The Testaments is everything that made The Handmaid’s Tale great

📺 A little under a year after the sixth and final season of The Handmaid’sTale blessed our screens, we’re being taken on a trip back to Gilead — and this time, we’re being led by a new (albeit familiar) generation. Based on Margaret Atwood’s eponymous novel, The Testaments is a show both The Handmaid’s Tale die-hard fans and the newly initiated will appreciate.

The plot: Set a few years after the final season of its prequel show, The Testaments centers on June Osborne’s daughter Hannah — now called Agnes (Chase Infiniti) — as she grows up in the totalitarian, patriarchal theocracy that no one seems to be able to bring down. Gilead is still as dystopian as ever: women have no rights, freedom is a far-fetched dream, and the men in power are just as abusive. We watch as Agnes realizes life in Gilead is anything but normal, especially after Daisy (Lucy Halliday), a Canadian girl who “chose to find her faith” in Gilead, comes into the picture.

What we liked: While The Handmaid’s Tale portrayed the horrors of imprisonment, abuse, and what one becomes as they watch their freedom snatched away, The Testaments explores a different kind of horror altogether — the kind realized too late. Both Infiniti’s and Halliday’s characters prove compelling from the get-go, and we couldn’t take our eyes off our screens for the entirety of the three-episode premiere.

We were happy to see some familiar faces — and shocked to see others. Both Ann Dowd and Elisabeth Moss reprise their roles as Aunt Lydia and June Osborne, but this time, they’ve changed for good. June’s unexpected appearance threw us for a loop — it was the exact moment we realized production wasn’t sticking to the source material — and we loved that we were going to be kept on the edge of our seats for the entire season.

Our verdict: If you’re a fan of The Handmaid’s Tale, run — don’t walk — to your TV and get started. With four episodes now out, The Testaments has already proven itself one of the more remarkable series of the year and one we hope will carry the same impact as its predecessor. If you’re new to the franchise, the show does a pretty good job of giving you the background you need. Which is to say: You have no excuse not to watch it.

WHERE TO WATCH- The Testaments is streaming on Disney+. Watch the trailer on YouTube (watch, runtime: 2:18).