Hulu’s The Testaments pulls inspiration from Margaret Atwood‘s book — but what significant changes did The Handmaid’s Tale spinoff make?
Based on Atwood’s novel of the same name, The Handmaid’s Tale, which aired from 2017 to 2025, takes place in a dystopian future where low fertility rates lead women to be assigned to men for the purpose of bearing children.
The Hulu show took inspiration from Atwood’s source material before expanding with The Testaments. Set 15 years later — in the book at least — the follow-up is narrated by Ann Dowd‘s Aunt Lydia as viewers are thrust back into the dystopian future with characters such as Agnes from Gilead and Daisy from Canada. Together, they secretly gather and smuggle incriminating information about Gilead’s regime out of the country. Agnes and Daisy pose as “Pearl Girls” to infiltrate Canada, while Aunt Lydia acts as a covert source within Gilead.
“Although I could not continue with the story of Offred, I could continue with three other people concerned in these events and tell the story of the beginning of the end, because we know from The Handmaid’s Tale that Gilead vanishes,” Atwood told journalists at an event in 2019. “It’s no longer present 200 years into the future, because they’re having a symposium on it. How did it collapse? How do these kinds of regimes disappear? I was interested in exploring that.”
She continued: “There [are] some new costume choices in this book. Human beings throughout time love outfits that tell you who you’re looking at, like football teams and things like that. So yes, we have some new outfits.”
When The Testaments premiered in April 2026, creator Bruce Miller explained what they pulled from the page — and what they didn’t.
“I’m trying to not necessarily take things in the order they happen in the book, but to take the big central elements and move them into a timeline that makes as much sense as we can,” Miller told The Hollywood Reporter. “We’re definitely trying to follow the overall story of the book, but the ins and outs of the actual storyline are difficult because characters are different ages, and we had to redefine the Daisy character to keep things practical in our world.”
Miller also wanted to expand in certain areas.
“With Handmaid’s, there was always stuff to mine. All the way up to the last season, we were mining pieces. A lot of these things are mentioned in the book very vaguely, and we said, ‘Oh, let’s take that seed and let it bloom,’” he continued. “But this is Margaret’s world, and that’s the resource that we should be going to. She’s a very solid storyteller, so if we’re going to do something different than what Margaret did, we need a reason. I’m trying to [adapt] as much as I can because I think it worked in the book for a reason, not because I have general fealty to the book.”
Keep scrolling to see the biggest differences between the show and book:
The Difference in a Time Jump
While Atwood’s book picked up 15 years later, the spinoff show is set four years after the events of The Handmaid’s Tale series finale.
Daisy’s True Identity
Atwood’s version of The Testaments introduced Daisy as the name given to Nichole a.k.a June (Elisabeth Moss) and Nick’s (Max Minghella) daughter who went by Holly by the end of The Handmaid’s Tale.
Daisy is not Holly in the TV show — largely because of the time jump.
Lydia’s Backstory Being Explored
Ann Dowd teased before The Testaments premiered that Lydia would be a school teacher in the TV world while the book revealed she was a family court judge.
The General Timeline
Creator Bruce Miller confirmed that The Testaments’ debut season will cover that first section of Atwood’s novel. Since The Handmaid’s Tale ran for six seasons based on one book, The Testaments will likely take liberties as well if it finds success on Hulu.
