Essential Insights into the Sequel of The Handmaid’s Tale

Moreover, the liberation of Gilead was far from complete. Many regions remained under oppressive control, brimming with untold stories of struggle and resilience from those left behind, including aunts, handmaids, wives, and jezebels, all waiting to rebel, dream, and endure.

The first major spin-off from “The Handmaid’s Tale,” entitled “The Testaments,” will delve into Hannah’s continuing journey as she is groomed to become a wife under the guidance of Aunt Lydia, played by Ann Dowd. So, when and where can fans tune in, and what can they expect from the new series? Here’s a comprehensive look at everything known about “The Testaments” so far.

“The Testaments” is scheduled to debut on April 8, 2026, exclusively on Hulu, which also served as the original platform for “The Handmaid’s Tale.” The series will also be available on Disney+, ahead of an anticipated merger of the two Disney-owned streaming services. On launch day, three episodes will be released, with new episodes following every Wednesday.

“The Testaments” is set to premiere on April 8, 2026 on Hulu, which was also the exclusive launching pad of “The Handmaid’s Tale.” You will be able to watch the show via Disney+ as well, ahead of the two Disney-owned streamers’ expected merger into a single entity. Three episodes will hit Hulu on April 8, to be followed by a weekly drop every Wednesday.

The first season will consist of 10 hour-long segments and should ultimately end on May 27 — unless it skips Memorial Day week, at which point it will wrap on June 3. As with every Hulu Original, new episodes will begin streaming at midnight EST. There’s no word as of this writing on whether or not Season 2 is in the offing.

And if you need to catch up with the history of June, Aunt Lydia, and the world of Gilead before diving into “The Testaments,” all six seasons of “The Handmaid’s Tale” are still streaming on Hulu as well.

Like “The Handmaid’s Tale,” “The Testaments” is packed with well-known actresses. Heading the cast is recent Golden Globe nominee and “One Battle After Another” breakout star Chase Infiniti, who picks up the role of Hannah from Jordana Blake. Hannah — who has become pious thanks to her education and remains dutiful to the ways of Gilead — now lives under the name Agnes McKenzie and is training to be a wife.

Lucy Halliday will play Daisy, the show’s second lead character. Daisy comes from Canada, a place of political turmoil in the “Handmaid’s Tale” world. She has become a convert to their ways and religion — or so she says. Daisy and Agnes become friends, and their connection might just end up changing Gilead itself. Rowan Blanchard plays Shunammite, a member of a prestigious Gilead family who exerts influence over the rest of the teens, while Mattea Conforti will play Becka Grove, an underprivileged girl who finds herself training to become a wife among the other elite students. And finally, Ann Dowd returns as the complicated Aunt Lydia, whose backstory we learned in “The Handmaid’s Tale.” She now runs the prep school attended by all three girls. 

Other cast members who will pop up include Mabel Li as Aunt Vidalia, Amy Seimetz as Paula, Brad Alexander as Garth, Zarrin Darnell-Martin as Aunt Gabbana, Eva Foote as Aunt Estee, Isolde Ardies as Huldah, Shechinah Mpumlwana as Jehosheba, Birva Pandya as Miriam, and Kira Guloien as Rosa.

“The Testaments” takes place three to four years after the conclusion of “The Handmaid’s Tale,” which explains why Hannah/Agnes now stands on the cusp of womanhood, when we last saw her as a tween. Agnes is happily settled into life in her school, and seems to be just another one of the girls — until she is assigned by Lydia to show Daisy the ropes and her point of view shifts.

Life in Gilead is anything but a walk in the park, and Agnes and Daisy are poised to find out just how ugly the world is outside of their sheltered, pampered sphere of existence. “Facing the prospect of being married off and living a life of servitude, they will be forced to search for allies, both new and old, to help in their fight for freedom and the life they deserve,” the show’s official blurb reads in part (via People). With a younger cast dealing with the vagaries of adolescent life against the grim backdrop of their surroundings, creator Bruce Miller described the show to Entertainment Weekly as “‘Mean Girls’ growing up Gilead.”

June is still out there, free, as is Hannah’s father and many of the friends and foes she has made in her battle to free her fellow handmaidens. But will Elisabeth Moss show up to reprise her role as June? “I mean, ‘No.’ [But] I would totally lie to you if I was!” she told TV Insider when asked, so consider that door wide open for now. And there’s no word at press time whether other members of the cast of “The Handmaid’s Tale” will appear in “The Testaments.”

Those familiar with “The Handmaid’s Tale” will be pleased to note that several people involved in its creation will also work on “The Testaments.”  Elisabeth Moss co-executive produces the series with Bruce Miller — who long ago teased fans about how “The Handmaid’s Tale” would dovetail into the new spin-off — and Warren Littlefield. All three of them also had a stake in “The Handmaid’s Tale.” Other executive producers include Steve Stark, Shana Stein, Maya Goldsmith, John Weber, Sheila Hockin, Daniel Wilson, Fran Sears and Mike Barker.

Barker has directed four episodes of the new show — including the first three and the season finale — while Stein puts her stamp on two, Quyen Tran directs a pair, and Jet Wilkinson leads two more. The show’s writers include Miller and Sam Rubinek, who also acts as executive story editor. Margaret Atwood — the original author of “The Handmaid’s Tale,” who incidentally didn’t make much money on the Hulu series — is once again credited with having created the program’s characters.

The show’s first-look trailer gives us a preview of what’s transpiring in Gilead these days. Hannah can be seen at the window of her room in the school, looking out over a landscape, and is heard musing in a voiceover that when the Gilead takeover happened, she still had her dollhouse. 

Over the strains of “Dreams” by The Cranberries, we get glimpses of the school and its grounds and students. The girls are shown happily playing with and teasing one another — until they run into three bodies, strung up and dangling from an archway. The trailer then segues into scenes of Daisy secretly listening to a radio and hints at mysterious goings-on at the educational faculty. A possible love interest for Hannah is introduced, as is the possibility of romantic temptation leading her astray.

The show is described as a “defiant coming of age story,” and a feeling of destruction, disharmony and chaos loom over the trailer. “It was time to change things,” Hannah narrates, as she, Daisy and Shunammite hold hands, walking confidently together down the school’s hallway — into a future that might be promising or quite dangerous.

As indicated above, “The Testaments” serves as a sequel to “The Handmaid’s Tale,” and will presumably be very much like it. Several of the show’s characters have direct connections back to the original program or, in the case of Aunt Lydia and Hannah, appeared in it. 

In “The Handmaid’s Tale,” fertility rates have plummeted due to civil war and extreme environmental damage. Gilead — once the United States — is run by selfish Commanders who only seek power and to subjugate women. In their severely reduced roles in society, fertile women who have been branded social outlaws are conscribed to sexual and natal slavery; June becomes a handmaid for Commander Fred Waterford (Joseph Fiennes) and his wife, Serena Joy (Yvonne Strahovski), but rebels against the arrangement by having an affair with Fred’s driver, Nick Blaine (Max Minghella). She ultimately puts a revolution in motion that changes everything around her and leaves her proudly unshackled and silent no more, though separated from her two children. 

Both shows are based on books by Margaret Atwood, though the adaptation of “The Testaments” is different from Atwood’s novel in one crucial way — the book is an oral history, told in the form of testimony given by Daisy, Agnes and Aunt Lydia regarding life in Gilead and its eventual fall. Television is a different medium, naturally, but the series will almost certainly still draw much from the book.