I’ll be honest: These days it’s sometimes hard to distinguish the fiction The Handmaid’s Tale from our reality. Based on the famous novel of the same name by Margaret Atwood and starring Elisabeth Moss, The Handmaid’s Tale is about a dystopian society called Gilead (which used to be the United States) where the population has dropped and women are forced to be surrogate mothers. Bleak stuff. It’s dark, and as our our own news cycle has some flashes of darkness, it can feel eery to watch. But, the cool thing is that season 6 has some really powerful moments of the handmaids fighting back. And fans want to see more.
The Handmaid’s Tale was originally going to be five seasons long, but then the story grew so much, they decided to add another season. “You felt like it really opened up and you started to see a lot more from different characters, so it felt like there was still so much story left to tell, not just with June, but with all of these other people,” Elisabeth Moss told The Hollywood Reporter. “It just didn’t feel like five seasons was going to be enough, so I think that’s what resulted in the sixth season.”
So now that there’s a sixth season, will they go through that whole process again and add another? Is there another season of The Handmaid’s Tale?
Is season 6 the actual final season of The Handmaid’s Tale?
So, season 6 is actually the final season of The Handmaid’s Tale… sort of. The show is fully ending with a series finale on May 27. But, the story of Gilead is going to continue with a spinoff series. Don’t worry, they’re not going off the rails with a totally new story. No, The Testaments will have the same creative team as The Handmaid’s Tale, and it’s based on Margaret Atwood’s 2019 sequel novel. So in some ways, it kind of is simply a continuation of The Handmaid’s Tale.
The Testaments is set in Gilead 15 years after the end of The Handmaid’s Tale and at least one character from the original series will be in it: Aunt Lydia, who’s played by Anne Dowd. The other central characters are two young women named Daisy (Lucy Halliday) and Agnes (Chase Infiniti).
Here’s the official synopsis for The Testaments: “For these young women, growing up in Gilead is all they have ever known, having no tangible memories of the outside world prior to their indoctrination into this life… 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.”
At least this means fans will get to see how the story in Gilead continues, even after The Handmaid’s Tale is over.
