Hulu’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” debuted in 2017 during the first Trump administration. Current events inspired author Margaret Atwood to pen the 2019 sequel novel, “The Testaments,” and now the Hulu adaptation of that continuation of the “Handmaid’s” story debuts during the second Trump administration.
“I don’t try to time things,” said “Testaments” executive producer Bruce Miller, who was also showrunner on “Handmaid’s.” “I rely on Margaret Atwood. She really has seemed to put her fingers on the friction points between genders that don’t go away. So it always feels like the perfect time for Margaret Atwood’s work to be out there, but for me, I really would prefer to be irrelevant. If everybody said, ‘Wow, that’s a beautiful show, that would never happen,’ that would be perfectly fine with me. And I know it would be fine with the young women in the cast — not having to deal with the mess the patriarchy has made in the world.”
While “Handmaid’s” focused on an outsider, June (Elisabeth Moss), “The Testaments” focuses on consummate insiders, the daughters of the highest-ranking leaders in Gilead, a totalitarian, patriarchal theonomy that replaced the United States government.
Streaming its first three episodes on April 8, “The Testaments” starts with a focus on Agnes (Chase Infiniti, “One Battle After Another”), June’s long-missing daughter who was adopted by a Gilead commander.
The most prominent through-line from “Handmaid’s” to “The Testaments” is Aunt Lydia (Ann Dowd), who now runs a Gilead school for girls that Agnes attends. Aunt Lydia asks Agnes to help new student Daisy (Lucy Halliday) get acquainted with her surroundings, and from there the story takes off.
“Handmaid’s Tale” could be a brutal series, and while that’s sure to come in “The Testaments,” given the Gilead of it all, at the outset “Testaments” proves lighter and more willing to engage with comedic moments and glimpses of joy that are part and parcel of most coming of age stories.
Miller acknowledged he wanted “Testaments” to feel different than “Handmaid’s Tale,” a difference he found in the show’s point of view of the young insiders.
“June is at the bottom of society,” Miller said in a virtual interview Tuesday. “These girls that are at the top of society are being groomed for all the best Gilead has to offer. It does, in the end, show you that misogyny for the bottom or the top sucks. … The story is not about people on the bottom fighting to come up. It’s about people on the top not knowing that the world underneath them is being Jengaed out. The whole point of the show is they’re regular young women. They’re being pushed and constrained and changed, but they have very close friendships, they’re funny, they’re in their own head, disruptive of society in their own way. The humor in this and the hope tells the story.”
For Aunt Lydia, last seen at the end of “Handmaid’s Tale” on her hands and knees begging for forgiveness, four or five years have passed.
“June lists one thing after another (Lydia did), that she was part of the rape of girls, and Lydia has to live with that,” Dowd said Tuesday. “To her credit, (Lydia) made the decision to sit with that shame and humiliation and allow it to just go through her. And the walls that surrounded her were crumbling, and she was left with, ‘Who am I? What am I going to do? What interests me now?’ And she decides on creating this academy for the young daughters of high commanders and Pearl Girls. She puts her focus there, and she has left behind, I believe, the shame and the humiliation and she has moved forward into someone different, who, I believe, is a gentler soul, and, one might say, kinder. She’s still Lydia, however. Let’s not forget that.”
Coming soon
“Dr. Pimple Popper: Breaking Out” returns for its second Lifetime season at 9 p.m. April 20.
The series finale of now-canceled “Watson” will air May 3 on CBS.
Netflix will stream the “51st AFI Life Achievement Award: A Tribute to Eddie Murphy” on May 31.
Renewed
ABC renewed “Grey’s Anatomy” for a 23rd season.
Netflix renewed “Age of Attraction” for a second season.
BritBox announced a second season of “Lynley” is in production.
Channel surfing
Last week, Netflix hiked the price on its ad-supported tier by $1 per month to $9 per month with the standard plan price increasing $2 per month to $20 per month and the premium plan rising $2 per month to $27 per month; the “extra member” fee also goes up $1 to $7 per month for ad-supported plans and $10 for ad-free plans. … Sony Pictures Television is shopping a limited series about the investigation into Jeffrey Epstein, with Laura Dern attached to play an investigative reporter. The series would be based on Miami Herald journalist Julie K. Brown’s book “Perversion of Justice: The Jeffrey Epstein Story.” … Savannah Guthrie is set to return to anchor NBC’s “Today” next week, her first time back on the job since her mother went missing this year.