NEW TEASER: Hulu’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” Season Five

One major character will not be returning for The Handmaid’s Tale season 5, and a huge Gilead change perfectly explains why. Characters are constantly joining and leaving the celebrated Hulu series, but a recent Handmaid’s Tale season 5 casting update reveals that one of the show’s central characters will be absent from the upcoming season. While this is sad news, some Gilead changes that The Handmaid’s Tale season 4 has begun to set up could cause the character’s absence to make more sense.

The Handmaid’s Tale follows June Osborne and other handmaids in the dystopian country of Gilead (formerly the United States of America). Due to declining birthrates and the rise of religious extremism, Christian ideologists have taken over America in The Handmaid’s Tale‘s main timeline, forming Gilead and establishing a new fascist state. In Gilead, fertile women are forced into the servitude of Commanders, giving birth to their children that are conceived via ritualistic rape. Escaping the tyrannical Gilead leaders, therefore, becomes of the utmost importance to many of The Handmaid’s Tale‘s main characters, with most of the show following the handmaids and others attempting to flee to a still-democratic Canada.

CAST: The series stars Elisabeth Moss, Bradley Whitford, Yvonne Strahovski, Max Minghella, O-T Fagbenle, Samira Wiley, Ann Dowd, Madeline Brewer, Amanda Brugel, Sam Jaeger.

Courtesy of Hulu

CREDITS: “The Handmaid’s Tale” is produced by MGM Television and executive produced by Bruce Miller, Warren Littlefield, Elisabeth Moss, Daniel Wilson, Fran Sears, Eric Tuchman, Yahlin Chang, Rachel Skukert, Sheila Hockin, John Weber, Frank Siracusa, Steve Stark and Kim Todd. The series is internationally distributed by MGM.

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