It’s almost been a year since we last watched Elisabeth Moss’s June liberate Boston from the iron-clad hands of Gilead’s theocratic regime, and if you’ve been waiting to see what happens next in The Handmaid’s Tale story – praise be – the sequel series The Testaments finally premieres today.
The first three episodes of Margaret Atwood’s Booker Prize-winning sequel The Testaments are now streaming in the UK, picking up five years after June’s rebellion, with a whole new generation.
The Testaments follows Agnes Mackenzie, also known as Hannah, as she’s raised within Gilead under the watch of Aunt Lydia, training to become a Wife. Here’s everything you need to know, including how you can watch the series in the UK and how it differs from the book.
‘The Handmaid’s Tale’s The Testaments’ UK release date
The first three episodes of The Testaments premiered on Wednesday 8 April, exclusively on Disney+ in the UK. That’s a change from The Handmaid’s Tale, which previously aired on Channel 4 and Amazon Prime Video.
There are 10 episodes in The Testaments’s first-season run. The remaining seven instalments will release weekly every Wednesday.
A subscription to Disney+ costs £5.99 per month for the standard with ads tier, but you can also pay £9.99 per month for the ad-free tier. Want 4K streaming and support for four devices? The premium tier costs £14.99 per month. You can also save just over 16 per cent by opting for an annual plan instead, bringing the standard tier down to £99.90 per year and premium to £149.90 per year.
Disney+ is also included as part of Sky’s Ultimate TV bundle, which starts from £24 per month. The bundle comes with Sky TV, as well as a subscription to Netflix, Disney+, HBO Max and Hayu in one monthly price.
‘The Handmaids’ Tale The Testaments’ plot and cast
Based on Margaret Atwood’s 2019 novel, The Testaments expands the world of Gilead through the eyes of three women. Alongside Agnes Mackenzie, the series also follows Daisy, a teenager raised outside Gilead who is recruited into the system, and Aunt Lydia, whose once again played by Ann Dowd. The aunt’s influence within the regime becomes central to the story.
Chase Infiniti, who was recently nominated for a Golden Globe in One Battle After Another, plays Agnes; Lucy Halliday (Blue Jean) plays Daisy and Dowd reprises her Emmy-winning role as Aunt Lydia. They are joined by Amy Seimetz, Rowan Blanchard, Brad Alexander, Mabel Li, Mattea Conforti and Zarrin Darnell-Martin. Elisabeth Moss also returns as an executive producer.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly in April last year, returning showrunner Bruce Miller described the series as “like Mean Girls growing up in Gilead”, with a more coming-of-age feel compared to The Handmaid’s Tale. The Testaments explores what it’s like to grow up at the top as the daughter of a high commander, rather than the bottom of the hierarchy with June.
But how does it differ from the book? The biggest difference is the shift in timeline. The book is set 15 years after the events of The Handmaid’s Tale, while the series is set roughly four to five years after The Handmaid’s Tale finale, making Agnes (or Hannah) a teenager on-screen.
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