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AU Financial Review
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- AU Financial Review
The Handmaid's Tale reveals the limits of dystopian television
In 2017 a troubling vision of America arrived on television screens. Based on Margaret Atwood's novel of 1985, The Handmaid's Tale depicted a country that had been transformed into Gilead, a theocratic dictatorship. Women were stripped of their civil rights. Those who were fertile were enslaved as 'handmaids', childbearing vessels for the ruling class. The show had its premiere on Hulu, a streaming service, not long after Donald Trump's inauguration, when people feared democratic backsliding and the creep of religious fundamentalism into politics. The Economist
Cosmopolitan
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Cosmopolitan
Why The Handmaid's Tale is ending: The real reason behind no season 7
Season six of The Handmaid's Tale is finally coming to an end and fans are having to cope with the fact that it's also the end of the series. We have been watching and waiting for years, hoping for the total destruction of the dystopian society that's taken over America to play out on screen, and as the finale neared, it seemed like it would not happen. (As it turns out, there's a reason for that. More on that later!) There's undeniably so much more story left to tell, so will season six really be the final season of The Handmaid's Tale? Well, here's what we know about why The Handmaid's Tale isn't coming back for a season seven. I'm sorry to say but yes, after six seasons, The Handmaid's Tale is finally coming to an end. The show has already gone well beyond what the original book by Margaret Atwood covered and has taken us on a wild ride of escaping Gilead, sneaking back into Gilead, trying to take Gilead down, and doing the whole thing over again. The show's creators have said for a long time that they planned for this to be the final season, and have been building up to it for a few years now. "It's been a very, very, very luxurious time that I've had to think about what happens at the end of this story and exactly how we'd like to get there as a company," creator, showrunner, and executive producer Bruce Miller told The Hollywood Reporter in 2022 when the final season was announced. Again, sadly it seems extremely unlikely, but the reason for that is kinda exciting. Hulu is already working on a sequel to The Handmaid's Tale based on the book's sequel called The Testaments. It's set several years after the end of the show and will see the return of some familiar characters. It focuses on the story of three women: Agnes (AKA June's daughter Hannah), Daisy (AKA June's other daughter Nicole), and Aunt Lydia (I know, you really can never get rid of that woman). The show is already filming and although there's no official release date yet, it's expected to come out sometime next year. So, really, we won't have to wait too long before returning to the horrifying world of Gilead. Praise be! The Handmaid's Tale is available to watch on Channel 4 now
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Why 'The Handmaid's Tale' is Ending: The Real Reason Behind No Season 7
"Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links." Season 6 of The Handmaid's Tale is finally coming to an end and fans are having to cope with the fact that it's also the end of the series. We have been watching and waiting for years, hoping for the total destruction of the dystopian society that's taken over America to play out on screen, and as the finale neared, it seemed like it would not happen. (As it turns out, there's a reason for that. More on that later!) There's undeniably so much more story left to tell, so will season 6 really be the final season of The Handmaid's Tale? Well, here's what we know about why The Handmaid's Tale isn't coming back for a season 7. I'm sorry to say but yes, after six seasons, The Handmaid's Tale is finally coming to an end. The show has already gone well beyond what the original book by Margaret Atwood covered and has taken us on a wild ride of escaping Gilead, sneaking back into Gilead, trying to take Gilead down, and doing the whole thing over again. The show's creators have said for a long time that they planned for this to be the final season, and have been building up to it for a few years now. "It's been a very, very, very luxurious time that I've had to think about what happens at the end of this story and exactly how we'd like to get there as a company," creator, showrunner, and executive producer Bruce Miller told The Hollywood Reporter in 2022 when the final season was announced.$11.67 at Again, sadly it seems extremely unlikely, but the reason for that is kinda exciting. Hulu is already working on a sequel to The Handmaid's Tale based on the book's sequel called The Testaments. It's set several years after the end of the show and will see the return of some familiar characters. It focuses on the story of three women: Agnes (AKA June's daughter Hannah), Daisy (AKA June's other daughter Nicole), and Aunt Lydia (I know, you really can never get rid of that woman). The show is already filming and although there's no official release date yet, it's expected to come out sometime next year. So, really, we won't have to wait too long before returning to the horrifying world of Gilead. Praise be! You Might Also Like Here's What NOT to Wear to a Wedding Meet the Laziest, Easiest Acne Routine You'll Ever Try
Economic Times
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Economic Times
Inside The Handmaid's Tale series finale: Elisabeth Moss reflects on show's ending, says 'I can't imagine...'
Elisabeth Moss on The Handmaid's Tale ending Live Events Is Season 6 really the final season of The Handmaid's Tale? Could there be a surprise Season 7? (You can now subscribe to our (You can now subscribe to our Economic Times WhatsApp channel Season 6 of The Handmaid's Tale finally coming to an end and fans are having to cope with the fact that it's also the end of the series. Now that The Handmaid's Tale has officially come to an end, Elisabeth Moss has opened up about the conclusion of the series that defined a significant part of her career. After nearly a decade of portraying June Osborne, Moss shared in a recent interview with Variety that she couldn't have envisioned a more perfect farewell for both the character and the show.'I loved (the series' ending). As someone who has lived telling this story for nine years, I can't imagine it ending any other way," she Emmy-winning actor highlighted the show's final scene as a deeply resonant moment — both personally and for the audience. 'When she begins, 'A chair, a table, a lamp'... that moment is everything I hope for as a viewer,' she said. 'People ask, 'Is that the original voiceover? Is that how the book opens?'' For Elisabeth, this direct nod to Margaret Atwood's original prose wasn't just intentional — it was what she called 'television gold.'She expressed her complete support for the creative choice to end the series that way. 'I wouldn't have agreed to anything that didn't feel like the perfect conclusion to this story,' she said. 'From the very first episode, this series has always been about one core idea. It's what drew me in from the beginning — and it's the same truth we're delivering in that final scene.'At its heart, the story has always centered on June's battle — not just to save her children, but to protect future generations from the horrors of Gilead. 'That's been her mission all along, and it's still her mission in the final scene. The fact that the show ends where it began — that's just so f**king brilliant. And I can say that because it wasn't my idea,' she added with a laugh. 'There's no clearer way to define the show than her narrating her own story.'Yes, it's true—The Handmaid's Tale is ending with Season 6. After a gripping run, the series is wrapping up its story, having long surpassed the events of Margaret Atwood's original novel. Over the seasons, viewers have followed June through escapes, returns, and revolts against Gilead, and the show's creators have been planning this final chapter for some time."It's been a very, very, very luxurious time that I've had to think about what happens at the end of this story and exactly how we'd like to get there as a company," creator and showrunner Bruce Miller told The Hollywood Reporter in 2022, when the final season was there's good news. Hulu is already developing a sequel series based on Atwood's follow-up novel, The Testaments. Set several years after the events of The Handmaid's Tale, the new show will feature familiar characters and follow the lives of three women: Agnes (June's daughter, Hannah), Daisy (June's other daughter, Nicole), and the ever-persistent Aunt is already underway, and while there's no official release date yet, it's expected to premiere sometime next year. So we won't have to wait too long to revisit the dark world of Gilead.
CBC
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- CBC
The Handmaid's Tale is over after 6 seasons, but our obsession with dystopian TV will go on
Social Sharing If there's one thing you can expect from a dystopian series like The Handmaid's Tale it's that it won't wrap up neatly with a pretty bow. The show, based on Canadian author Margaret Atwood's acclaimed 1985 novel and shot largely in and around Toronto, has come to an end. The final episode dropped on the streaming service Crave in Canada early Tuesday morning. Don't worry. CBC News won't be revealing any significant spoilers. For six seasons, June Osborne (played by Elisabeth Moss) guided us on a disturbing and often brutal journey inside Gilead — a society built on gender oppression under a totalitarian, theocratic regime that took over much of the United States and forced fertile women to become "handmaids" in a life of servitude, abuse and rape as a means of countering declining births. But it's as much a story about Osborne's resistance as it is about the downfall of society. While The Handmaid's Tale has wrapped, there's no shortage of TV shows with dystopian themes. Their popularity has only grown in recent years amid fears about the state of democracy, wars, a global pandemic and financial crises. Experts and critics who follow the genre say these shows can help us make sense of political or societal upheaval and cultural change. "It's a way that we begin to kind of work out our fears as a collective," said Shana MacDonald, an associate professor at the University of Waterloo. "We get to talk about it at the water cooler." A 'canary in the coal mine' Without giving too much away, the final episodes centre on a rebellion led by Osborne, an army of handmaids and a resistance known as Mayday, aimed at toppling Gilead and its oppressive commanders. For Osborne, it's an act of vengeance but also another step in her unrelenting quest to reunite with her daughter, Hannah, who was taken from her in the very first episode and eventually sent to live as the adopted child of another Gilead commander. The show was set in a fictitious world in a not-so-distant future, but MacDonald says one of the reasons it was so relatable was that it was on the "edges of possible." Atwood, who wrote the book more than 30 years before the series debuted in 2017, has said that one of her inspirations for the story was the political climate of the 1980s and the rise of the religious right in the U.S. "People, even back then, were saying what they would like to do, should they ever have a chance to take power. Now that faction is in power in the United States," she said in 2017, referring to U.S. President Donald Trump, who had taken office just months before the series premiered. MacDonald sees similar parallels between what plays out in Gilead and what has happened in the U.S. She points to the repealing of women's reproductive rights under Trump and the rise of prontalism — a movement to encourage or incentivize people to have more babies for the sake of society. "What's so striking about it," she said, "is how much it's become so close to the truth in some ways." MacDonald, who researches misogyny and popular culture, admits that she finds the series too close for comfort and can't bring herself to watch it. "It's the canary in the coal mine, for me," she said. But for regular viewers, women in particular, a show like The Handmaid's Tale can be "sort of like doing a test run" to understand what one might do in reality, said Jen Chaney, a freelance TV critic who has written reviews for Vulture, The Washington Post and The New York Times. "It's almost as if we're preparing ourselves for some hypothetical and now that seems much less hypothetical than it used to," she said. WATCH | The Handmaid's Tale finds new audiences under Trump: The Handmaid's Tale TV series resonating today 8 years ago Duration 4:13 Not so far from reality Some series like The Handmaid's Tale or Apple TV+'s Severance, in which a group of office workers have their memories of their work lives surgically separated from their personal lives, are set in times and places that closely resemble those in which we live. Shows like Amazon Prime's The Boys, a violent satirical story of superheroes who abuse their powers, or HBO Max's The Last of Us, about a fungal infection that turns people into mutant monsters and brings about the collapse of society, may seem a little bit beyond the realm of reality, at least on the surface. The narratives "might be a little far-fetched and might not be here yet," but the underlying themes are still relatable, says TreaAndrea Russworm, a professor of cinematic arts at the University of Southern California. For example, she notes that The Last of Us deals with topics like the dismissal of science and medicine, as well as individualism and survivalism, while also exploring the violent lengths people may go to in extreme scenarios. It gives us "a psychological lane for exploring that darker side of humanity that now has free license to just unleash its violence," she said. But there's also something therapeutic about facing your worst fears play out in these fictitious scenarios, said Lynn Zubernis, a clinical psychologist and professor at West Chester University in Philadelphia. She also researches the psychology of fans. Whether it's The Handmaid's Tale or The Boys — which she's writing a book about — Zubernis says dystopian shows can help people cope with the uneasiness of what's happening in society because you can build up your emotional regulation skills and sense of resilience by "immersing yourself" in a world that is "disturbing and frightening," even though you know it's not real. Although she believes there are benefits to viewing dystopian shows, she cautions that they aren't for everyone. "If you're missing that message of hope and you're just feeling completely overwhelmed by all the darkness or the violence," she said, "then it's not good for you and you should not be watching it." WATCH | Why we can't get enough of the apocolypse: Apocalyptic pop culture enjoying explosive renaissance 1 year ago Duration 2:06 The Last of Us, Civil War and Fallout are just some examples of how apocalyptic entertainment seems to be more popular than ever. There's also a Canadian show hosted by Jay Baruchel taking a long look at the end of the world and our fascination with it. No happy endings, but that's OK MacDonald says that with a story like this, you should never expect a tidy conclusion. "It never really has a happy ending because the society we know has collapsed and we're in a new place." But she believes that can be a good thing because the best dystopian shows "plant the seed" that there are still "possibilities of a better future." Even before the finale, the audience knows this isn't the last we'll see of Gilead. Atwood wrote a follow up to The Handmaid's Tale, 2019's Booker Prize-winning The Testaments, which is set in Gilead 15 years in the future. The Testaments is being adapted into a series that reportedly began filming in Toronto in April, but it's unclear when it may be released. Chaney says the fact that Gilead still exists at the end of the series speaks to the lasting implications of oppressive and authoritarian governments once they've been in place. "You have to keep fighting over and over and over again," she said. "It doesn't just go away magically." WATCH | What inspired Maragret Atwood's Handmaid's Tale sequel The Testaments: Margaret Atwood unveils sequel to The Handmaid's Tale: The Testaments 6 years ago Duration 2:01 London rolled out the red carpet for the Canadian literary legend. We look at the real events inspiring Margaret Atwood's latest book.
