Step into the dark future of The Handmaid’s Tale. Season 2 starts this month and everyone’s already talking about it. Not seen the first season? Here’s your quick catch-up...

The Handmaid’s Tale season 1

One of 2017’s biggest dramas, this visceral vision of a repressive future caused quite a stir when it aired last year. Based on Margaret Atwood’s bestselling and critically acclaimed novel, the ten-part series is set in the dystopian Republic of Gilead, a nightmarish totalitarian society in what used to be the USA.

We say “used to be” because America has undergone a few, ahem, changes in this sinister show. With the environment a mess and only a handful of women able to reproduce, Gilead’s fundamentalist regime has decreed that its fertile women must give birth in order to boost the waning population. These are the Handmaids. If they fail to do this, a terrible fate awaits them…

One such woman is Offred (Mad Men’s Elisabeth Moss), Handmaid to her Commander (Shakespeare In Love’s Joseph Fiennes) and his household. In this cruel and unforgiving new world her chances of survival are constantly on a knife-edge, but Offred must play the long game if she wants to find the daughter who was snatched from her when society was turned so drastically on its head.

Featuring a stellar supporting cast that includes Samira Wiley (Orange Is The New Black) and Max Minghella (The Social Network), The Handmaid’s Tale wowed critics and viewers alike last year. Right, now you’re ready to join the conversation about season 2 (or to track down season 1 and get watching, of course)...