The Handmaid's Tale, Hulu's adaptation of Margaret Atwood's 1985 novel, comes to an end this year with its sixth and final season. The show pushed past the end of the book quite a while ago, so how it'll end this story about a dystopian society where women live as child-bearing slaves is anybody's guess.
Some would argue that The Handmaid's Tale has outstayed its welcome, but the fanbase has kept tuning in. In fact, Hulu is developing a successor show to keep them happy: The Testaments, based on Atwood's 2019 sequel book.
The Testaments is set around 15 years after the end of The Handmaid's Tale, and revolves around three women who have ties to June, the main character from the original show played by Elizabeth Moss. One of those women is June's daughter Agnes, who will be played by Chase Infiniti. Another is Aunt Lydia, who indoctrinates new handmaids at the behest of the fundamental government of Gilead. Ann Dowd played her in the original show and would return for the sequel.
The backstory for Aunt Lydia as described in The Testaments is pretty different than the one Hulu developed for her in The Handmaid's Tale, so it's not clear how the streamer will deal with that. It's not even clear if The Testaments will even get a series order, although Deadline reports that it's getting close. It might depend on how the final season of The Handmaid's Tale does. The sixth season kicks off on April 8:
You might ask why the original Handmaid's Tale show didn't just incorporate the events of the sequel series. Well, The Handmaid's Tale premiered in 2017 while The Testaments came out in 2019, so maybe they were already on a path by that point and just followed it to its natural conclusion.
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h/t The A.V. Club