They are saying that historical past doesn’t repeat itself, however it usually rhymes. Hulu’s first Margaret Atwood adaptation, the award-winning “The Handmaid’s Story,” grew to become a cultural phenomenon when it premiered in 2017, its exploration of utmost misogyny, authoritarianism, and the battle over ladies’s reproductive rights an uncomfortably well timed companion to the primary Donald Trump administration. The present’s iconic crimson cloaks and white bonnets grew to become mainstays at protests and demonstrations, and plenty of of its most recognizable sayings (“Underneath His Eye,” “Blessed be the fruit”) crossed over into mainstream political commentary.
Positive, a lot of the hype across the present had fizzled by the point it concluded in 2025: six seasons of escalating torture porn with a world pandemic within the center was lots for even probably the most invested viewer to abdomen. But it surely’s exhausting to overstate what a crucial piece of resistance leisure its earliest seasons have been.
Now, the streamer’s second Atwood collection, primarily based on the writer’s long-awaited “Handmaid’s” follow-up, “The Testaments,” arrives at a political and cultural second that bears some uncomfortably putting similarities to the one which greeted its predecessor. A 12 months right into a second Trump administration, the politics of each resistance and survival have modified drastically, so it’s solely pure that the world of Gilead and its evils would have equally advanced. However whereas “The Testaments” could strategy its subject material fairly in another way—its protagonists are teen women, there’s a conspicuous lack of seen Handmaids, and far much less grisly violence—its themes are not any much less complicated and its story no much less crucial.
Like “The Handmaid’s Story” earlier than it, “The Testaments” just isn’t what anybody would name a very strict adaptation of Atwood’s novel. However, whereas it could play a bit quick and free with a number of components of the e-book’s story, the spirit of the piece is strictly proper. Disturbingly related and brutal by turns, the collection is as incisive and insightful as its predecessor. Right here, the monstrousness of Gilead is dressed within the tender silks of privilege and the quiet consolation of ignorance, and resistance is grounded as a lot in solidarity and friendship as it’s rage. The result’s an unexpectedly highly effective coming-of-age story that provides a recent, important return to a universe many viewers possible thought had nothing new to say.
THE TESTAMENTS
Whereas Atwood’s novel picks up 15 years after the occasions of “The Handmaid’s Story,” solely about 4 years or so have handed on the earth of the TV present. Purges have taken place within the wake of the Battle of Massachusetts, and far of the historical past of what occurred has been formed, if not outright rewritten, by those that survived. Aunt Lydia (Ann Dowd), a key participant in a lot of “The Handmaid’s Story,” who has, because the present places it, “been worshipped, vilified, and is now worshipped once more,” now runs a faculty for the daughters of Gilead’s elite. These younger ladies, raised in luxurious and benefit, have little actual understanding of what life is admittedly like for the feminine servants in their very own households, not to mention the ladies outdoors their nation’s repressive borders.
Aunt Lydia’s faculty is a type of authoritarian ending academy, the place younger ladies are despatched to not higher themselves however to learn to perform the assorted wifely duties anticipated of them as the longer term spouses of Gilead’s most extremely ranked Commanders. Right here, studying isn’t as crucial as embroidery, ideas like intercourse training are mainly nonexistent, and obedience is paramount. The scholars’ uniforms are colour coordinated: Pinks are the youngest women, Plums are older teenagers, and Greens are those that’ve change into “eligible” and may marry that 12 months. (This transition happens if and provided that a Plum will get her interval, which is marked by a public confession and reward ceremony.)
The majority of the story revolves round Agnes MacKenzie (Chase Infiniti), the pious daughter of a strong Gilead chief. She’s by no means needed for something and has no expertise or consciousness of life earlier than or outdoors of Gilead. On some stage, it’s virtually disturbing how typical she appears, chasing round after her buddies on faculty area journeys, crushing on the good-looking younger man assigned to function her private safety, worrying over the match of a brand new skirt.
However issues start to vary when she’s requested to mentor Daisy (Lucy Halliday), a lately arrived Pearl Woman—Aunt Lydia’s time period for a foreigner who has come to Gilead looking for to transform and decide to its lifestyle—from Canada, who has a painful historical past and secrets and techniques of her personal. As the 2 develop nearer, Daisy’s forthrightness leads Agnes to start to query the world round her in ways in which threaten to vary her life and future eternally.
AMY SEIMETZ
One of the outstanding issues about “The Testaments” is that, for all its dystopian setting and authoritarian trappings, it’s truly a reasonably relatable and compelling teen drama. Sure, it takes place in a nightmarish hellscape the place a lot of the women at its heart don’t know sufficient in regards to the world round them to acknowledge every little thing that they’re lacking out on. (Like freedom and bodily autonomy.)
But, a lot of its plot beats are nonetheless deeply acquainted: The ladies get jealous of each other’s successes, have crushes they shouldn’t, and stress about assembly the expectations of others. In actual fact, they usually appear so regular that it’s genuinely stunning once they abruptly parrot the acquainted speaking factors of their authorities about issues like gender traitors and fallen ladies. However over the course of the season’s ten episodes, they discover rising methods (each delicate and never a lot) to lastly declare their very own energy.
Infiniti makes for a succesful lead, strolling a high quality line between Gilead golden woman and conventional teen, partaking in small acts of riot, resenting the adults in her life (significantly her unkind stepmother), and questioning the reality of the parentage she’s been saved from. (Like many in Gilead, she is technically the daughter of a Handmaid.) However it’s Halliday who steals the present, her Daisy a mass of contradictions and rage, who finds herself far more hooked up to the women at Aunt Lydia’s than she ever anticipated to be.
The present has a powerful ensemble really feel, and the friendships among the many women at its heart really feel lived-in and relatable, regardless of the horrific circumstances wherein they unfold. Mattea Conforti is a selected standout as Agnes’s Gilead BFF Becka, and Rowan Blanchard presents some surprisingly satisfying comedic moments as group gossip Shunammite.
“The Testaments” is many issues: A political cautionary story, a warning towards each complicity and complacency, a love letter to friendship, and a welcome reminder of the ability of teenage women to vary the world. If the teachings of “The Handmaid’s Story” revolved round a single girl’s skill to struggle for change, right here that work is remodeled into a gaggle effort—and a crucial reminder that even within the bleakest of instances, we’re stronger than we’re aside.
All ten episodes screened for evaluate. Premieres April 8 on Hulu.
