The Handmaid’s Tale was, without a doubt, one of the best shows to come out of 2017. And now that we have both a trailer and release date for season 2, we’re starting to get seriously excited.
The Emmy-award winning drama, which is based on the classic Margaret Atwood book of the same name, featuring Elisabeth Moss and Alexis Bledel, will return on April 25 with two new episodes. Further episodes will be released weekly on Wednesday, exclusively on Hulu.
As the first season went up to the end of Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel – Offred being taken away by men dressed as Eyes in a van, unsure if they are taking her to be punished or to join the resistance – there’s no way to know exactly what the second season will cover. But with a few hints from the trailer and the show creators, we can piece a rough of idea of what to expect in Season 2 of The Handmaid’s Tale.
Here’s everything we know so far.
Motherhood is a central theme of the upcoming season
“So much of this season is about motherhood,” Moss said. “We’ve talked a lot about the impending birth of the child that’s growing inside of her as a bit of a ticking time bomb, the complications of that are really wonderful to explore. It’s a wonderful thing to have a baby, but she’s having it potentially in this world that she may not want to bring it into. And if she does have the baby, the baby gets taken away from her and she can’t be its mother. It makes for good drama,” the actress added.
Season 2 will explore The Colonies
The second season will continue to build on the world of The Handmaid’s Tale by exploring more – discovering the mysterious area outside Gilead known as ‘The Colonies’. While the Colonies are mentioned in Margaret Atwood’s book, the region wasn’t really explored. “Margaret Atwood, of course, describes the Colonies, and it’s a pretty forbidding world,” executive producer Warren Littlefield said. “In episode two, we go to the Colonies, and it’s an expansion of our world.”
It’s going to be a lot darker
There were lots of dark and disturbing things that went down during the first season, but that’s nothing compared to what’s to come. “I would say arguably this season is darker than season one,” Moss said, worryingly. “We love using [voiceover] because it’s a way to get that tone into very dark moments that have that perspective. It’s become June’s voice.”
Season two has a much larger budget than season one
The producers wouldn’t put a number to it, but Littlefield did confirm that the second-season budget is bigger than the first. Considering the award-winning success of the show the extra budget makes total sense. “We did get a bigger budget, and much of it is for the expansion of our world in creating the Colonies, and by using the narrative timelines, we’re able to see how Gilead came about. To follow the historical events of the creation of this world, as well as or characters.”
Alexis Bledel will be back
Former Gilmore Girl Alexis Bledel gave an amazing performance in the first season of the show – her character Emily is being forced into a black van after she ran over a guard in a car, left assuming she was being taken away to be executed or sent to The Colonies, as her partner was hanged right in front of her – but the actress is back for the next season, and it’s now been confirmed that we WILL learn more about Emily’s life. “We’re able to, using flashbacks, go back into her past as well as bring her to the present,” the producers have explained.
Marissa Tomei will be a guest star
The Oscar-winner Marisa Tomei will appear in the second episode of the new season, the producers said. But no details have been revealed of what she is doing on the show, and nobody’s cracked it yet.
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