A LOOK AT SEASON 2
The Handmaid’s Tale chilling
In January, Yvonne Strahovski joined thousands on the streets of Toronto for the Women’s March.
At the time, she was in the city filming The Handmaid’s Tale, the chilling and critically acclaimed series based on Margaret Atwood’s 1985 dystopian novel. Prior to reading the screenplay for the series, Strahovski was not familiar with the book. But she was given a glimpse of its power that day.
“The eerie timing of everything is just incredible,” says Strahovski in an interview at the Banff World Media Festival.
“When I did go to the Women’s March in Toronto, there were women there holding up signs referencing The Handmaid’s Tale. It just speaks to how powerful this novel has been for all these years. Even before our show came out and made such a splash in 2017, these women were holding up signs referencing the book.”
The series did make a big splash in 2017 when it began streaming on Hulu, helping push Atwood’s novel back onto the bestsellers list and inspiring a number of Handmaiden-style protests in the U.S.
Earlier this week, women donned the red robes and white bonnets from the series and descended on the Ohio Statehouse in silent protest of a bill that would limit abortion rights. Similarly themed demonstrations have been held in Texas and Missouri.
Atwood’s dystopian nightmare is set against a world where a Christian fundamentalist regime captures fertile women and forces them to bear children for highranking government officials.
It has never been out of print in the 32 years since it has been published.
But, in the U.S., the miniseries seemed perfectly timed to align with fears about the encroaching influence of religious and other right-wing groups, particularly when it comes to reproductive rights.
“We’re in a battle for the ongoing funding of Planned Parenthood, we’re probably in a battle over Roe vs. Wade,” says executive produc- er Warren Littlefield. “The issue of human rights and women’s rights is right in front of us each and every day. I think that’s why her book is back on the bestseller list. After the spots in the Super Bowl, a day later the book was No. 1 on Amazon. That doesn’t happen unless you are relevant to the world we live in today. And it’s incredibly relevant.”
Littlefield and Strahovski were in Banff for a master class about the series, which was awarded Program of the Year at the festival.
It stars Mad Men’s Elisabeth Moss as Offed, a handmaid assigned to the home of ruling elite Fred Waterford (Joseph Fiennes).
Strahovski plays Waterford’s barren, devoutly religious and cold-hearted wife, Serena Joy.
At the shocking, violent and somewhat ambiguous end of Season 1, Serena seems to descend into outright villainy.
With Atwood’s book offering a finite storyline to follow, the series will have to expand on the world for its second season, which is scheduled for 2018.
“I was very eager to hear where they might be going,” Strahovski says with a laugh. “I spent two hours in the writers’ room just having a chat with everybody. I probably can’t reveal anything.”
“The book informs a lot of Season 1,” adds Littlefield.
“But, quite honestly, there’s still an awful lot to explore. Margaret writes about the colonies. She informs the reader of that world but the narrative never goes there. So we have the opportunity to continue to expand the world. I think we’ve only scratched the surface of what Margaret has presented. Margaret writes a sentence and we find an episode in her sentence. So there’s a lot still to do.” ‘There’s still an awful lot to explore,’ Yvonne Strahovski says of chilling series’ second season