It’s hard to watch. Let’s just start there. When The Handmaid's Tale on TV first dropped on Hulu back in 2017, the world felt like a slightly different place, yet the red cloaks and white wings immediately became a cultural shorthand for female autonomy—or the lack thereof. You’ve probably seen the memes. You’ve definitely seen the protest outfits. But if you strip away the iconography, what you’re left with is a brutal, meticulously crafted piece of prestige television that somehow managed to outgrow its source material while staying terrifyingly relevant.
Margaret Atwood wrote the book in 1985. She had a rule: nothing went into the book that hadn't already happened somewhere in history. The show, led by Bruce Miller, took that rule and ran with it into the modern era. It’s not just a "what if" scenario. It's a "when" scenario for many viewers.
The Gilead Problem: Moving Past the Book
The first season of The Handmaid's Tale on TV pretty much covered the entire plot of Atwood’s original novel. June (Elisabeth Moss) is a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead, a totalitarian regime that overthrew the United States government during a fertility crisis. She's "Offred"—of Fred—assigned to Commander Fred Waterford (Joseph Fiennes) and his wife Serena Joy (Yvonne Strahovski). By the end of season one, June is being led away in a van. We don't know if it's to her death or her freedom.
The book ends there. The show didn't.
That’s where things got tricky for the writers. How do you keep the tension alive when the primary roadmap is gone? They did it by expanding the world. We got to see the "Colonies," those radioactive wastelands where "Unwomen" are sent to work until they literally fall apart. We saw the intricate, backstabbing politics of the Commanders in Washington, D.C., where Handmaids had their mouths sewn shut with silver rings. It was a stylistic choice that divided fans. Some felt it was "misery porn." Others felt it was a necessary exploration of how power corrupts even the most "pious" leaders.
Honestly, the show shifted from being a story about survival to a story about revenge. June Osborne stopped being a victim and started being a soldier.
Why Elisabeth Moss is the Show's Secret Weapon
You can’t talk about this series without talking about the close-ups. Those long, lingering shots of Elisabeth Moss’s face. You know the ones. They’ve become a bit of a joke in the later seasons—how many times can we watch June stare into the camera with simmering rage? But there’s a reason the directors keep doing it.
Moss conveys a level of internal monologue that most actors need three pages of dialogue to hit. When she’s playing Offred, she’s performing three layers at once:
- The submissive Handmaid (the mask)
- The terrified mother (the reality)
- The radical insurgent (the future)
It’s a masterclass. When the show moves into its final stages, that performance is what anchors the increasingly complex (and sometimes slow) plotlines.
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The Geopolitics of a Fallen America
One thing The Handmaid's Tale on TV does better than the book is explaining the "Little America" in Toronto. It’s a fascinating look at what happens to a superpower when it collapses. We see the US government-in-exile, operating out of a small office building in Canada. They have no real power. They’re basically a charity case for the Canadian government.
This brings up the character of Mark Tuello (Sam Jaeger). He represents the lingering hope of the American experiment, trying to flip Gilead officials like Serena Joy. The dynamic between Serena and the American government is one of the most compelling parts of the middle seasons. Serena is the architect of the very system that eventually stripped her of her rights. Watching her navigate her "celebrity" status in Canada while being a war criminal in the eyes of the world is a wild ride.
It’s complicated. It’s messy. It’s exactly how international relations would actually look if a religious coup took over the East Coast.
The Aesthetic of Oppression
Reed Morano, who directed the first few episodes, set a visual tone that the show never truly abandoned. The color palette is strictly coded.
- Red: The Handmaids. Blood, fertility, life.
- Teal: The Wives. Cold, distant, "pure," but also trapped.
- Brown: The Aunts. Discipline, earth, the "motherhood" of the state.
- Black: The Commanders and Eyes. Authority, death, secrecy.
The cinematography uses "short depth of field" constantly. This means the background is often a blur, mimicking the restricted view the Handmaids have through their "wings" (the white bonnets). You feel as claustrophobic as they do. It’s immersive in a way that’s genuinely uncomfortable.
Real-World Echoes and E-E-A-T Concerns
Critics like Emily Nussbaum of The New Yorker have pointed out that the show occasionally leans too hard into its own grimness. There’s a risk when you’re making a show about trauma that you turn the trauma into a spectacle. However, the production team often consults with organizations like UN Women and various human rights experts to ensure the depictions of forced migration and political imprisonment reflect real-world patterns.
Gilead isn't some sci-fi fantasy. It's a collage of the 17th-century American Puritans, the 1979 Iranian Revolution, and various 20th-century dictatorships. This grounding in historical fact is why The Handmaid's Tale on TV feels so visceral. It's not magic; it's policy.
What Most People Get Wrong About June
A common complaint in later seasons (specifically season 4 and 5) is that June has "plot armor." She survives things that would get anyone else killed in five seconds.
But if you look at the show as a study of a cult, June’s survival makes sense. She is a symbol. To the resistance (Mayday), she’s a martyr. To the Gilead leadership, she’s a problem they can’t figure out how to solve without making her even more powerful. Killing her creates a ghost that’s harder to fight than the woman herself.
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Also, let’s be real: June is kind of a villain by the end. Not a Gilead-level villain, obviously. But she’s traumatized, violent, and incredibly selfish in her pursuit of her daughter, Hannah. The show doesn't shy away from the fact that surviving Gilead turns you into something unrecognizable. Her relationship with Luke (O-T Fagbenle) suffers because he’s still the man from the "Before Times," and she’s a creature forged in the fire of the "After."
What’s Next? The Testaments and the Final Act
As the show heads toward its sixth and final season, the bridge is being built toward The Testaments, Margaret Atwood’s sequel novel.
If you want to understand where the story is going, you have to look at Aunt Lydia (Ann Dowd). Her arc is perhaps the most significant in the entire series. She goes from being the chief torturer to someone who realizes the system she built is rotting from the inside. The show has slowly been planting the seeds for her "redemption"—or at least her pivot toward sabotage.
Actionable Takeaways for Fans and New Viewers
If you’re caught up or just starting, here is how to actually digest this show without losing your mind:
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- Watch in Batches, Not Binge: The emotional weight is too heavy for a weekend marathon. Give yourself space to breathe between episodes.
- Track the Music: The show uses anachronistic pop music (think Blondie or Radiohead) to remind us that these characters aren't from a medieval past; they are us. They remember the same songs we do.
- Contextualize the "Colonies": Research the historical use of forced labor in environmental disaster zones to see where the writers got their inspiration. It adds a layer of terrifying realism.
- Read the Epilogue: If you haven't read the book, at least read the epilogue. It takes place hundreds of years in the future at an academic conference. It provides a "big picture" perspective on Gilead that the TV show is only just starting to hint at.
The Handmaid's Tale on TV isn't just a drama; it's a warning shot. It's about how quickly "normal" can disappear. When June says, "I was asleep before. That's how we let it happen," she's talking to the audience as much as herself.
Don't expect a happy ending. Expect a complicated one. In the world of Gilead, and the world we live in, there are rarely clean breaks from the past. You just carry the scars and keep walking.