We may be done with the final season of The Handmaid's Tale, but that doesn't mean we get to leave Gilead, or some of the beloved characters, quite yet. Author Margaret Atwood did us all a solid in 2019 and released The Testaments, a sequel to her best-selling dystopian novel published 34 years after the fact. And not surprisingly, Hulu is already in the midst of turning that book into a new show.
So what exactly will that new show be about? And when will we get to watch it? Here's everything we know so far about The Testaments.
What would The Testaments be about?
The new show will be based on the Margaret Atwood novel of the same name. If you haven't seen how the final season of The Handmaid's Tale ends, this may give away some spoilers, so you've been warned. The Testaments takes place several years after the end of The Handmaid's Tale and focuses on three central characters: Agnes (who we know from the show is actually June and Luke's daughter, Hannah), Daisy, and the love-to-hate-her Aunt Lydia.
Agnes is living in Gilead with her adoptive parents, Commander Kyle and Tabitha. When her mother dies and her father quickly remarries, her new step-mom has her put into a wives school to get her quickly married off. As her marriage to a creepy commander is being arranged, she learns the truth about her real parentage and enrolls herself in the training program for aunts to escape the nuptials. There, she learns about her half-sister, Nicole, who was smuggled out of Gilead to Canada as a baby.
Daisy is a teenager living in Toronto with her adoptive parents, who are secretly working for Mayday. On her 16th birthday, her parents are killed and Daisy is taken into hiding where she discovers she's actually Nicole. She's then recruited to help with an operation in Gilead, taking her closer to her sister than ever.
From Lydia's perspective, we jump back in time a bit to learn about the creation of the aunts. But it seems the Lydia in The Testaments is a bit different than the one we know from The Handmaid's Tale. She hates Gilead and wants to help the resistance by supplying critical information to Mayday.
It's important to note that there are A LOT of differences between Atwood's first book and the TV adaptation because the book basically only covered season 1 of the show, so it's likely there will have to be some adjustments made to the plot of Hulu's sequel. For example, in the book version of The Testaments, Gilead is very set on getting Nicole back, whereas in the show, not only does it seem Gilead has forgotten about Nicole being taken to Canada, but June got an entire freakin' plane full of kids out of Gilead. Also, by the end of The Handmaid's Tale show, Nicole (or Holly, as she's actually named) still very much has two alive parents and is being taken care of by her grandma, so it will be interesting to see how her adoption storyline is weaved into the on-screen sequel. And let's not forget the fact that in the show, the Canadians eventually turned on Gilead refugees and had them all kicked out of Toronto and shipped to Alaska.
Who has been cast in The Testaments?
With Aunt Lydia playing one of the central characters, we can of course expect the marvelous Ann Dowd to reprise her role. Chase Infiniti has been cast as Agnes and Lucy Halliday as Daisy. In the book, there's a scene where June (or, rather, Offred, since she's never actually given a name in the books) is seen, but we don't have any confirmation as to whether Elizabeth Moss will be making an appearance.
When would The Testaments come out?
Filming for The Testaments began in April in Toronto (the same place The Handmaid's Tale was shot) and although there's no official premiere date yet, the show is expected to air sometime next year.
