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The Handmaid’s Tale

RTE Player, until May 11, season 2 episodes 1&2 This is available for only a few more days, so do not miss it. We left Offred at the end of season 1, finally pregnant, being driven away in a black van, whether to death or liberty, we did not know. This was the point at which Margaret Atwood’s seminal, prescient novel ended, with the deliberately ambiguous line “into the darkness within; or else the light”.

Season 2 needs to pace this crucial reveal, and has help from Atwood as an active creative consultant. It also needs to live up, not just to the clutch of awards won by the show’s first outing, but also the way in which the red robes and white bonnets of the handmaids have become totemic, appearing at women’s and civil liberties marches around the world.

And it does, in a way that is even harsher, more dystopic than season 1.

The action moves outwards so that we find out more about what happens in the ‘colonies’, where ‘unwomen’ (those unable to bear children) are sent to clean up nuclear and biological waste.

And we learn more about Offred — June — in the years before Gilead, often through agonised flashbacks in which she questions parts of her life of which she is ashamed, as she goes on the run from Commander Waterford and his chilling wife Serena. As ever, Elizabeth Moss (June/ Offred) is superb.

Laochra Gael Aisling Thompson

TG4 Player, until June 4 Straight-talking, candid documentary about Cork camogie star Aisling Thompson left, captain of the 2015 All-Ireland winning team, who has been vocal about her mental health struggles in an effort to help others. Here, she discusses how her fearlessness, a huge asset on the pitch, turned to recklessness after an accident left her unable to play. “When sport was no longer an option... I started to crave that attention from a different light,” she says. “I turned into a completely different person, extremely angry... My mother was afraid of me, my own brother was afraid of me.” This is powerful stuff.