The Testaments: everything we know about the sequel series to The Handmaid's Tale on Hulu

The Testaments is the next Margaret Atwood book to be adapted for the small screen. It's the sequel to one of the best Hulu shows The Handmaid's Tale, so will be a continuation of the story like the book it's based on.

Back in 2017, when a dystopian TV show that imagined what life would be like if American women had all their rights taken from them and were forced to live under a cruel dictatorship regime. Are we sliding closer to that being a reality, almost a decade later? It’s debatable.

What’s not up for discussion is that The Handmaid’s Tale – based on Margaret Atwood’s 1985 book of the same name – became one of Hulu’s biggest ever hits, winning the first ever Emmy for the streamer, regularly pulling in millions of viewers in the UK on Amazon Prime Video and Channel 4, and making an even bigger star out of Mad Men’s Elisabeth Moss.

But six series later, the story finally drew to a close at the end of May 2025, when the final loose ends of the story around June (Moss), her family and friends were tied up. The ending might have been surprising for some fans – it was left slightly ambiguous, as was the ending in the original novel – but it had to make way for the sequel of the book, 2019’s The Testaments, which is now being turned into a TV show by Handmaid’s Tale showrunner Bruce Miller.

As the show only went into production in early 2025, we wouldn’t expect The Testaments to be on screen until 2026 at the very earliest, but in the meantime, here’s everything we know about the follow up series, including the potential cast, the plotline, the potential release date and if a trailer has been released yet.

The Testaments: release date prediction

The bad news is there's likely to be a bit of a wait until we know when The Testaments will be released. The show only went into production in April 2025, and filming is expected to continue in Toronto, Canada until August 2025.

The cast did, however, post a picture of one of their table readings on the official Instagram account for The Testaments, confirming that production started on April 7, 2025 – but there have been no further updates since.

The Testaments: is there a trailer yet?

No, not yet – as soon as even a teaser is released, we’ll post it here.

The Testaments: who is in the cast?

There are three main characters in the series – as in the book – and the story will each be told through these three main voices.

The first is Aunt Lydia, who finally has had a change of heart about carrying out mass abuse on women under Gilead’s orders. Ann Dowd, the actor who played the cruel and sadistic Lydia in Handmaid’s Tale, will return to play the hateful character who has finally seen the light.

The two other main protagonists for The Testaments are Agnes, who is going to be played by Chase Infiniti (last seen in Presumed Innocent) and Daisy, played by Lucy Halliday (Blue Jean). Without giving too much away, we may already know who these girls are – they’ve just had their names changed.

Other actors confirmed for roles in the series include Rowan Blanchard, who plays Shunammite, a pampered teen from a well-known Gilead family, whose “status affords her a certain level of respect and power amongst her peers”. Mattea Conforti will star as Becka, a girl who goes to school with Gilead’s elite. Also on the cast are Mabel Li, Amy Seimetz, Brad Alexander, Zarrin Darnell-Martin, Eva Foote, Isolde Ardies, Shechinah Mpumlwana, Birva Pandya, and Kira Guloien.

When Bruce Miller was writing The Handmaid’s Tale, he said he had a hotline to Atwood, who was writing The Testaments at the time, and who had a couple of requests of who could live and die in the show, to make the book work. She gave him a “no kill list” that included Lydia, and June’s daughters, Hannah and Holly.

He told The Hollywood Reporter: “She let me know as the creator of the world that things might be shifting a little under my feet. The show went past the book, The Handmaid’s Tale. So I was trying to come up with an ending that fit well and certainly I was playing with a lot of the things that she talked about doing in The Testaments.”

Elisabeth Moss will be executive producer on The Testaments, but it’s highly unlikely she’ll appear in the show, unless it’s in flashbacks. She may well possibly direct a couple of episodes, as she did in Handmaid's Tale.

The Testaments: plot

The action picks up about 15 years after the end of The Handmaid’s Tale, and the bad news is Gilead haven’t been defeated, and are back in power again. However, there’s a new generation willing to resist and fight the murderous and abusive regime.

Aunt Lydia talks about how she finally turned her back on the evil overlords, and reveals how she feels shame for her part in Gilead. But she’s now become a key player in the resistance against it, which is still fighting to put an end to the horrors of their rulers.

The other two young women we meet are Agnes and Daisy. Agnes lives in the tortuous confines of Gilead, while Agnes lives safely over the border in Canada with her “parents”. The story will bring together these three women, and as their “fates become intertwined as they uncover the secrets of Gilead and the resistance against its regime.”

The official synopsis adds of Agnes and her friends: "For these young women, growing up in Gilead is all they have ever known, having no tangible memories of the outside world prior to their indoctrination into this life… 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."

For more Hulu TV coverage. read our guides on Daredevil: Born Again, X-Men 97 season 2, and Andor season 2.