The first look trailer for Season 2 of Hulu's Emmy Award-winning The Handmaid's Tale is here, and it's harrowing. Check it out below, then read on for more details on the upcoming season of the timely show. Plus, check out some of our recommended reads for Handmaid's Tale fans.
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This season's narrative begins where Atwood's iconic book leaves off, exploring what happens to pregnant Offred (Elisabeth Moss) after she leaves Gilead in a black van, unsure if she's on her way to salvation or a trap. Judging from the trailer, we'll see much more of The Colonies in Season 2 and follow Moira (Samira Wiley) in her new life after escaping to Ontario. In general, this second season will explore events and areas that are alluded to but not explicitly depicted in Atwood's book.
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The trailer features images that feel jarringly familiar given the current political climate in the U.S.: for instance, the shot of a room of all-male politicians is reminiscent of this picture of the all-male, all-white caucus which voted on women's health issues last year.
However, the trailer hints that the resistance to the oppressive regime continues grow. Even in dystopia, there's hope.
We'll have to wait until this season premieres on Hulu on April 25th to learn just how far the revolution will progress in Season 2. In the meantime, check out these other great stories of dystopias and the heroes who resist them.
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Parable of the Sower
This terrifyingly plausible novel makes the perfect companion read to The Handmaid's Tale. The first book in the two-book Earthseed series is set in the 2020s. Ecological disasters and rampant crime force teenager Lauren Olamina and her family to spend much of their time in the relative safety of their walled community in Los Angeles. But Lauren knows that they won't be safe their forever. When disaster comes to her home and forces Lauren to flee, she leads a group of refugees to safety and introduces them to the tenets of Earthseed, a religion she devised with the principle belief that God is Change.
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The Shore of Women
After nuclear devastation, society becomes increasingly matriarchal and divided along gender lines. Women rule the cities, and men are banished to the wilderness and allowed to enter the city only to breed. When a woman named Birana is wrongfully convicted of a crime and banished from the cities, she assumes she'll die in the unforgiving post-fallout wilderness. But when she meets a male hunter, she begins to question the stark gender divides of their society.
Flight from Nevèrÿon
The two novellas and one full-length novel in this title are set in Nevèrÿon, a sword and sorcery fantasy land from the mind of Grand Master Samuel R. Delany. The 1984 novel The Tale of Plagues and Carnivals, included in this volume, explores the AIDs crisis through a fantasy lens. Delany uses the cities of Nevèrÿon as a stand-in for New York in the 80s. Like The Handmaid's Tale, The Tale of Plagues and Carnivals uses genre fiction to explore taboo topics related to gender and sexuality.
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Featured still from "The Handmaid's Tale" via Hulu
