Warning: The following article contains spoilers for The Handmaid's Tale's first season and details of its second.
The Handmaid's Tale definitely sounds like it's going to get even darker in the upcoming second season.
Fresh off its history-making Primetime Emmy Award win for Outstanding Drama Series earlier in the autumn, US streaming service Hulu has announced that new Handmaid's Tale episodes will arrive stateside in April. There's no word yet when Channel 4 will premiere the new season.
Hulu has also offered an intriguing preview for fans worldwide with an official season two synopsis — which points to even more traumatic times ahead as the now-pregnant Offred (Elisabeth Moss) fights the power.
A synopsis read: "The Emmy-winning drama series returns with a second season shaped by Offred's pregnancy and her ongoing fight to free her future child from the dystopian horrors of Gilead.
"'Gilead is within you' is a favorite saying of Aunt Lydia. In season two, Offred and all our characters will fight against – or succumb to – this dark truth."
That menacing description sounds right in line with Elisabeth Moss recently describing the second season opener as the most shocking episode in The Handmaid's Tale thus far.
"Don't try to guess what happens in that first scene of episode one in season two," Moss recently warned fans. "You will never get it, and I mean that objectively as a viewer. You just won't guess, and I love that so much."
The Hulu dystopian drama will definitely be bringing back Emmy winner Alexis Bledel's rebel agent Ofglen as well for its 13 new episodes, despite the character facing an uncertain fate last season.
There will also be some important new faces in Gilead, including Veep's Clea DuVall as Ofglen's former wife, who was mentioned but not seen in the first season. We'll see the couple in flashbacks in upcoming episodes.
The writing team also plan to introduce several more Marthas following the climactic scene at the end of The Handmaid's Tale's first season.
