(Spoiler alert: Do not read ahead unless you’ve seen all of Season 1 of “The Handmaid’s Tale.”)
What do you do when your critically-acclaimed series runs out of source material after one season? Bruce Miller and Hulu faced that dilemma after the first hugely acclaimed season of “The Handmaid’s Tale.” Luckily, they had the greenlight from Margaret Atwood herself to keep going and build out the universe she created with the 1985 novel.
“Margaret is probably the biggest cheerleader we have,” executive producer Warren Littlefield told TheWrap ahead of the Emmy-winning drama’s Season 2 premiere Wednesday. “So Margaret is our greatest cheerleader to not worry about [continuing the adaptation]. And yet, I think each and every day in the writers’ room Bruce and our writers are always thinking about Margaret’s book. But, we go beyond.”
The freshman year of “The Handmaid’s Tale” was met with near-universal acclaim and lots of awards, but Hulu was ready to continue Offred’s (Elisabeth Moss) story even before those accolades rolled in. Heck, before it even dropped on the streaming service.
“We were getting a lot of love and a lot of positive feedback from Hulu as we were in Season 1 and the signals we were getting was, ‘Hey, we have to wait till our premiere in April, but this looks really good and we feel really great about it,'” Littlefield said. “So we were already thinking about Season 2 in the new year and last spring.”
From its debut, the show helped define the Trump-era zeitgeist, as viewers made frequent mention of the parallels between the misogynist, totalitarian nightmare of Gilead (a fictional future version of the United States) and the actions and beliefs expressed by the president and members of his political party. The Moss-led series quickly became a widely-deployed reference for feminist political activists, which only intensified after the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements began.
While those elements of the series are still relevant going into Season 2 (even if Littlefield will tell you he wishes they weren’t) a new topic creeped into the discussion: How do you expand on a beloved classic after you’ve reached the end? Especially when the author, who was a supervising producer on Season 1, has now moved to consultant status and left her story in your hands.
“We left Season 1 with a pregnant Offred/June,” Littlefield said. “And so it was only natural that we would go beyond where Margaret took us. You know, Margaret is an active consultant. She reads out lines and reads out the drafts and then gives her thoughts and feedback. But she’s been wildly enthusiastic and has no fear about going beyond the book. You know some of that probably comes from having had her work adapted in plays and operas and I think she also has a tremendous trust in Bruce.”
“So we marched forward, always with the novel guiding us, but very much this year moving past it,” he continued. “And so our thematics for this year were motherhood for Offred/June, her unborn child, and also her daughter Hannah. Also, Serena Joy (Yvonne Strahovski) considers Offred’s unborn child to be hers. So motherhood is a powerful theme, as well as ‘Gilead is within you.’ And even as our characters may escape Gilead, Gilead is within you. You cannot fully escape Gilead. And those became two strong themes that you don’t get to play without everything that came before. Thank you, Margaret. [laughs]”
Atwood was not available when reached by TheWrap for comment for this story.
New episodes of “The Handmaid’s Tale” drop Wednesdays on Hulu.
20 'Handmaid's Tale' Authoritarians, Ranked From Bad to Exceedingly Evil (Photos)
The dystopian, women-subjugating society of “The Handmaid’s Tale” is full of people who willingly sign on with its evil. Whether they're the leaders who created the place or just collaborators willing to go along, the show is full of people willing to watch others suffer every day — and even inflict that suffering. Here are 20 such folks, ranked by how hardcore they are in rolling with Gilead’s evil agenda. (Warning: Spoilers within!)
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20. Nick (Max Minghella) Nick's not a "bad guy," and he's trapped in Gilead like a lot of people, but he's still a cog in the machine. At most, he uses his position to help June where he can. He's mostly still standing by and letting everything happen to her, though, and as far as their relationship is concerned, she's the one taking all the risks. Nick's a guy who went in for authoritarianism and regrets it, but that doesn't erase the mistakes he's made.
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19. That One Aunt (Margaret Atwood) The author of "The Handmaid's Tale" only gets a quick cameo, but as an aunt at the Red Center, her character is undoubtedly embracing the awfulness of Gilead. And she gets to smack June while she's there.
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18. The Boat Driver (Marvin Kaye) When people were fleeing Gilead, this guy was willing to take them across the border in his boat. He was also willing to profit by the situation as much as possible, gouging Luke for whatever he could pay for his passage. He might not be a part of the government, but he's bad enough to take advantage of its rise.
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17. Jezebel's Martha (Elena Khan) Informing for the government is a good way to take care of yourself at the expense of everyone else. Nick's Martha friend is willing to sell out the people around her -- and people like her are essential to keeping the oppressive system working.
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16. Ambassador Castillo (Zabryna Guevara) The Mexican ambassador who meets with the Commander isn't responsible for the way Gilead treats women, but she's obviously willing to look the other way when it comes to its policies. Even when June tells her how bad things are, she's unwilling to do much -- and if Mexico is entering into trade with Gilead for handmaids, she's not only ignoring slavery, she's about to facilitate it.
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15. Commander Lawrence (Bradley Whitford)
The former economist who apparently invented the idea of the Colonies seems trapped in the leadership of Gilead, a position he's in mostly because it keeps him alive. He's the kind of person who actually tries to make lives better -- and risks his life to help people like Emily -- making him more a guy trapped in a bad situation than someone fully evil.
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14. Burke (Jim Cummings) The interrogator who questions June about Ofglen likes to start his discussions a certain way: with a cattle prod. A government lackey, a brutal interrogator and someone who persecutes women, Burke is an "investigator" whose clearly relishes his job and the power it gives him.
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13. Emma Monroe (Christy Bruce) Mere hours after separating her from her child, Commander Monroe and his wife Emma have the handmaid Janine (Madeline Brewer) ready for another "ceremony." It's a reinforcement that even among the "nice" commanders and their wives, handmaids are seen as little more than animals.
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12. Naomi Putnam (Ever Carradine) Mrs. Putnam is the "wife" whose handmaid, Janine, actually has a baby, a somewhat rare occurrence. Like with June, Putnam is nice to her handmaid right up until the baby is born. After that, Naomi can't wait to get rid of the other women and go back to treating her and the other handmaids like property.
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11. The Doctor (Kristian Brunn) The gynecologist June visits early in Season 1 propositions June, making it clear he's regularly taking advantage of handmaids for sex, under the pretense of helping them avoid punishment for failing to be impregnated by their commanders. That makes him a guy who manages to take the extremely awful world he lives in and make it even more gross.
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10. The Judge (Thomas Hauff) When June's friend Ofglen is discovered for being a lesbian with another woman, this guy sentences Ofglen's lover to death and Ofglen to mutilation. Not only is he perfectly comfortable with those sentences and not even giving the women a chance to defend themselves, but it's a look into the way Gilead systematizes women as lesser people.
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9. Commander Monroe (Matthew Olver) Monroe might be considered a "nice" commander, but he's still a leader of the regime and must have played a part in both its coming to power and in its continuing terrible ways. Plus, like his wife, he's instantly ready to treat Janine like someone who's less than human.
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8. Commander Pryce (Robert Curtis Brown) Pryce seemed like a paranoid commander, and other than Commander Waterford, he came off as the most devout. But he was still in the car with the others in Season 1, coming up with the best way to brand the idea of all the commanders taking on concubines and making it sound biblical. Ultimately, the commanders don’t even believe their own lies, and Pryce is obviously just trying to consolidate his own power.
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7. Mrs. O'Connor (Marisa Tomei)
The former wife that Emily meets in the Colonies turns out to be pretty awful. She has so fully bought into Gilead that, even after running afoul of the rules of the nation, she's still judging the other women, and helping make their lives rougher. Like all true believers, Mrs. O'Connor believes that she's not actually guilty, and never realizes how she's helped create an awful world for people who don't deserve it.
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6. Commander Guthrie (Christian Lloyd) Of the leaders of the movement, Guthrie seems to be the most truthful. He’s a jerk who doesn’t really care about the religion side, but it’s his idea to create the handmaids expressly for the purpose of breeding. Where the other leaders are hypocrites, they at least hide it well. Guthrie’s just in this for the gross, exploitative power.
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5. Commander Putnam (Stephen Kunken) Putnam has an extra layer of horrific to add to the usual awfulness of the commanders. He convinced his handmaid, Janine, that he was going to run away with her. His lie got him what he wanted from her -- a baby -- but it helped ruin Janine's life even more. Now she's off to the colonies, in no small part thanks to Putnam's lies.
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4. Commander Cushing (Greg Byrk)
After the bombing in the beginning of Season 2, Commander Cushing showed up to start investigating everyone in the surrounding area. June correctly identifies that Cushing is a serious problem -- not only is he a true believer, he's also a law-and-order hard ass. He's fully ready to hang anyone he doesn't like.
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3. Aunt Lydia (Ann Dowd) The scary thing about Aunt Lydia is she really is a true believer. She's fully committed to forcing handmaids into a life of rape and servitude because she thinks it's the good and right thing to do, and she seems to enjoy dishing out her many torturous punishments on the handmaids. She and people like her are essential to making subjugation work because she buys in, and has no problem hurting anyone who doesn't.
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2. Commander Waterford (Joseph Fiennes) The worst thing about the Commander is that he plays nice. He invites June to his room for games of Scrabble and, in private, treats her like a real person. But even his acts of kindness are actually clear methods of enforcing his power over people. It's almost worse that he sometimes treats her well, because every act of kindness comes with the tacit feeling of being in his debt, as well as under his whim.
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1. Serena Joy (Yvonne Strahovski) Talk about your all-time backfires. Serena Joy got everything she ever thought she wanted. Her book touted the great world she would help create, and yet she seemingly didn't realize that advocating to make women second-class citizens would include her too. That means she's marginalized by the people she helped elevate, and she's angry enough about it to use her own power to ruin the lives of the people below her. Even as the show tries to humanize her in Season 2, Serena has chalked up too many instances of being truly horrific.
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A lot of people support brutal patriarchy, even if they’re crushed by it too
The dystopian, women-subjugating society of “The Handmaid’s Tale” is full of people who willingly sign on with its evil. Whether they're the leaders who created the place or just collaborators willing to go along, the show is full of people willing to watch others suffer every day — and even inflict that suffering. Here are 20 such folks, ranked by how hardcore they are in rolling with Gilead’s evil agenda. (Warning: Spoilers within!)
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