Rather than releasing an entire season all at once, like Netflix does with its original series, Hulu will pursue a more traditional release schedule for its new adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale. On April 26, the first three episodes of The Handmaid’s Tale will premiere on Hulu, with subsequent episodes every Wednesday.
Piracy aside, you’re stuck with Hulu for The Handmaid’s Tale premiere. But if you’ve never subscribed to Hulu before, you can get a month-long free trial, which is enough wiggle room to catch the first six of ten episodes in The Handmaid’s Tale Season 1. After that, you’re stuck with either Hulu’s $7.99 per month plan with commercials or the no commercial version at $11.99 a month.
The Handmaid’s Tale is about the totalitarian society of Gilead, formed after Christian conservatives machine-gunned Congress and instituted their military-backed vision of “traditional values.” In their society women aren’t allowed literacy or freedom, subordinating even their names to the patriarchy (Elisabeth Moss plays Offred, or “Of Fred”). Environmental pollution has decimated birthrights, making fertile women a prized commodity assigned to aristocratic households, where they’re expected to produce children for the patriarch.
Nevertheless Hulu has been hesitant to make explicit The Handmaid’s Tale’s dystopia’s obvious origin points in American conservatism, going so far as to deny the series is “feminist.”
But some cast members have been less shy weaponizing The Handmaid’s Tale in the face of the misogynistic and xenophobic political order preferred by Republicans. Series actor Ann Dowd told a Tribeca Film Festival Q&A “I hope it has a massive effect” on public perception of Donald Trump. “I hope they picket the White House wearing these costumes.”
Executive Producer Warren Littlefield agreed. “Do something,” he said. “That’s the message we want to carry to the world outside.”
But if your version of “do something” is watching The Handmaid’s Tale, you’re going to have to pony up that Hulu subscription fee (or steal it and give the money to Planned Parenthood).
