The Handmaid’s Story ended with the rebels victorious, however the conflict nonetheless not gained. Hulu is taking viewers again into Gilead with the upcoming adaptation of The Testaments, based mostly on the 2019 Margaret Atwood Handmaid’s Story sequel novel. The sequence is at present filming in Toronto, and star Ann Dowd and creator Bruce Miller have been forthcoming with choose plot particulars about The Testaments. However after the reasonably open-ended Handmaid’s Story sequence finale in Could, now we have questions that also want solutions.
The Testaments follows three protagonists: Aunt Lydia (Ann Dowd), Agnes/Hannah (Chase Infiniti), and Daisy (Lucy Halliday). The previous two characters are identified to Handmaid’s Story followers, however Daisy is an unknown for individuals who haven’t learn the ebook. Daisy within the ebook is a number of years youthful than Hannah, who’s a younger teen at first of the ebook earlier than a short while leap. Daisy is a younger Canadian teen whose life is modified without end when she learns her connection to the Republic of Gilead.
For Hannah and the ladies of her era, rising up in Gilead is all they’ve ever identified, having no tangible recollections of the surface world previous to their indoctrination into this life. Dealing with the prospect of being married off and dwelling a lifetime of servitude, they are going to be pressured to seek for allies, each new and outdated, to assist in their struggle for freedom and the life they deserve.
Miller has stated that Hannah goes to must deal with the June (Elisabeth Moss) inside her and can develop very rebellious. Daisy appears to have some riot in her as properly, and questioning Gilead and her function in it grew to become the norm for Lydia in The Handmaid’s Story‘s closing season. Right here, we break down our lingering questions on The Testaments now that The Handmaid’s Story‘s closing chapter has ended.
1. Will June and Luke be in it?
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And can they reunite with Hannah? The Testaments isn’t being marketed as a restricted sequence. Assuming there shall be a couple of season (and that’s doubtless, given the success of the unique sequence), a June, Hannah, and Luke (O-T Fagbenle) reunion seems like one thing that will be saved for later, perhaps even the top of the present. Handmaid’s ended with June and Luke cut up up however each dedicated to Mayday’s resistance efforts and rescuing Hannah in their very own methods. Will their continued struggle be the door to cameos from Moss and Fagbenle?
Moss advised TV Insider forward of Handmaid’s Story‘s closing season that figuring out The Testaments was coming made manufacturing on the ultimate season “liberating.” “We didn’t have to fret about ‘Was this the top, the top, the top,‘ you already know what I imply?” Moss stated. “We’re in a position to say, ‘Perhaps we’ll come again to that?’ That was actually liberating.”
She stated that she had no plans to look within the spinoff, however added with a sly smile, “I might completely mislead you if I used to be!” If June and Luke are coming again, there’s little question that that’s going to be a secret saved beneath tight lock and key.
2. How do Pearl Women persuade girls to maneuver to Gilead?
Handmaids are nonetheless a part of Gilead in The Testaments, Dowd advised us, however the sequence is specializing in a distinct class of girls: the Pearl Women. They’re a subclass of Aunts, mainly aunts in coaching who act as Gilead missionaries. Aunt Lydia is alleged to have created this system, and it’s what she dedicates her life to in The Testaments. These women being volunteers is of the utmost significance to Lydia.
Pearl Women recruit girls to maneuver to Gilead on their missionary journeys. How are they in a position to make Gilead appear like an interesting place to dwell? Does that imply Gilead has made itself appear like a extra developed place within the time since Mayday liberated Massachusetts?
3. How profitable has Mayday been since The Handmaid’s Story sequence finale?
Boston was freed by Mayday and the U.S. Air Pressure within the penultimate episode of Handmaid’s, and 19 days later within the sequence finale, all of Massachusetts had been freed. Chicago was free in Handmaid’s as properly. With The Testaments selecting up 4 to 5 years after that, as Dowd advised us, we have to know what number of extra states have been free of Gilead’s management in that point. How a lot has Gilead shrunk?
4. Will Aunt Lydia be a part of the resistance?
Lydia’s disaster of religion modified her without end, resulting in her full mistrust of all the “godless” males main Gilead. How has that progressed? The truth that she’s nonetheless in Gilead and dealing to enhance issues for the ladies there via the Pearl Women program implies that she nonetheless has a point of religion in Gilead as a nation. However can she be pushed extra into riot? Lydia goes to be very concerned in Hannah’s life in Gilead, as she’s additionally trying over the plums — daughters of Gilead in coaching to turn into wives. She’ll be concerned in Daisy’s life as properly. Will all three of them reject Gilead and begin preventing for Mayday from inside the regime?
5. What does Hannah keep in mind about June and Luke?
Disney / Steve Wilkie
The final time Hannah noticed her mom, she hardly remembered her. It’s a reality that also haunted June as of the sequence finale. She might not keep in mind particulars about her dad and mom, however she should recall being kidnapped by Gilead, proper? Or is {that a} deeply repressed reminiscence? We have to know the way a lot Hannah/Agnes remembers about June and Luke and if discovering them is a part of her motivations.
6. What’s Daisy’s connection to Gilead?
That is going to be one of many greatest questions of the sequence. Daisy being a brand new character shrouds her in thriller for individuals who don’t know the novel. If the opposite two most important characters of The Testaments are intently linked to June, is Daisy as properly? What about her sudden connections to Gilead are so stunning to the teenager, and the way does she reply to that revelation?
7. Will every other Handmaid’s Story characters seem?
Any Handmaid’s Story character who ended the sequence alive may conceivably seem within the sequence, because it’s solely been a number of years for the reason that occasions of the ultimate episode. June, Luke, and Moira (Samira Wiley) popped out and in of Gilead on secret missions with Mayday within the closing season. Will we see extra Mayday rebels seem because the conflict in opposition to Gilead rages on?
8. What’s Serena Pleasure’s fame in Gilead?
Yvonne Strahovski‘s character was as soon as considered one of Gilead’s most well-known and beloved faces. Now, she’s a traitor to the regime after giving Mayday the intel it wanted to kill her second husband, Commander Wharton (Josh Charles), and the remainder of the surviving Boston commanders (Max Minghella‘s Nick and Bradley Whitford‘s Lawrence included) and ended the present as a refugee in Canada together with her child. Is she a well-known enemy of Gilead now? Will she be used as a cautionary story for the ladies coaching to be wives in that world?
9. What’s Gilead’s standing on this planet?
Did Mayday’s success encourage different nations to struggle in opposition to Gilead, too? Or does the truth that girls are voluntarily transferring to Gilead imply that its propaganda has satisfied the world that it’s not as dangerous as American refugees say? Right here’s hoping it’s the latter.
The Testaments, Collection Premiere, TBA, Hulu