Handmaid's Tale season 4: Release Date, Trailer, Cast, Plot and How to Watch

Liz April 29, 2021 | 05:59

The Handmaid's Tale Season 4 will debut in April as June Osborne continues to try and take down Gilead and save her daughter Hannah. Here's everything you need to know about the release date, cast, plot, trailer and how to watch!

The Handmaid's Tale season 4 release date, cast, trailer, plot: When is the new series out? Photo: Amazon

The revolution is at hand and it's time to watch The Handmaid's Tale season 4. Hulu's award-winning dystopian drama is finally back, almost two years after leaving off with a huge cliffhanger. Elisabeth Moss returns as June (formerly Offred), who continues to face danger while leading a rebellion against the state of Gilead. Hulu gave fans the gift of releasing the first three episodes early — so they're streaming now.

The Handmaid's Tale season 4 picks up where the season 3 finale left off: June and a squad of

Marthas smuggled almost 100 children to safety in Canada, but in the process, she was shot and injured. Now, as Hulu says in its official season 4 synopsis, "Her quest for justice and revenge threatens to consume her and destroy her most cherished relationships."

June is the most wanted fugitive in all of Gilead, a fact which will pit her once again against Aunt Lydia (Ann Dowd), according to Tom's Guide.

Series creator Bruce Miller referenced the musical Les Miserables earlier this year when discussing June vs. Aunt Lydia. "We’ve got Lydia in this season in a Javert kind of position where she is just obsessed with June and has so much of her personal worth tied up in what June is doing, and how much damage June is wreaking out in the world that she feels responsible for.”

The Handmaid's Tale Season 4: Release date

The Handmaid's Tale season 4 premieres on Wednesday, April 28 with three new episodes and will be released weekly on Wednesdays. The series is exclusively available to stream on Hulu and is accessible to subscribers of the platform.

The Handmaid's Tale Season 4: Cast

The cast of The Handmaid's Tale is led by Elisabeth Moss as June Osborne, also previously known as Offred and Ofjoseph during her time as a handmaid.

She is joined by:

Joseph Fiennes as Commander Fred Waterford, a government official and June's former master
Yvonne Strahovski as Serena Joy Waterford, Fred's wife
Ann Dowd as Aunt Lydia, an overseer of handmaids
Alexis Bledel as Dr. Emily Malek, also previously known as Ofglen and Ofjoseph
Madeline Brewer as Janine Lindo, also known as Ofwarren and Ofhoward
O. T. Fagbenle as Luke Bankole, June's husband, who now lives in Canada
Max Minghella as Commander Nick Blaine, formerly Waterford's driver, a spy and June's lover
Samira Wiley as Moira Strand, June's best friend now living in Canada
Amanda Brugel as Rita, a Martha for the Waterford household
Bradley Whitford as Commander Joseph Lawrence, a founder of the Colonies
Sam Jaeger as Mark Tuello, a representative of the U.S. government in exile
Jordana Blake as Hannah Bankole, June and Luke's daughter, who is also known as Agnes MacKenzie
Clea Duvall as Sylvia, Emily's wife
Cherry Jones as Holly Maddox, June's mother

Photo: Hulu

The Handmaid's Tale season 4 will feature several new cast members, including McKenna Grace (The Haunting of Hill House). She's playing Mrs. Keyes, described as "a sharply intelligent, teenaged wife of a much older Commander who rules her farm and household with confidence."

The Handmaid's Tale Season 4: Plot

"In the 10-episode upcoming season, June strikes back against Gilead as a fierce rebel leader, but the risks she takes bring unexpected and dangerous new challenges," reads the official synopsis. "Her quest for justice and revenge threatens to consume her and destroy her most cherished relationships."

After smuggling Gilead's children into Canada, war was always on the cards.

"The pot is boiling," Miller told The Hollywood Reporter. "It's 86 children, but at a time where the birth rate is so much smaller, it might as well be 86,000 children being being taken from a country. And I think that has been very juicy, the international elements of the show.

"In some ways you forget, or I forget, because the show is so personal and so much about June, that it's a show about refugees, and it's a show about international relations. Everybody who's in Canada on our show is a refugee. That's what they're living, the refugee life."

During an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Miller spoke about the direction the show could take.

"I see a world beyond [the current one]. I would watch an episode about the Nuremberg trials after Gilead falls. There are lots of worlds you think of... where everything has changed so much."

But he went on to say that he still wants the drama to remain faithful to the original source material:

"My arc is still very much the arc of the novel, which is the arc of this one woman's experience in Gilead at this time and her recollections that paint this picture of what it was like and what the experience of this world was like, which really is still the book.

Photo: Hulu

"People talk about how we're beyond the book, but we're not really. The book starts, then jumps 200 years with an academic discussion at the end of it, about what's happened in those intervening 200 years. It's maybe handled in an outline, but it's still there in Margaret's novel. We're not going beyond the novel; we're just covering territory she covered quickly, a bit more slowly."

Miller also told The Hollywood Reporter that the show will draw parallels with the pandemic: "I feel like the biggest thing I think is a lot of season four is about freedom, and also about snapping back and how quickly things will go back to normal in a lot of different ways, reported by Digital Spy.

"And I think that's what the country is going through. I think the country feels like things are so up in the air, they're waiting for them to 'go back to normal'. Part of the lesson of the show is they never do. Whatever trauma you've gone through in that episode, you settle into a post-trauma world. It doesn't go away."

The Handmaid's Tale Season 4: Trailer

Check out The Handmaid’s Tale Season 4 Official Trailer:

The Handmaid's Tale Season 4: How to watch

The first three episodes of The Handmaid's Tale season 4 are streaming now Hulu, after dropping hours earlier than its scheduled date of April 28 at 12 a.m. ET.

Hulu is only available in the U.S.

How to watch Handmaid's Tale season 4 in the UK, Canada and Australia

The Handmaid's Tale is exclusively on Hulu, and Hulu is only available in the U.S.

If you're a subscriber who is traveling abroad, you'll need help accessing the service. Check out our guide to the best VPNs.

The Handmaid's Tale Season 4: Episodes

Season 4 will consist of 10 episodes, which is the same amount as season 1 but three fewer episodes than seasons 2 and 3.

Hulu has already released the episode titles, writers and directors of all 10 episodes. Moss made her debut as a Handmaid's Tale director, helming three of the installments.

Season 4, episode 1: "Pigs" (April 28)

Writer: Bruce Miller | Director: Colin Watkinson

Season 4, episode 2: "Nightshade" (April 28)

Writer: Kira Snyder| Director: Colin Watkinson

Season 4, episode 3: "The Crossing" (April 28)

Writer: Bruce Miller | Director: Elisabeth Moss

Season 4, episode 4: "Milk" (May 5)

Writer: Jacey Heldrich | Director: Christina Choe

Season 4, episode 5: "Chicago" (May 12)

Writer: John Herrera & Nina Fiore | Director: Christina Choe

Season 4, episode 6: "Vows" (May 19)

Writer: Dorothy Fortenberry| Director: Richard Shepard

Season 4, episode 7: "Home" (May 26)

Writer: Yahlin Chang | Director: Richard Shepard

Season 4, episode 8: "Testimony" (June 2)

Writer: Kira Snyder | Director: Elisabeth Moss

Season 4, episode 9: "Progress" (June 9)

Writer: Eric Tuchman & Aly Monroe | Director: Elisabeth Moss

Season 4, episode 10: "The Wilderness" (June 16)

Writer: Bruce Miller | Director: Liz Garbus

Set roughly 15 years after the first book, this sequel revolves around the testimonies of three characters, including Aunt Lydia, and two teenage girls called Agatha and Daisy.

June doesn't appear much at all in the new story, but what this sequel does reveal is that she's finally escaped Gilead after surviving multiple assassination attempts, and is now hiding out in Canada.

In this future, Gilead's regime hasn't fallen just yet, but the cracks are starting to show as the resistance grows stronger.

It's not yet clear how much of the show's fourth season will be directly influenced by The Testaments, but it's safe to say that the book's impact will be felt in the writers' room moving forward.

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