'The Handmaid's Tale' Season 2 Trailer: The Harrowing Hulu Series Is Back

How do you follow up the first season of The Handmaid's Tale, the haunting, utterly crushing sci-fi series that swept the Golden Globes and Emmy's after its 2017 premiere on Hulu? By upping the stakes and upping the discomfort.

The Handmaid's Tale season 2 trailer offers us a brief glimpse at Offred (Elisabeth Moss) after her detainment by the Eyes. Newly pregnant and feeling a revolutionary fervor, things didn't look good for Offred. But it seems like she is back with a vengeance in season 2 of the critically acclaimed series.

The trailer begins with plaintive narration from Offred, echoing her first submissive monologue in the show's first episode. "Wear the red dress, wear the wings, shut your mouth, be a good girl, roll over and spread your legs. Yes ma'am. May the lord open," she intones.

Suddenly, she interrupts herself: "Seriously, what the actual f—?"

It's a jarring and disturbing trailer that shows harrowing images of a bloodied Offred/June, a terrified Ofglen, Serena Joy slapping Offred, and haunting images of the cursed red uniform worn by the Handmaids. But the cryptic trailer suggests that Offred may be taking her fate into her own hands.

We last saw Offred being carted off by the law-enforcing Eyes, presumably for her treacherous role as a spy against her Commander Fred. But has she actually been detained by the Eyes or a rebel faction? It's a thrilling, unsettling cliffhanger, and one that isn't easily resolved by the latest trailer.

While I found season 1 to be a powerful but fundamentally flawed adaptation of Margaret Atwood's 1985 dystopian novel, season 2 is an exciting turning point for the series. The final episode of season 1 left off right where the book ended. Although showrunner Bruce Miller said that some of season 2 will draw from the novel, there's no way to predict where The Handmaid's Tale will take us in the highly anticipated season 2. And that's even more exciting than all the political discourse it will stir up.

Here is the synopsis for The Handmaid's Tale:

Adapted from the classic novel by Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale is the story of life in the dystopia of Gilead, a totalitarian society in what was formerly the United States. Facing environmental disasters and a plunging birthrate, Gilead is ruled by a twisted fundamentalism in its militarized 'return to traditional values'. As one of the few remaining fertile women, Offred (Elisabeth Moss) is a Handmaid in the Commander's household, one of the caste of women forced into sexual servitude as a last desperate attempt to repopulate the world. In this terrifying society, Offred must navigate between Commanders, their cruel Wives, domestic Marthas, and her fellow Handmaids – where anyone could be a spy for Gilead – all with one goal: to survive and find the daughter that was taken from her.

The first two episodes of The Handmaid's Tale season 2 premieres on Hulu on April 25, 2018. The following 11 episodes will air on a weekly basis on Wednesdays.