The Handmaid’s Tale Continues in Defiant First Teaser for Season Two

The Handmaid’s Tale returns this April, and the second season of Hulu’s Emmy-winning juggernaut of a dystopian drama has received its resistance-inspiring first teaser.

When last we left Offred (Elisabeth Moss), she was being driven off in a black van, her fate (and the fate of her unborn child) hanging in the balance. Hulu describes season two as “shaped by Offred’s pregnancy and her ongoing fight to free her future child from the dystopian horrors of Gilead,” during which “Offred and all our characters will fight against—or succumb to—[a] dark truth”: As Aunt Lydia likes to say, “Gilead is within you.”

Today’s teaser consists mostly of Offred verbally going through the motions, laying down the laws of Gilead to which she is subjected as a handmaid—a dehumanized vessel used by the rich ruling class in order to reproduce. “Wear the red dress,” she says. “Wear the wings. Shut your mouth. Be a good girl. Roll over and spread your legs. Yes, ma’am. May the Lord open.” The clip ends with Offred asking the question on everyone’s lips nowadays: “Seriously? What the actual f—?”

It’s certainly no coincidence that The Handmaid’s Tale’s new teaser debuts today, on International Women’s Day. Hulu shared the video on Twitter, writing, “We may be in hell, but we are still the fury” and including the hashtag #ResistSister. Not only is The Handmaid’s Tale an artful and compelling adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s eponymous novel, but it’s also become an essential part of the discourse—or, as star Yvonne Strahovski has put it, “a symbol of resistance”—in our current political era, in terms of both the Trump administration’s authoritarian tendencies and its opposition to the #MeToo movement.

The Handmaid’s Tale returns to Hulu on April 25. Watch the first teaser below.