Praise be! The Handmaid's Tale sequel is dropping soon. Here's what to know before you watch.
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By the time The Handmaid’s Tale wrapped in 2025, the dystopian drama had won 15 Emmys and captivated millions of viewers across its six seasons. What made it an irresistible story were the eerie similarities to the struggles we face in our world today. After reading the books and watching the show, I couldn’t help but feel empowered as the characters rose above their dire circumstances.
But I also felt a little impatient—there was a whole lot of story left to tell. Well, the long-anticipated sequel, The Testaments, is finally coming to Hulu on April 8, 2026. Based on Margaret Atwood’s 2019 novel of the same name, The Testaments is set in the same world as The Handmaid’s Tale and even includes some familiar faces, though we’ll also meet entirely new characters, settings and conflicts.
When I heard about The Testaments series, I immediately had questions: How closely will the show align with the events of the book? Will it pick up where The Handmaid’s Tale left off? And will we ever see June and her daughter reunited?
I’m diving into all that and more (praise be!). Read on for everything we know about The Testaments so far.
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Where did The Handmaid’s Tale leave off?
The season finale of The Handmaid’s Tale saw the city of Boston being liberated from the grips of Gilead, thanks to some elaborate plotting between June Osborne (Elizabeth Moss) and Commander Lawrence (Bradley Whitford).
A number of characters got a happy ending, or at least relative freedom, including Janine (Madeline Brewer) and Emily (Alexis Bledel). Although Luke (O-T Fagbenle) and June decide to end their relationship, they vow to never stop searching for their daughter, Hannah, who is still in the tight grip of Gilead.
At the end of the finale, we see June returning to the home where she was first abused by the Waterfords in Season 1. There, with a tape recorder in hand and a confident, unbreakable spirit, she begins narrating her experience.
It’s a powerful moment and an important reminder of the power of hope—a theme I expect to stay strong in the new sequel.
What is The Testaments about, exactly?
The Testaments takes place in the same universe as The Handmaid’s Tale, under the oppressive regime running Gilead, the country formally known as the United States.
You can expect plenty of screen time for the character of Aunt Lydia, whom longtime viewers know and loathe. She had a change of heart at the end of The Handmaid’s Tale, and in the new show, her determination to remake Gilead from the inside becomes palpable.
The show will spotlight two additional protagonists, Agnes and Daisy, who grew up inside the regime and don’t know anything beyond its brutal way of life. Agnes is training to be a wife in Gilead but decides to become an aunt instead of marrying her arranged husband. Daisy, a few years younger than Agnes, grows up in Canada but enters Gilead as a means of smuggling information to the resistance.
The two young women don’t know each other, but they soon learn the truth about their respective identities and the common thread they share (spoilers for that below). This unravels long-held beliefs and challenges everything they thought they knew about themselves and the world they inhabit.
How closely will The Testaments stick to the book?
The Handmaid’s Tale television adaptation didn’t stay true to all the events in Atwood’s 1985 science fiction book. In fact, you could say that the show’s writers used the book’s main characters and world-building as a launch pad to develop new narratives.
Will The Testaments screenwriters do the same? It’s likely. Keep reading for a few things we already know about the series and how it’ll differ from the book.
Spoiler alert! Skip this part if you don’t want to know what’s ahead.
The main characters stay the same
The show’s main characters are the same as the novel’s: Aunt Lydia, Agnes and Daisy. As we see in the novel, Agnes is actually Hannah, June and Luke’s daughter, who was taken at the beginning of The Handmaid’s Tale. Daisy is actually Nicole, the daughter of June and Nick. When Agnes and Daisy realize they’re half-sisters, they join Aunt Lydia in the resistance.
The show starts at a different time
In the books, The Testaments takes place 15 years after The Handmaid’s Tale ends. But because the six-season show gave us so much more detail than the book about the lives of June and the other characters, the showrunners didn’t want to jump 15 years into the future. Instead, the Hulu TV series picks up about four to five years after The Handmaid’s Tale series ended.
But even this nearer future reflects some notable changes. As we can see in the trailer for The Testaments, the sequel has a different look and feel from its predecessor. The main characters wear different colors, they’re of a different generation and they live in a different setting (though still within Gilead).
It spans a shorter time period
The book covers a significant time range, with narrators reaching back into the past and far into the future.
The show will cover a shorter time period and will focus more on the present-day life of Aunt Lydia, as well as the lives of Agnes, Daisy and the other young women in Gilead.
One protagonist won’t be reunited with her family
June’s love interest and the father of her child, Nick (Max Minghella), died at the end of The Handmaid’s Tale TV series, something that didn’t happen in the book. This sets The Testaments series on a different track—in the novel, Nick and his daughter are actually reunited. Unless Nick somehow survived an exploding plane (in which case, I have questions), The Testaments series is sure to have a different ending.
It’s more of a TV sequel than a book adaptation
Like most television and movie adaptations of books, The Testaments show draws the main characters, their world and their situations from the book. Yet as we saw in The Handmaid’s Tale, it takes specific liberties to explore the characters’ lives beyond what’s detailed in the text (and beyond what a single novel alone could really explore).
Will June be in The Testaments?
All three of the main characters in The Testaments have some personal connection to June, ensuring that her presence will be felt throughout. But she’s not expected to play a major role in the show—officially.
Still, it’s possible that June could make an appearance in The Testaments. When asked in a recent interview on The View if she’d be returning to the show in front of the camera as June, Moss neither confirmed nor denied her on-screen involvement. But she did discuss her role as an executive producer on The Testaments, so we know her magic touch will influence the series in some way.
For those of us who loved June’s rebellious spirit, our fingers are crossed that we’ll see her again in the sequel—even if just for a cameo—especially since the character popped up in The Testaments book.
Who stars in the series?
Like the book, The Testaments television show follows three main characters:
- Ann Dowd returns to her role as Aunt Lydia. This time around, the brutal aunt who ran Gilead’s Red Center is leading the young women of Gilead as the headmistress of an elite school. While she spent several seasons as a cruel and punishing educator of handmaids, her pivotal shift in Season 8 of The Handmaid’s Tale was just a taste of how her character will undergo transformation in The Testaments.
- Chase Infiniti, star of the recent Oscar winner One Battle After Another, plays June and Luke’s daughter, Hannah, now named Agnes. In The Testaments, she’s a student at Aunt Lydia’s school.
- Lucy Halliday steps into the role of Daisy, the now-Canadian daughter of June and Nick (formerly named Nicole), who was conceived while June was the Waterford’s handmaid in Season 1 of The Handmaid’s Tale.
Other supporting characters in The Testaments include Shunammite, played by Rowan Blanchard, and Becka, played by Mattea Conforti, both of whom attend school with Agnes.
Where can you watch it?
You can stream The Testaments on Hulu, with the most affordable plan starting at $11.99 (with ads).
The Testaments
Here's how to watch 'The Testaments,' the sequel to the Emmy-winning 'The Handmaid's Tale.'
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Sources:
- The View on TikTok: “Elizabeth Moss dishes on executive producing ‘The Testaments'”
- Hulu on YouTube: “The Testaments Trailer”
- IMDb: “The Testaments”
