The Handmaid’s Tale Creator Conflicted About Ending Series After S5

The Handmaid’s Tale creator Bruce Miller is unsure about whether the upcoming fifth season would be its last.

The Handmaid’s Tale dropped its fourth season which launched in April and concluded in June and is currently Emmy-nominated for best drama.

Hulu confirmed that viewership for Season 4 went up 32% over Season 3. The show’s intense finale, which dropped on June 16, was the most-watched episode of any series on Hulu.

With preparations for Season 5 underway, Miller spoke to Deadline about how pandemic has played a role everything and the uncertainty regarding the upcoming season being the last.  

I’m never looking to end it. I work with a group of very undifficult people; we have a lovely group of writers, a spectacular group of actors and visiting directors and our crew. What they did this year was amazing. They made this entire show during Covid. We shot the entire thing for two weeks.

Bruce Miller

Miller commended the team, mentioning the efforts everyone put in to make the show possible. He added,

I’m not so quick to say, ‘oh, you know, let’s just, walk away.’ I don’t know how you felt about the pandemic, but I certainly learned the things of my life that are pretty rare and working with these people is one of them.

So, honestly, yes, I know what the end is and I’m not going to overstay my welcome but I’m also not going to rush off if I don’t have to because as long as I am writing for Elisabeth Moss, you know, it really doesn’t get much better.

Bruce Miller

This comes after Hulu’s head of scripted originals, Jordan Helman, talked to Variety about the future of the show, calling it ‘the crown jewel of Hulu originals.’

At the moment, the writers are working away breaking Season 5. I think what’s really exciting about ‘Handmaid’s Tale’ is that piece, year after year after year, sees viewership growth, unlike anything we’ve ever seen. We’re having conversations right now about what the future of ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ holds.

Jordan Helman

The Handmaid’s Tale is based on the dystopian novel of the same name by Margaret Atwood, published in 1985.

The series follows a world where a totalitarian, theonomic government of Gilead establishes rule in the former United States. Gilead has a hierarchal society in which women are brutally subjugated.

Helman mentioned the series sequel, The Testaments, would ‘play into the larger story.’ He added that there are a lot of conversations surrounding The Handmaid’s Tale and about inserting The Testaments into the world of Gilead.

About The Handmaid’s Tale

The Handmaid’s Tale is an American dystopian television series created by Bruce Miller for Hulu. It is based on Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel of the same name.

Set in the fictional dystopian state of Gilead, where fertile women are kept as “handmaids” and are subjected to child-bearing slavery, the series Offred (June Osbourne) and her fight for her freedom from Gilead, along with all the oppressed.

The series has covered four seasons worth of runtime, and the fifth season will premiere on Hulu on 14 September 2022.