The Handmaid’s Tale burst onto screens with unfortunately perfect timing. Filming started right as election season in the States began, and the show premiered this April — right after Theresa May called for her June 8 election. The hatred-based politics from May and Trump have brought the show close to home for thousands of viewer. With exclusionary messages and plans being promoted by influential politicians, the show’s dystopia seems shockingly plausible.

The Handmaid’s Taleis based off Margaret Atwood’s 1985 dystopian novel, set in the totalitarian society of Gilead (the former USA). Due to the immense environmental disasters and chemical pollution that the world has faced, the birth rate has plummeted so that those that can have children are far and few between. The wealthy, religious rulers of Gilead attempt to repopulate their country by forcing fertile woman to become handmaids — essentially, to live a life as a sex slave.

The show centers around Offred, played by the hugely talented Elizabeth Moss, though the rest of the cast is equally as valuable, with stunning performances by actors such as Samira Wiley (Moira), Alexis Bledel (Ofglen/Ofsteven), and even Joseph Fiennes as the terrible, slimy Commander Waterford.

The Handmaid’s Tale defies the usual conventions of a dystopia. Rather than a city with crumbling streets and dense smog, Gilead is unnervingly pristine, and includes many of the trappings of ordinary life that we see today. Drivers patrol the city in polished, black Mercedes-Benz SUV's; the environment is cleaner than it has been in years; the walls are washed spotless. The setting is just familiar enough to be absolutely bone-chilling — a reminder that the totalitarian terror of Gilead isn’t that far away from what could happen at home.

While this ‘It Could Happen to Me’ fear is what makes the show so powerful, it also proves problematic. The show takes the horrors of American slavery and hands them over to white characters to experience. The show has definitely made efforts to steer away from appropriation, but the problem persists. In sexist and homophobic Gilead, race is ignored. Race as a non-issue seems highly unlikely, given the deep-rooted history of racial discrimination in the country and the bigoted leaders of Gilead. None of the characters seem to notice the comparisons between American slavery and the servitude that the women are forced into. Hopefully, the second season will put in a heavy effort to include more perspective on this issue.

The second season is uncharted territory. The first season of the show adhered pretty closely to Atwood’s novel, but the final episode took a turn, leaving the viewer with an ending not found in the book (and one far more satisfying, to be honest). The next 10-episode season will be leaving the tracks of Atwood’s work. In a conversation with the Hollywood Reporter about the upcoming season, Moss said,
“We know the book well and there's so much stuff that we haven't done from it. There are so many lines from the book we haven't said in the voice over and so many things we haven't explored, like The Colonies and things like that. That's something we actually feel very excited about because there's so much more to mine from the book. There's also a sense that it's so great to have the author to speak to. I'm sure Bruce [the showrunner for Handmaid's Tale] is doing this, but you can run things by her to see if they make sense. She has been so incredibly supportive and she is even more enthusiastic about taking it in new directions and trying new things. It's exciting for her as well, I'd imagine.”

With luck, The Handmaid’s Talewill be able to dig into even more relevant issues while maintaining the superb acting, cinematography, and writing that made the first season such a (terrifying) success.