Is ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ Spinoff ‘The Testaments’ Still Happening? Everything We Know

It’s been a long time since there’s been a peep about The Testaments, a spinoff series of Hulu‘s The Handmaid’s Tale. The streamer announced that the spinoff, based on the Margaret Atwood novel of the same name, was in development in 2022.

Even though that announcement said The Testaments wouldn’t debut until after The Handmaid’s Tale‘s final season (which is currently in production), it’s still been a long while since the last update. What we do know is, The Testaments has not been shelved.

Here’s everything there is to know about the upcoming spinoff while we wait for new information.

What is The Testaments about?

Atwood’s The Testaments novel was published in 2019 and is the official sequel to the original book published in 1985. It’s set 15 years after the events of The Handmaid’s Tale and follows the perspectives of three women: Aunt Lydia, Agnes Jemima, and Daisy. They recount what happened after the final moments of the first book, when June Osborne was taken by The Eyes (this took place at the end of The Handmaid’s Tale Season 1, and all plot since has been created by the show for the show). The fate of Gilead after that moment is revealed in the sequel.

The Testaments being set 15 years after the end of Season 1 allows The Handmaid’s Tale‘s show plot to exist in that time between. The final season (which is expected to premiere sometime in Spring 2025, although an official release date has not been confirmed) will likely set up the spinoff, and it already started laying the foundation in Season 5. With Aunt Lydia as a main character, part of that work is already done.

Aunt Lydia has a surprising development in The Testaments, one that aligns with her waning support of Gilead shown in Season 5 of the Hulu series.

Is The Testaments series still in development?

All signs point to yes. A Disney executive, Craig Erwich, told Deadline in February 2024 that The Testaments is still in development.

“The Dan Fogelman show is something we’re really excited about. The Handmaid’s Tale is going to production this summer, premieres in 2025. In development we have The Testaments behind that, which is an extension of The Handmaid’s franchise so we have a very robust slate of scripted programming that we’re really excited about,” he said. “Again, our strategy – and it’s one that works across the entire company – is a focus on quality versus quantity, not just in terms of how we produce the shows but also in bringing them to market.”

The Handmaid’s Tale showrunner, Bruce Miller, stepped down from his role on the Emmy-winning drama to refocus his efforts on The Testaments. This was announced in March 2023 in Variety. He had served as showrunner for every season prior.

Eric Tuchman and Yahlin Chang, who were writers and executive producers on previous seasons of The Handmaid’s Tale, have taken over from Miller as co-showrunners for the sixth and final season, which is currently in production. Miller is still working on Handmaid’s as a writer and executive producer, he’s just no longer steering the ship.

Who is in The Testaments cast?

While an official casting announcement has not been made, Ann Dowd has said that she will reprise her Emmy-winning role as Aunt Lydia since the story is not in flashback. The other two main characters are Agnes and Daisy, names Handmaid’s Tale fans should recognize.

Agnes is the name given to June and Luke’s daughter, Hannah, after she’s kidnapped by Gilead and taken in by a commander and his wife. Hannah is played by Jordana Blake in the original Hulu series. Baby Nichole from The Handmaid’s Tale, June and Nick’s daughter, is a character in The Testaments. Her smuggling out of Gilead and into Canada makes her a martyr-like figure for Gilead.

It’s revealed relatively early on in the book that Nichole is Daisy. The teen sneaks back into Gilead using the name Jade to try and gather intel that could bring down Gilead for good. Agnes, meanwhile, trains to become an aunt (Aunt Victoria) after she’s horrified to learn of Gilead’s customs that would see her married off to a commander at a young age. She gets involved with Mayday, the organization working to bring down Gilead, and meets her half-sister, Nichole, in the process.

Nichole is a very young child in The Handmaid’s Tale still, and Blake is just 13 years old in real life. If The Testaments jumps ahead in time, Agnes/Hannah and Daisy/Nichole could be played by new, older actors. And with heavy source material such as this dystopian novel, that’s probably for the best.

What has Ann Dowd said about The Testaments?

After Aunt Lydia’s loyalty to Gilead started to fade in Season 5, which ended in 2022, Dowd confirmed that the season planted the seeds for her role in The Testaments and that Aunt Lydia’s “blinders are coming down.”

“The conversation really happens over time. Meaning, there’s a general discussion, because we are headed toward The Testaments,” Dowd told Entertainment Weekly. “So we know that somehow Lydia is going to begin to see the light and begin to realize what’s actually going on, as opposed to what she thought was going on with the commanders and also what she could bear to actually see without blinders, if you will.”

She added: “First off, writers are smart, I know nothing about how it will proceed, except that it will. I have done the audiobook of The Testaments. So I am familiar with it. It’s brilliantly written, as is everything Margaret Atwood does — it’s quite extraordinary. To speak broadly, she’s moving into far more awareness of her own complicitness, if that is a word, and actually what’s going on underneath all of the pretend stuff at Gilead. Pretend meaning, what commanders say is going on, what the values of Gilead are supposed to be, but aren’t. The blinders are coming down, the walls are coming down. She’s a very smart woman, she knows men have the power at the moment. And so what she needs to do is be alert, aware, keep track, and keep it hidden. And just to make her moves slowly. She has tremendous patience. It’s just a wonderful progression into herself, and also into what she wants to now do with what she knows. And I find her very inspiring as time goes on.”

Is June Osborne in The Testaments?

June, Nick, and Luke are all mentioned in The Testaments, but we won’t reveal what happens with them here so as not to spoil the book’s ending. It is narratively possible that Elisabeth Moss, Max Minghella, and O-T Fagbenle could appear in The Testaments, provided their characters aren’t killed off in The Handmaid’s Tale‘s final season. Even then, however, flashbacks are always possible.

Stay tuned here as we continue to report the latest on The Testaments.