The Handmaid’s Tale is coming back with a fourth season on Hulu that has already been delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic, and this week brought news that there will also be a Season 5. But apparently that’s a whole lot more clear than what actually will happen to the characters on the show and the fraught fictional world they inhabit.
Showrunner and creator Bruce Miller told The Hollywood Reporter on the heels of Hulu’s announcement of a fifth season of the show that getting back to filming amid the pandemic, though things are decidedly different. Miller said the script has changed, and the scope of what the show can do with filming along with other factors has impacted what will actually happen on the show.
“We’re still shooting, kind of in the middle of the season,” says Miller. “We planned out the whole season, started filming, and then had to stop … everything from locations, to number of people in scenes, to traveling actors, all that stuff had a huge impact on our story, just because it has to, and honestly, we’re in a situation where we have to make do with what we can get our hands on. In the end, it was surmountable, and I think we’re making an excellent show, and I’m really proud of what we’re doing, but it was hard, and it continues to be hard.”
Though Miller did not commit to whether this would be the end of the show after Season 5, he did admit he had “very different ideas before the pandemic” and the show would likely “reassess” where it’s headed after Season 4 is done. Which also means, well, he doesn’t know what’s going to happen to Gilead and June and the rest of the characters. Which is why he wouldn’t recommend thinking too much about it yourselves while you wait.
“I know where I am in the story, and I do feel like we’re kind of reaching kind of a pivot point, but whether that’s the end or not, I don’t know,” Miller tells The Hollywood Reporter in an exclusive first interview about the season five renewal. “It just feels like it’s a good time to reassess what you were thinking, just because the story world has opened up because the real world has changed so much.”
Miller said “don’t try to guess at all” when it comes to even what the show’s fourth season will hold, and the full interview has lots of details about Elizabeth Moss directing three episodes and just how different the show will look after the great escape the final episode of Season 3 gave fans. Things are certainly changing in the fictional world Miller has built for TV, and it seems even those in charge of it aren’t sure where things will go next.
[via THR]