PaleyFest is underway at the Dolby Theatre and throngs of fans turned up for Sunday’s teaser of Season 2 of Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale. While everyone was intrigued to find out the status of Gilead, most attendees weren’t too thrilled that star Elisabeth Moss and Alexis Bledel were not in attendance due to work commitments.
The rest of the cast made up for their absence by sharing what their characters are up to and where the storyline is headed. Fans should expect two major themes to emerge — Gilead and motherhood.
Executive producer Warren Littlefield explained those themes very clearly.
“I think one of the thematics from this year that Bruce [Miller, show creator] really used is, ‘Gilead is within you.’ The other big theme is motherhood,” he said. “When we start the season, [Offred] has an unborn child. So in this extremely volatile chess game of Season 2, all her moves are about her unborn child and what life will be for that child.”
Other topics to be explored include how America became Gilead and what goes on at The Colonies — it isn’t too pretty.
“It was a very ambitious year for us, as well as, how does this all happen? I think more traditional network television would have been forcing Bruce to say, how do we get from America to Gilead in the first couple of hours? Bruce, of course, didn’t do that,” Littlefield explained. “You want to know, how did it happen? So part of the ambition of Year 2 is to show that, the moment where we went from America to Gilead. That’s very powerful and only brings us closer to these characters and understanding this world.”
There will be some terrific new characters played by familiar faces joining the cast in Season 2. Look for Cherry Jones to step in and play June’s mother, Bradley Whitford is a commander and Clea Duvall plays Ofglen’s wife, which will be a part of several flashback sequences. Marisa Tomei will guest star on the show, but her role is being kept under wraps at this time.
In the meantime, fans will have to wait until April 25 for the season premiere of The Handmaid’s Tale on Hulu.
About The Handmaid’s Tale Season 2
Adapted from the classic novel by Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale is the story of life in the dystopia of Gilead, a totalitarian society in what was formerly the United States. Facing environmental disasters and a plunging birth rate, Gilead is ruled by a twisted fundamentalism in its militarized ‘return to traditional values’. As one of the few remaining fertile women, Offred (Elisabeth Moss) is a Handmaid in the Commander’s household, one of the caste of women forced into sexual servitude as a last desperate attempt to repopulate the world. In this terrifying society, Offred must navigate between Commanders, their cruel Wives, domestic Marthas, and her fellow Handmaids – where anyone could be a spy for Gilead – all with one goal: to survive and find the daughter that was taken from her.
We are in hell. But we are still the fury.
Season 2 premieres April 25, only on Hulu.
Watch Season 1 of The Handmaid’s Tale Now: https://www.hulu.com/the-handmaids-tale
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