Elisabeth

The closely watched Murdoch succession drama has ended with a $3.3-billion settlement that gives Lachlan Murdoch control of the family’s influential media assets, including Fox News, the New York Post and the Wall Street Journal.

Fox Corp. on Monday announced the “mutual resolution” of the legal wrangling that had clouded the future direction of the television company and the Murdoch-controlled publishing firm News Corp. The dollar figure was confirmed by a person familiar with the matter who was not authorized to comment publicly.

The succession dispute flared into public view last year after three of Murdoch’s children attempted to block proposed changes that patriarch Rupert Murdoch wanted to make to his trust to cement his oldest son Lachlan’s grip on power. In December, a Nevada probate commissioner rejected Rupert Murdoch’s request to amend his trust amid the opposition by his three adult children.

The 94-year-old mogul wanted to ensure the conservative leanings of his media empire would carry on and felt that Lachlan Murdoch, who serves as chairman and chief executive of Fox, was the most ideologically compatible with his own point of view.

Until now, Rupert’s four oldest children — Prudence MacLeod, Elisabeth Murdoch, Lachlan Murdoch and James Murdoch — were set to jointly inherit control of the businesses. But, as part of the settlement, Prudence, Elisabeth and James agreed to relinquish their shares in the family trust and give up any roles going forward.

Two new trusts will be established. One will benefit Lachlan Murdoch and Rupert Murdoch’s two youngest daughters, Chloe and Grace Murdoch, who were born during his union with ex-wife Wendi Deng.

The second trust will benefit Prudence, Elisabeth, James and their descendants. Fox Corp. separately announced a public offering of 16.9 million shares of Fox Corp. stock, currently held by the Murdoch Family Trust.

Those proceeds, along with the sale of 14.2 million shares of publishing company News Corp.’s Class B common stock, will fund the new trust.

Fox said Monday that voting control of the Fox and News Corp. shares held by this trust “will rest solely with Lachlan Murdoch through his appointed managing director” through 2050.

“Fox’s board of directors welcomes these developments and believes that the leadership, vision and management by the Company’s CEO and Executive Chair, Lachlan Murdoch, will continue to be important to guiding the Company’s strategy and success,” the board said in a statement.

Fox said it is not selling any of its stock.

The family will sell nonvoting Class B shares and hold on to its voting shares — and control. Rupert Murdoch will remain the company’s chairman emeritus.

During a six-month period following the stock sales, James, Prudence and Elisabeth will be expected to “sell their de minimis personal holdings in FOX and News Corp.” to severe all ties with the companies.

The Handmaid’s Tale dovetailed neatly as the series ended

WARNING: This article contains spoilers from The Handmaid’s Tale series finale

Elisabeth Moss, the leading lady of The Handmaid’s Tale, has shared her thoughts on the show’s final moments and the hauntingly memorable last scene, reports the Mirror US.

In a poignant full circle, the series concludes with June Osborne (portrayed by Moss) in the Waterfords’ residence, echoing the very first episode’s ending.

June embarks on recording her narrative, a harrowing testament to Gilead’s atrocities that have remained hidden from the world.

The series signs off with the powerful line: “My name is Offred”, a stark contrast to her declaration in the debut episode: “My name is June.”

Echoing the inaugural episode, June once more peers directly into the camera lens, offering a knowing smile.

Moss, dissecting this pivotal moment in an interview with Gold Derby, explained: “Her mom points out she needs to tell it for her daughters. … She has to go back to the beginning, and she has to tell the whole story, and it started as Offred.”

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This act of reclaiming her handmaid identity was crucial for June to recount her experience truthfully.

Moss, who also directed the finale, revealed a behind-the-scenes anecdote about the final line. She aimed to replicate the same tone used in the first season’s voiceover.

Yet, fate played its hand when Moss realised she had forgotten this detail just 10 minutes before filming the crucial scene.

In a frantic rush, the star of Mad Men and Top of the Lake hastily purchased and downloaded the Hulu app on her phone to revisit the original scene.

She replayed the sequence repeatedly and committed its rhythm to memory, remarking “it worked” and was “incredible” in enhancing her final scene’s delivery.

Reflecting on June’s return to the Waterfords’ abode, Elisabeth Moss shared that she “didn’t have to think too much” about the setting because she intimately “felt all the things” her character experienced.

“There had been so much that had happened in that room, and I was so happy to be back in a better place, and in a place where I was ready to bring this story to a close, at the same time that June is starting to tell it,” Moss articulated.

While The Handmaid’s Tale has come to an end, the saga continues as The Testaments gears up for production with Bruce Miller, the original showrunner, at the helm of this forthcoming series.

Moss remains connected to the fabric of the drama, taking on the role of executive producer, with the fate of June’s appearance presently shrouded in mystery.

The Testaments diverges from its predecessor, fixating on youthful characters navigating Gilead’s oppressive regime even from the seemingly privileged echelons of society.

Ann Dowd will revisit her role as Aunt Lydia, revealing that her character has been transformed by the Boston uprising as seen in The Handmaid’s Tale.

New talent leads the pack in the upcoming series, including Chase Inifinti and Lucy Halliday, who will step into the roles of Agnes/Hannah and Daisy/Nicole respectively.

The Handmaid’s Tale airs on Channel 4 and Prime Video in the UK on Saturdays

Red cloaks. Stiff white bonnets. Bent heads. If there’s a single image that Hulu’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” leaves audiences with as it ends its six-season run this week, it’s this one: That of women in a dystopian anti-America called Gilead, evolving from anonymous sexual slaves into rebels, warriors and, sometimes, survivors.

But for “Handmaid’s” creator Bruce Miller and star Elisabeth Moss, who also directed several episodes in the final season, the series, based on the 1985 book by Margaret Atwood, was never about what the women wore. It was about the women inside the color-coded uniforms.

“June started out as a normal person, a mom, a wife,” says Moss, whose other long-running roles include “The West Wing” and “Mad Men.” She won an Emmy for playing the “Handmaid’s” title character in 2017, the same year the show took home the first drama series prize for a streaming show.

“Then [June] had to shut down and become something that I don’t think she wasn’t proud of,” Moss continues. “But I feel she comes out of that into a place of true heroism, where she is able to be herself, be generous, forgive, inspire other people, lead — but also be vulnerable, ask questions, not know everything.”

Elisabeth Moss in the series finale of “The Handmaid’s Tale.”

(Steve Wilkie / Disney)

Miller, who stepped back from showrunning duties for the final season, with Eric Tuchman and Yahlin Chang taking over, especially wanted to ensure that as a man, he was telling a female-forward story from the female point of view — both in the writers’ room and on camera.

“I’m very mindful of the fact that I’m a boy, and who do I think I am?” he says, adding that winning the Emmy boosted his confidence in being a man telling a story about women’s rights. (The series has 15 Emmys total.) “Definitely, when you win an Emmy it helps you feel a bit less like you have one penis over the limit.”

Knowing that, Miller says he centered the story on June and Moss alike, adjusting camera angles to focus on her point of view — but lowered to an eye level that corresponded with the actress’ 5-foot-3 height. “The crowd scenes get much more scary” when you do that, he says. “I want to see the world not just through June’s eyes — but also Lizzie’s eyes, as much as she’s able to show me those things.”

Meanwhile, Moss used roles as executive producer and director to focus on the show’s look and how June came across on camera. Frequently, she’s shown smoldering with fury or dark intent, gazing up from under her brows with a lowered chin, something Moss says she lifted from Stanley Kubrick’s films. “That is ‘Clockwork Orange,’” she says. “I am certainly not the first person to do that look.”

Elisabeth Moss.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

But she might be one of very few actresses to convey it onscreen. “It’s definitely not something women do [on camera],” she says. “Women aren’t allowed to get angry. [June] uses her anger and weaponizes it at so many points during the show — and by the final season, she knows when to do that and when not to.”

The journey June, Elisabeth and “Handmaid’s” have been on began at an uncomfortably synergistic time in American politics: Amid the airing of a series about women subject to state regulation of their bodily autonomy, real-world politicians were successfully rolling back women’s reproductive rights. In 2018, protestors began showing up at real-world events in those handmaid-red cloaks and white bonnets, putting the show in an unexpected spotlight.

“Art does have an impact,” says Moss about that kind of a response, but suggests that repurposing the show’s images, outfits or story in service of real-world politics misses a key element of the series. “I don’t think any of us necessarily set out, when you’re making a TV show, to [make a political statement], because that’s the wrong way to go about it. You’re telling this one woman’s story. … It’s always been ‘The Handmaid’s Tale,’ her story.”

That’s one reason why after six seasons the series chose to end as it did: With June back in the house where it all began, starting her memoirs — “The Handmaid’s Tale.” When Miller pitched that final episode script, Moss says it made her cry.

“I love the idea that at the end is when she starts to tell the story that is the book, and the circular nature of that gives me chills,” she says. “The fact that she realizes that she has to tell it because it wasn’t all bad.”

But the ending also does one more thing: It shows how little is truly resolved. June’s daughter Hannah is still trapped in Gilead, for example. And fans of the series know the action will pick up 15 years later when “The Testaments,” based on a 2019 sequel by Atwood and now in production, begins airing. (Moss won’t say whether she’ll cameo.)

So this is an ending — just not the ending. Now, the story leaves off, still focused on the woman who escaped the bonnet and cloak and not about the trappings of her enslavement. “For me, the ending is perfect,” says Moss. “I also don’t feel like it is an ending. The war is not over. June’s journey is not over.”