The Handmaid’s Tale: deepest dystopia

Pick of the day: The Handmaid’s Tale, 8.35pm, SBS.

Alexis Bledel in season two of The Handmaid's Tale, returning to SBS.

Pick of the day: The Handmaid’s Tale, 8.35pm, SBS.

The dark, dystopian series The Handmaid’s Tale returns tonight with its second season, continuing the portrayal of abject female subjugation in the fictional state of Gilead, but now overtaking the narrative in Margaret Atwood’s book of the same name.

As such, many fans and critics wondered whether it would shift in tone or focus, or continue to be as good as the first season, which swept last year’s Emmy Awards and picked up a couple of Golden Globe gongs to boot.

The answer is: it’s every bit as good, affecting and bleak as season one.

Showrunner Bruce Miller, whose past credits include sci-fi dramas The 100 and Alphas, said recently that Atwood was involved at all stages of production, including the writers’ room. “We’re always trying to make sure the ‘Atwoodness’ of the show stays front and centre. Even though we’re going beyond the story that’s covered in the book, in some ways we’re still very much in the world of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale,” he told The Hollywood Reporter.

Miller acknowledged the political resonance of the show, but cautioned against drawing excessive parallels with the Trump administration in the US.

But he held no such reservations in endorsing the show’s salience to the current cultural reckoning with sexual harassment, assault and rape by the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements.

“Inevitably, when you do a show where one of the big aspects is a very, very sharp divide between the role of men and women and the power structure, you can’t help but be pushing up against the same thoughts and ideas that are going on behind this movement,” he said.

This season — which could be followed by another eight, according to Miller — Oscar winner Marisa Tomei joins the cast, which also includes Elisabeth Moss, Joseph Fiennes, Yvonne Strahovski, Ann Dowd and Alexis Bledel.