Hulu’s adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s classic dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale will get a fifth season, Disney announced yesterday during its Investor’s Day. The announcement comes ahead of the show’s return in 2021.
The series has earned considerable acclaim for the streaming service, which had planned to release season four earlier this year. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the show’s production at the start of 2020, and prompted Hulu to push it back to 2021. It hasn’t said when the show will return, nor was that apparent in the announcement around the fifth season’s order.
Set in a dystopian near-future where women have been stripped of their rights by an oppressive religious movement in the former United States, the series follows a Handmaid named June (Elizabeth Moss) as she works to fulminate a growing revolution against her oppressors. The series has since passed by the events of the novel, and in season four, we’ll see June acting as a rebel leader, judging by the trailer that Hulu released earlier this year.
The season five pickup order shows that the story will continue beyond that upcoming season, hinting at more work for June and her allies ahead of them. Presumably, it’ll debut in 2022, provided there aren’t any unexpected delays.
