The Handmaid's Tale Season 4 Release Date, Plot, and Trailer

The Handmaid’s Tale is finally making its return to Hulu for a fourth season. After almost two years of waiting, fans have been stuck looping their heads around June’s (Elisabeth Moss) smuggling of innocent children out of the dystopia that is Gilead. June’s act of rebellion serves as a direct hit to the rule of the patriarchy and its inherent totalitarian ways. This particular storyline has led the audience to want more––and they sure did get one after the renewal of the fourth season of Margaret Atwood’s classic novel adaptation.

Let freedom reign. The #HandmaidsTale returns for Season 4 on April 28, only on @Hulu. pic.twitter.com/ph6PKdvsOo

— The Handmaid's Tale (@HandmaidsOnHulu) February 25, 2021

What’s going to happen in season 4?

During a recent Hulu presentation at the Television Critics Association winter press tour, the executive producers in Bruce Miller, Elisabeth Moss, and Warren Littlefield grouped up and talk reporters that Season 4 will deliver what they’ve built up for the past three seasons. This makes for an epic fourth season then.

“In this season, we’re not waiting around and it’s time for s*** to happen, so we made s*** happen,” Miller said very blatantly, but full of excitement. “It makes me feel that there’s a lot of life left in this story.“

For the fourth season, Littlefield said that some of the scattered stories will be centered around the Chicago uprisings.

“We leave our central universe of the Boston area, and Nick (Max Minghella) is sent to Chicago. For Season 4, we have no home base. We burned it down. In Season 4, we’re nomadic and following June’s passion, drive and relentless pursuit for change. It’s ironic in the year of COVID, it’s also our most ambitious production year.“

Miller also shared that one of the sources of conflict in the story is Aunt Lydia’s (Anna Dowd) absolute obsession with finding June––even going as far as comparing it with Les Miserables‘ Lydia and Javert.

“Although they are enemies, they are inextricably linked and thinking about what the other person is doing all the time. They would both rather be rid of each other, but they are tangled up with each other.“

Will The Handmaid’s Tale have a fifth season?

Miller means that literally and figuratively because storylines from The Testaments, Atwood’s 2019 sequel novel, will also be folded into the narrative of future seasons, including Season 5, which has already been greenlit by Hulu.

Who is attached to The Handmaid’s Tale Season 4?

It was revealed that Moss actually directed three of the fourth season’s 10 episodes. Let me get this straight, you play the main protagonist and you’ve also directed a third of the episodes? That’s talent right there––pure talent. This marks the first time she’s ever directed for television. However, this was already planned ever since the first season. According to Miller and Littlefield, she was as serious about the job just as much as she was committed to playing June Osborne.

“As June, I’ve intrinsically been involved in the show from the beginning, so I know it so well. It’s not a big shift to take on that new position,” Moss said.

Of course, it’s never an easy task to transition to another line of work in just a snap of the finger. She admitted that she learned a handful––especially when it came to directing fellow actors. She even said that it felt wrong to critique, in some way, her co-workers’ performances.

“You’re not supposed to give notes to other actors as an actor,” she laughed. “I’m trained not to do that! But in the end that ended up being my favorite part of the whole experience. Luckily, we have an incredible cast so it was like tinkering with a Maserati,” she continued––and a Maserati it was, indeed.