Corrections are in order for those of us who thought that, just because Hulu’s adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale was set to end with its upcoming sixth season, they’d be able to bid goodbye to Gilead for good. Nope: Deadline reports today that plans for a sequel series, based on Atwood’s 2019 follow-up novel The Testaments, are moving forward, with Chase Infiniti and a returning Ann Dowd set to star.
It’ll be interesting to see how the Handmaid’s TV franchise—which pushed way past the stopping point of Atwood’s 1985 original some time ago—will reckon with some of the changes and details in Testaments (which, among other things, lays out a backstory for Dowd’s Aunt Lydia that’s pretty different from what the show ended up going with). The novel follows three women with close connections to the original novel’s June, although Deadline notes that question marks surrounding Elisabeth Moss’ availability to do guest star spots may make those links more tenuous in the final product.
Hulu actually picked up the TV rights to The Testaments back in 2019, and has been quietly developing the new show for some time. Now, though, it’s apparently getting the full-court press as the flagship show’s final season gets an April 8 premiere date. Infiniti, whose only previous TV credit was a co-starring role in Apple TV+ Jake Gyllenhaal vehicle Presumed Innocent, will play Agnes, the daughter of June who was taken away from her before the rise of Gilead. The novel takes place 15 years after the ending of Atwood’s original book.
