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NEED TO KNOW

The Handmaid’s Tale aired its series finale on May 27
A spinoff, The Testaments, is currently in production
Ann Dowd is returning to reprise her role as Aunt Lydia

Don’t say goodbye to Gilead just yet.

After six seasons, The Handmaid’s Tale aired its series finale on May 27. This chapter of June Osborne’s (Elisabeth Moss) story may have come to a close, but the dystopian world of Gilead will continue for a new generation of young girls in the upcoming sequel series, The Testaments.

“It’s about Mean Girls growing up Gilead,” The Handmaid’s Tale and The Testaments showrunner Bruce Miller told Entertainment Weekly.

“It really is about what it’s like to be young and full of energy when the country is trying to turn you into something awful,” he continued. “When all of a sudden they’ve been telling you, ‘you are wonderful, you’re perfect, and now do these terrible things.’ “

So, who are these new women growing up in Gilead? How will the story of The Handmaid’s Tale continue, and will Moss make an appearance in the new series?

Here’s what to know about the highly anticipated follow-up, The Testaments.

Warning: Spoilers ahead for the series finale of The Handmaid’s Tale!

 

What happened in The Handmaid’s Tale series finale?

Gilead was dealt a lethal blow in “Execution,” the penultimate episode of The Handmaid’s Tale, when June (Moss) and Serena (Yvonne Strahovski) schemed with Commander Joseph Lawrence (Bradley Whitford) to sneak a bomb onto a plane filled with Gilead commanders.

Once the bomb exploded and the commanders were killed, Gilead began to fall, with Boston being liberated and the rebellion spreading across other parts of the U.S.

In the final episode, June is reunited with old friends (like Alexis Bledel’s Emily Malek) and family, including her mother, Holly Maddox (Cherry Jones), and her younger daughter, Nichole.

Boston is free, but June’s fight isn’t over. She is headed to Colorado to find her older daughter, Hannah, who is still living under Gilead’s rule.

The finale ends with June returning to the burnt-down remains of the Waterford house, where she was originally kept as a Handmaid. Sitting in her former bedroom, June’s story comes full circle as she takes out a tape recorder and dictates what’s around her, with her voiceover being the same as her narration from the very first episode.

“My name is Offred,” she says with a smirk, looking into the camera as the credits roll.

 

What is The Testaments about?

June and Moira execute their dangerous plan. Serena makes a big commitment.

The Handmaid’s Tale.Disney/Steve Wilkie 

The Testaments is based on the 2019 book of the same name by Margaret Atwood. The novel is a sequel set 15 years after her 1985 original, The Handmaid’s Tale.

The upcoming spinoff series takes place “somewhere around three or four years after” the events of The Handmaid’s Tale show, Miller told Variety. The Testaments will follow June’s daughter, Hannah (or Agnes, as she has been renamed by Gilead), and a new generation of young women growing up in Gilead, “grappling with the bleak future that awaits them.”

“Facing the prospect of being married off and living a life of servitude, they will be forced to search for allies, both new and old, to help in their fight for freedom and the life they deserve,” reads the series description.

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Executive producer Warren Littlefield explained how even though The Testaments is set in the same world as The Handmaid’s Tale, it will look different from the original series.

“It’s pastoral, it’s beautiful, it’s a different architecture, different color palette and a young wonderful cast,” he teased. “But make no mistake, there’s still a Gilead there, so that will reveal itself as well.”

 

Who is in cast of The Testaments?

Ann Dowd; Chase Infiniti; Lucy Halliday

Ann Dowd, Chase Infiniti and Lucy Halliday.Michael Buckner/Variety via Getty; Marc Piasecki/WireImage; Jane Barlow/PA Images via Getty 

The Testaments cast is led by Ann Dowd, reprising her role of Aunt Lydia.

The rest of the series’ cast includes Chase Infiniti, Lucy Halliday, Rowan Blanchard, Mattea Conforti, Mabel Li, Amy Seimetz, Brad Alexander, Eva Foote, Zarrin Darnell-Martin, Isolde Ardies, Shechinah Mpumlwana, Birva Pandya and Kira Guloien.

Moss serves as an executive producer on the new series, so will her character pop up in the spinoff?

“I mean, ‘No,’ ” the Emmy-winning actress told TV Insider when asked if she would be reprising her role in The Testaments. “[But] I would totally lie to you if I was!”

There is reason to hold out hope that Moss might return, since June (Offred, as she is known in the book) does make an appearance in The Testaments novel.

“You’re just going to have to watch the show,” Moss teased to The Hollywood Reporter.

 

When will The Testaments premiere?

June confronts the consequences of killing Fred. A scared Serena makes an unexpected decision. Serena (Yvonne Strahovski), shown.

Yvonne Strahovski in The Handmaid’s Tale.Sophie Giraud/Hulu 

Production on The Testaments started in April 2025. A premiere date for the series has not been announced.

“It’s coming much sooner than I think the next season of Handmaid’s would have come, but we’re well into it, and it’s coming along just splendidly,” Miller told Variety. “I think it’ll be a lot of — in the way my show is a lot of fun, I think it’ll be a lot of fun.

 

Where can I watch The Testaments?

Elisabeth Moss

Elisabeth Moss in The Handmaid’s Tale.George Kraychyk/Hulu 

The Testaments will stream on Hulu, joining all six seasons of The Handmaid’s Tale.

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A new age in Gilead is upon Us.

The Testaments, a spinoff of Hulu’s six-season hit The Handmaid’s Tale, debuted a first look at the highly anticipated series on Saturday, December 6.

“A defiant coming of age story begins in April 2026 when The Testaments comes to @hulu and with #HuluOnDisneyPlus,” an Instagram caption reads.

A handful of images feature Chase Infiniti as protagonist Agnes (a.k.a. June’s daughter Hannah, whose name was changed by her adopted parents in Gilead) dressed in her all-purple dress at her “Wives School.”

What to Know About The Handmail Tale Spinoff The Testaments Returning Cast Members and More

Related: What to Know About ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ Spinoff — Including Possible Cameos

In other photos, Rowan Blanchard, Mattea Conforti, Isolde Ardies and Birva Pandya wore matching lilac garb. Ann Dowd’s Aunt Lydia also makes an appearance in the snapshots, dressed in her signature olive uniform.

The Handmaid’s Tale is based on Margaret Atwood’s dystopian 1985 novel of the same name, where lower-class women are forcibly assigned to each noble family to serve as surrogates in an attempt to address declining birth rates. Both the book and series is told through the lens of Offred/June Osborne (Elisabeth Moss), who was forced to give up daughter Hannah for indentured servitude.

Atwood, 86, published her The Testaments sequel in 2019, set during Hannah’s teenage years. After Hannah was sent to a finishing school, she crossed paths with a girl named Daisy, later revealed to be Baby Nichole. (Nichole, spoiler warning, is June’s daughter with Nick, who was played by Max Minghella on the original show.)

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Shechinah Mpumlwana, Rowan Blanchard, Birva Pandya, Mattea Conforti, Chase Infinity and Isolde Ardies. Courtesy of Disney

Before The Handmaid’s Tale premiered its sixth and final season earlier this year, Hulu greenlit a spinoff following Lydia and the next generation of Gileadian women.

“There will be cliffhangers for The Testaments, so it doesn’t conclude everything,” showrunner Yahlin Chang told TV Insider in March, referring to the series finale. “Any fans that are left wanting more are going to get more in The Testaments, which will be great for them. It does conclude in some very satisfying ways many of the story lines, but not every single one.”

The Testaments book is set 15 years after the events of the original story and is narrated by Lydia, while Agnes and Daisy pose as “Pearl Girls” — Gilead missionaries — to gather incriminating information about the dystopian government.

How Did The Handmaid's Tale Series Finale Set Up

“Although I could not continue with the story of Offred, I could continue with three other people concerned in these events and tell the story of the beginning of the end, because we know from The Handmaid’s Tale that Gilead vanishes,” Atwood said of focusing on a new generation of characters in the follow-up during a 2019 event. “It’s no longer present 200 years into the future, because they’re having a symposium on it. How did it collapse? How do these kinds of regimes disappear? I was interested in exploring that.”

Just as June is no longer the narrator in The Testaments, many of the original cast members will not appear in the new show.

“Probably not. I feel like I’ve had enough of Margaret Atwood‘s trauma for a while,” Samira Wiley, who played Moira, exclusively told Us Weekly in May when asked if she’d make a cameo. “I have never had the pleasure of playing a character for eight years and never had a character whose journey that I’ve been able to tell this story from the beginning all the way to the end. I’ll miss my cast mates very, very much. But I’ll also miss her [Moira]. I’ll miss the fictional character of Moira that I was able to create.”

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