The trailer for the upcoming season of The Handmaid’s Tale shows the secret resistance group Mayday planning to assassinate extremist commanders, with Luke and June re-entering Gilead. The show diverges from Margaret Atwood’s original book, as it now unfolds original storylines. Major cast members return, except for Alexis Bledel, while Josh Charles joins as a series regular. Series creator Bruce Miller has stepped back as showrunner to focus on the prequel The Testaments, which begins filming. The sixth season will premiere on April 8, with the first three episodes available on SBS On Demand.
The trailer indicates that the covert resistance group Mayday is devising a strategy to eliminate extremist leaders, while Luke and June are set to return to Gilead – “two lunatics heading into Gilead on a wing and a prayer.”
Sadly, fans cannot turn to Margaret Atwood’s celebrated 1985 novel for hints about the conclusion. The book’s entire storyline provided the backbone for the series’ inaugural season, and since then, the show’s writers have been crafting original narratives.
Who is in it?
All principal cast members will reprise their roles, except for Alexis Bledel (who portrayed Emily). The actress announced her exit from the show in 2022, and in the season five opener, her on-screen partner informed June that the character had gone back to Gilead to fight.
However, Josh Charles (The Good Wife) has been introduced as a regular cast member – appearing in the new trailer telling Nick to hold the “terrorist rebels” accountable. Timothy Simons (Veep) and D’Arcy Carden (The Good Place) will join as guest stars, though their character details remain unspecified.
What have the showrunners said?
At the conclusion of the last season, series creator Bruce Miller revealed to Entertainment Weekly that the team was “finishing our show on our own creative terms” and had been “[thinking] about the elements that will unfold in season six for a while.” He mentioned that he had been analyzing the concluding seasons of significant series like Game of Thrones and The Sopranos to learn from their successes and failures.
“I’m approaching it in very straightforward ‘history of television’ terms,” he noted.
Elisabeth Moss in season 6 of The Handmaid’s Tale.Credit: Hulu
Since that time, he has resigned from the position of showrunner to concentrate on the forthcoming prequel The Testaments. Although he will continue as a writer and executive producer, former executive producers Eric Tuchman and Yahlin Chang will oversee the final season. Chang received an Emmy nomination in 2021 for her writing in the season four episode Home. In an interview with Vanity Fair during its airing, she expressed three key messages she hoped viewers would take away from the series: “it’s wrong to rape, wrong to separate children from their mothers, and that love endures.”
In a conversation with Elle in 2022, Moss – who will direct four episodes in the sixth season, including the finale – cautioned that we might not receive a tidy conclusion, particularly with a sequel in the works: “I don’t think we feel an obligation to resolve the entire story of Gilead.”
What is The Testaments?
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Adapted from Atwood’s 2019 novel of the same name, The Testaments is a sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale (set 15 years after the events of the first book) and is scheduled to begin filming this month.
This narrative shifts focus from Offred and is told through the perspectives of three women: Agnes, who grew up in Gilead; Daisy, a teenage girl from Canada; and Aunt Lydia, portrayed by Ann Dowd in The Handmaid’s Tale. Dowd is set to reprise her role, while Chase Infiniti (Presumed Innocent) and Lucy Halliday (Blue Jean) will appear as the other leading characters. Bruce Miller is set to return as showrunner.
When can we watch?
The first three episodes will be available on SBS On Demand on Tuesday, April 8, with the remaining episodes released weekly thereafter. Previous seasons can be streamed on Stan (which is owned by Nine, the publisher of this masthead).
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