just about the music. It delivered one of the show’s boldest turns to date: the death of Commander Joseph Lawrence and Nick Blaine. In a gut-wrenching scene aboard a Gilead diplomatic aircraft, the two characters willingly sacrifice themselves in a covert bombing plot—taking out key leaders of the regime in a final stand against tyranny.
It’s a complex and poetic choice: the show’s most morally conflicted men choosing to end their story with action rather than complicity.
Visually, the episode leaned into cinematic grit, with shadowy interiors, a rising sense of dread, and the final explosion silhouetted against darkness—leaving viewers breathless and uncertain about what’s left for June, Serena, and the cause of liberation.
With one episode remaining, The Handmaid’s Tale sets the stage for a finale that promises not salvation, but perhaps something more potent: revolution. And in the background, Taylor Swift’s reimagined war cry still echoes—proof that storytelling, like survival, is a matter of timing, voice, and unrelenting will.