Is The Testaments a sequel? Handmaid’s Tale spin-off timeline explained

The Testaments arrives on screens this week and the anticipation is building for the dystopian drama series

The upcoming series is intertwined with The Handmaid’s Tale but not in the way you’d expect.

Is The Testaments a sequel?

Yes, is the short answer. Margaret Atwood published her novel The Testaments in 2019, following the success of the Hulu TV series fronted by Mad Men and Top of the Lake’s Elisabeth Moss.

The novel came over 30 years after Atwood’s epoch-making 1985 novel The Handmaid’s Tale and went on to jointly win the Booker Prize with Bernardine Evaristo’s Girl, Woman, Other.

Meanwhile, The Testaments’ showrunner Bruce Miller recently told The Hollywood Reporter: “This is a sequel to Handmaid’s Tale, the show.”

Chase Infiniti as Agnes MacKenzie in The Testaments(Image: DISNEY PLUS)

When is The Testaments set?

The Testaments novel is set 15 years after the events of The Handmaid’s Tale and incorporates events from the TV show, most significantly the birth of baby Holly/Nichole.

However, the TV adaptation of The Testaments changes this to approximately four years after the events of The Handmaid’s Tale series finale when June Osborne (played by Moss) led a rebellion in Boston.

Addressing his adaptation of The Testaments for the small screen, Miller explained: “There are parts of the [Testaments] book that take place very far in the future, and we want to save those things for far in the future; they’re goals we’re working towards.”

However, Miller said right now The Testaments TV show was focusing on a “compact bit of the story” involving the girls of Gilead trying to find husbands.

The show will also feature flashbacks to Aunt Lydia’s (Ann Dowd) life before the rise of Gilead, mirroring the novel which sheds light on The Handmaid’s Tale villain and how she came to be.

After the events of The Handmaid’s Tale series finale, Aunt Lydia was shown to be increasingly disillusioned by Gilead and its leaders.

This sowed the seeds of her rebellion as she is now in a new position of power at an all-girls academy, where she is training up the next generation of Wives for Commanders.

From her new position, Aunt Lydia will be observing all, including Agnes MacKenzie (Chase Infiniti) and Daisy (Lucy Halliday).

Dowd teased about Aunt Lydia: “She keeps it entirely secret, but keeps track of what goes on. So when the time comes, all the evidence is there.”

There have already been suggestions that The Testaments TV show could run to five seasons, however, this will all be dependent on success and viewing figures.

Given the plans for many seasons of The Testaments, it’s likely the TV show is going to be diverging from the source material much like The Handmaid’s Tale series did.

The Testaments premieres on Disney+ and Hulu on April 8