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The Handmaid’s Tale showrunners have expressed concern about the current state of America, saying that “women in our country have fewer rights now than when we started production in 2016.”
Hulu’s hit dystopian series — adapted from Margaret Atwood’s best-selling 1985 novel about a totalitarian society, Gilead, ruled by a fundamentalist regime that sees women as state property — returned last week for its sixth and final season.
The show, led by Elisabeth Moss, premiered in April 2017, months after President Donald Trump took office for the first time.
Since its debut, viewers have found some of the show’s storylines eerily relevant to the U.S. political climate under the Trump administration — and even more so now, eight years later.
Speaking to ex-CNN reporter Oliver Darcy for his Status newsletter, showrunner Eric Tuchman admitted: “No, I don’t think any of us could have predicted how closely the show would maintain its relevance and continue to reflect real events.
“The series has been called a cautionary tale about what can happen when power is abused and people’s rights and freedoms are stripped away,” he continued.
“But that warning was ignored, apparently, by the majority of voters, and Roe v. Wade was overturned. Women in our country have fewer rights now than when we started production in 2016,” Tuchman added.
He clarified that while the writers’ room never sets out to “make a political statement or write the show in response to headlines,” he suggested that “the fact that their struggles on the show can sometimes feel eerily relevant to the real world is the result of us trying to write honestly about power, resistance, and how fragile our democracy and freedom are.”
Tuchman was joined by his co-showrunner Yahlin Chang, who added that the show’s depiction of how democratic backsliding can happen so quickly “is chilling.”
“It’s also true — democracies backslide and fail all the time,” Chang said. “Seventy percent of the world’s population lives in an autocracy. In our show, America as we know it was just this exceptional, temporary, extremely fragile experiment. Living in the world of Gilead imaginatively for this many years, I’m actually shocked that American democracy has lasted for so long.”
The sixth season welcomes the return of Moss as lead character June, whose “unyielding spirit and determination pull her back into the fight to take down Gilead,” according to an official logline. “This final chapter of June’s journey highlights the importance of hope, courage, solidarity, and resilience in the pursuit of justice and freedom.”
By the end of the series, Tuchman said he hopes audiences recognize that the show is a “story of hope, courage, and resilience.”
“It’s a survival story,” he said. “I hope people feel inspired and empowered by [June’s] journey.”
The remaining episodes of The Handmaid’s Tale season six will be released on Tuesdays on Hulu before concluding on May 27. The final season premieres in the U.K. on May 3 on Channel 4 and on Amazon Prime Video.
English (US) ·