Like its predecessor, "The Testaments" is based on the novel of the same name by Margaret Atwood. The series arrives on Hulu on Wednesday, set 15 years after the events of "The Handmaid's Tale," and follows privileged girls in Gilead who are on the cusp of adulthood.
Viewers are reintroduced to Aunt Lydia (Ann Dowd) from the original, who now runs a school where girls are trained to be "proper" young ladies ready for marriage and, most importantly, babies. There's even a class testing how the girls pour tea.
Lydia has become somewhat softer compared to before.
"At the end of 'The Handmaid's Tale,' she is in deep remorse and praying for forgiveness as her life, as she knew it, is falling apart," Dowd says of her character. "She entered this world as a gentler human being. She's still Lydia, but I think she's had time to let the wall she built around herself crumble."
We meet Agnes, played by Chase Infiniti ("One Battle After Another"), and her friends Shunammite and Becka, portrayed by Rowan Blanchard and Mattea Conforti. Lucy Halliday plays Daisy, a new student tasked with shadowing Agnes at school.
"I see them as two cats put in the same room, feeling each other out," Halliday says. "I think they're aware there's some inherent similarity between them, but they refuse to acknowledge it because they don't want to be like the other person."
Once Agnes and Becka start menstruating, "mating season" is immediately declared, and the girls must marry. Cracks then begin to appear in Gilead's status quo, as Becka has no interest in finding a husband. Agnes is initially enchanted by the romantic idea of marriage—until she is presented with potential husbands who are mostly older and hold powerful positions in Gilead's regime. She realizes marriage would be a move for her family to consolidate power and that love is not a condition.
Bruce Miller created both "The Handmaid's Tale" and "The Testaments" and says both series tell stories of women's oppression.
"In 'Handmaid's,' they take a child from a mother and then tell the mother, 'You will be obedient,'" Miller explains. In contrast, he adds, "The Testaments" "takes a group of teenage girls and tells them what they will be, while simultaneously taking away their adolescence."
The new focus on young women in Gilead, who know nothing but Gilead, "makes the series, I believe, easier to watch," Dowd says, adding: "That doesn't mean it lacks intensity. It does. But we're working with a completely different group of characters. We're focusing on young women and how they communicate with each other, and they simply can't help but resist and grow."
Because of "The Handmaid's Tale," women have been inspired to dress in red cloaks and white bonnets as a symbol of resistance to oppression, which could be seen at last month's "No Kings" rallies. The cast of "The Testaments" hopes this new chapter will also inspire people to take action.