Hulu is not done with Gilead. The streamer just locked in a second season of The Testaments a week before Season 1 even lands its finale. Given how this world has performed for them before, that move tracks.
How we got here
Margaret Atwood wrote The Handmaid's Tale back in 1985, and Hulu turned it into a juggernaut in 2017. Six seasons later, the series wrapped in 2025 with multiple Emmys and a fanbase that stuck around even as the show stretched itself thin. The success nudged Atwood back to this universe with The Testaments in 2019, which promptly won the Booker Prize. Hulu did not wait around: the new series, focused on a younger generation living under (and around) Gilead, premiered in April 2026.
Season 2 is a go (and why)
Hulu confirmed the renewal ahead of the Season 1 finale on May 27. The show has banked over 45 million hours viewed worldwide across Hulu and Disney+, and the audience has grown each week. That kind of momentum usually equals more episodes, and here we are.
What Season 1 is actually about
The Testaments tracks two young women coming at Gilead from opposite angles. Agnes (Chase Infiniti) is a devout teen being steered into the regime's social ladder from the inside. Daisy (Lucy Halliday) shows up from outside Gilead's borders and forces collide. Ann Dowd anchors everything as Aunt Lydia, and yes, Elisabeth Moss drops by in a surprise guest spot as June Osborn.
- Launch: April 2026 on Hulu
- Season 1: 10 episodes; finale streams May 27, 2026
- Renewal: Announced one week before the finale
- Performance: 45+ million hours viewed across Hulu and Disney+ globally; steady week-to-week growth
- Main perspectives: Agnes (Chase Infiniti) inside Gilead; Daisy (Lucy Halliday) arriving from outside
- Key players: Ann Dowd as Aunt Lydia; surprise guest appearance by Elisabeth Moss as June Osborn
- Background: The Handmaid's Tale TV series ran 2017–2025, won multiple Emmys
- Source material: Atwood's The Testaments (2019), a Booker Prize winner, written with the TV producers in mind
The good news, the risk, and the déjà vu
Here is the slightly nerdy part of this story: The Handmaid's Tale TV show burned through Atwood's original novel by the end of its first season. After that, showrunner Bruce Miller and the writers had to invent new arcs. Atwood stayed involved and publicly backed the direction, but critics grew split over time. Some argued the later seasons chipped away at the first season's careful worldbuilding and leaned too hard on suffering for shock value.
The Testaments could hit a similar wall. Yes, Atwood coordinated the 2019 novel with the TV producers, so it was built to adapt. But it is still a self-contained book with a clear ending, and Season 1 has already chewed through a big chunk of it. Unlike The Handmaid's Tale, which at least cleared one full novel before going off-book, The Testaments might run out of pages early in Season 2. At that point, Miller and company would be crafting new storylines again. The showrunner has said there is enough material for multiple seasons; the renewal puts that confidence to the test.
Season 1 of The Testaments wraps May 27 on Hulu. The audience is there. The question now is whether the show can keep building without slipping into the same late-stage stumbles that haunted its predecessor.