Finally, There’s A Teaser For ‘Handmaid’s Tale’ Season 2

If you've been eagerly awaiting new episodes of Hulu's hit series, there's something to tide you over in the meantime. On Thursday, The Handmaid's Tale Season 2 teaser trailer dropped, and it will make you legitimately uncomfortable — but that's kind of the whole point. The brief clip features Offred narrating various instructions: "Wear the red dress. Wear the wings. Shut your mouth. Be a good girl. Roll over and spread your leg. Yes, ma'am." The voiceover plays, as various chilling clips appear on screen.

The Handmaid's Tale teaser abruptly ends with the cut-off question: "Seriously, what the actual f—?" Well, to find out that answer, you'll have to wait until April 25 when the Emmy Award-winning show returns to the streaming service. Until then, you can rewatch the clip multiple times to try to glean more insight into what is actually happening. It's rather disorienting, to say the least.

It makes sense that Hulu would produce a second season of the show. It's wildly popular, award-winning, and one of the streaming service's most successful original series. Renewing it was a no-brainer for executives, except for one key issue: There's nothing else to work with. Margaret Atwood's genius novel is a self-contained piece of science-fiction; she did not write a sequel. Hulu's version of The Handmaid's Tale was a faithful, if exaggerated, adaptation of the original. So, what's next?

Hulu revealed that the second season of The Handmaid's Tale will premiere on their service (exclusively, again) on April 25. Episodes 1 and 2 will be available simultaneously, and the rest of the season will be available on a weekly basis thereafter. Season 2 will reportedly explore the origins of Gilead, and how the dystopian world of the Handmaids came to be. It wasn't long before the events of the story, after all, as fans learned of Offred's life before Gilead in Season 1.

According to CinemaBlend, it's likely that Season 2 will pick up shortly (if not immediately) after Offred is abducted by The Eyes. The lack of new source material might not be an issue after all, as Handmaid's Tale creator Bruce Miller told The Hollywood Reporter that Atwood would be involved with the writing process. Even so, one can't say for sure what direction Season 2 will go in. Another mix of present-day occurrences and flashbacks to life before Gilead? Is that a new or old snapshot of Alexis Bledel's character? This teaser is a lot.

The IMDb page for The Handmaid's Tale Season 2 isn't giving away too many answers. Elisabeth Moss is the sole credit they listed for Season 2, Episode 1, and that could mean anything. (It's Offred's story, of course.) The rest of the cast is listed alphabetically by the actors' real names, and this includes Alexis Bledel as Ofglen and Madeline Brewer as Janine. This is when it's tinfoil hat time. By the end of Season 1, fans knew Bledel's character by additional names, including Emily and Ofsteven, and Janine's name in Gilead was Ofwarren. Also, a new Ofglen had been introduced after Emily.

So, since Offred led the Handmaids in not stoning Janine in the Season 1 finale, Janine's fate is unknown. Emily has presumably been arrested for killing a Guardian with her car, and Offred has been separated from all of them by essentially Gilead's secret police. Considering that IMDb has credited Bledel as Ofglen (not Ofsteven or Emily) and Brewer as Janine, are they trying to hint at the content of Handmaid's Tale Season 2? Or is it just inconsistency, thanks to character development on the show? Fans will find out on April 25.