When we last saw Offred (Elisabeth Moss), real name June, in “The Handmaid’s Tale,” she was being carted away to who knows where in a foreboding black van. In the trailer for Season 2 of Hulu’s dystopian drama, we get a glimpse of Offred in the van, contemplating her fate.
“Is this what freedom looks like?” she wonders in voice-over. “What will happen when I get out? There probably is no ‘out,’” she decides, “Gilead is within you.”
That definitely seems to be the case. Gilead — the misogynist, fundamentalist Christian, totalitarian society that once was the U.S. — has a way of ruining everyone’s lives, even those of the people who helped orchestrate its regime. Fred and Serena Joy (Joseph Fiennes and Yvonne Strahovski), the couple Offred served in Season 1, are worried they’ll be punished for Offred’s participation in the Resistance.
Meanwhile, Ofglen (Alexis Bledel) arrives at what appears to be a labor camp for handmaids who fought back. She encounters Janine (Madeline Brewer), who lays out the rules, “We come here. We work. We die.”
Based on Margaret Atwood’s feminist novel of the same name, “The Handmaid’s Tale” presents what a world where women’s bodily, legal, and social autonomy have been stripped away — one not too far removed from our own. Samira Wiley, Ann Dowd, Max Minghella, and O-T Fagbenle also star in the Emmy-winning series. Marisa Tomei, Cherry Jones, and Clea DuVall are set to appear in Season 2.
The first two episodes of “The Handmaid’s Tale’s” second season will be available on Hulu on April 25. Subsequent episodes will debut weekly.
