The Handmaid's Truth

When "The Handmaid’s Tale" premiered on Hulu in 2017, it was heralded as a chilling warning. But eight years later, as the dystopian drama airs its final season, showrunners Eric Tuchman and Yahlin Chang find themselves reckoning with a world that, alarmingly, has striking similarities to the fictional Gilead.

With Donald Trump back in office, reproductive rights being stripped away, and democratic norms unraveling, the themes in the series that once felt like far-off storytelling now eerily resemble real-world headlines.

In a wide-ranging conversation with Status, Tuchman and Chang reflected on the show’s prescience, how actual events have shaped the series, and the creative responsibility of telling stories about authoritarianism when democracy feels increasingly fragile. They also discussed the rise of the so-called "manosphere," the moral choices their characters make, and why—despite everything—they still believe in the power of resistance.

Below is our Q&A, lightly edited for style.

When you started “The Handmaid’s Tale” series, did you imagine the final season would air during such a dark political moment—Trump back in office, with significant democratic backsliding taking place in the U.S.?

Tuchman: No, I don’t think any of us could have predicted how closely the show would maintain its relevance and continue to reflect real events. The series has been called a cautionary tale about what can happen when power is abused and people’s rights and freedoms are stripped away. But that warning was ignored, apparently, by the majority of voters, and Roe v. Wade was overturned. Women in our country have fewer rights now than when we started production in 2016.

I came to the series late after reading the book a few years ago, and watching it now—in 2025—it is striking how much it reflects the world in which we are now living. From the attack on the U.S. Capitol airing live on television to the emboldening of ICE to assaults on LGBTQ rights, so much feels as if it were pulled from the headlines. What do you make of how unnervingly prescient the show has been?

Chang: One of Gilead’s many original sins is that the authoritarian regime separated parents from their children. Margaret Atwood wrote about that in 1984. In 2017, I wrote a scene where June got to see her daughter Hannah for 10 minutes before they were forcibly pulled apart again. For that scene, I did historical research on what happened when families were separated in conflict zones like Bosnia, Rwanda, the Congo, Cambodia, Liberia.

The week that episode aired, we were separating families along our own border. For our show, we imagine what would happen if you give absolute and unchecked power to people with no conscience or compassion. Unconscionable things have happened throughout history and will continue to happen because humans are fallible and selfish; we act out of fear, insecurity, and vengeance, and we do whatever makes us feel good in the moment, which in our show means exerting power over other people, stripping them of their rights, hurting them.

But we can also arc towards the light, like our characters who end up fighting for people who can’t fight for themselves. To arc towards the light or the dark is a choice each of us makes every day. Ultimately, in the “Handmaid’s Tale,” our main characters do make the right choices. They fight against tyranny and they are rewarded with big, meaningful victories. That is the hope and the inspiration we are driving towards in this final season.

How does this new political reality shape the way you approached the final season? Did the scripts evolve alongside real-world headlines?

Tuchman: When we break our stories, we never set out to make a political statement or write the show in response to headlines. We focus on the emotional truth of the characters and try to be authentic about how they navigate life in an oppressive regime. The fact that their struggles on the show can sometimes feel eerily relevant to the real world is the result of us trying to write honestly about power, resistance, and how fragile our democracy and freedom are.

Has the rise of the manosphere, particularly through online extremist figures like Andrew Tate, influenced how you portray male power in the show?

Chang: You know, it’s funny (funny tragic, not funny haha) how as a television writer all you care about while making up your stories is that people will believe what you’re writing—that when they watch it on TV that it will feel real and not made up, that it will effectively transport the viewer into a new reality that feels just as real or more real than their actual reality. Toxic male behavior is so baked into Margaret’s novel—in addition to being a fact of life for centuries—that we never even once had to talk about Andrew Tate or the manosphere in the writer’s room. We just wrote what we knew could be the end result of extreme toxic masculinity and then these other things came along to make it feel even more real than what we imagined. And in a way, that’s what has happened with this show all along.

What are the creative responsibilities of a show like "The Handmaid’s Tale” in a moment when the dystopia it depicts no longer feels as far-fetched?

Tuchman: Our responsibility as storytellers is to be thoughtful and truthful about our characters and their choices, and to create situations for them that feel real and relatable. We’re asking our audience to spend their precious time with us, so our stories need to be emotional, engaging, moving. If we keep our stories honest and grounded, hopefully they’ll connect and resonate with what people are feeling and experiencing in their own lives.

Obviously, while there are similarities, the U.S. as it stands now is not Gilead. But do you worry that the country might be on that path? I think one of the chilling aspects of the show is how it shows how democratic backsliding can happen so quickly.

Chang: It is chilling. It’s also true—democracies backslide and fail all the time. Seventy percent of the world’s population lives in an autocracy. In our show, America as we know it was just this exceptional, temporary, extremely fragile experiment. Living in the world of Gilead imaginatively for this many years, I’m actually shocked that American democracy has lasted for so long. Many people say that democracy is a very unnatural form of government. It will continue to survive only if we all think hard about whether we want to live in a democracy and are willing to fight for it.

What do you want the audience to feel when the final credits roll and the series wraps?

Tuchman: The stories on the show have sometimes been dark and bleak, but I think the heart of “The Handmaid’s Tale” is a story of hope, courage, and resilience. It’s a survival story. June Osborn started the series as an ordinary woman and evolved into an extraordinary leader. She’s flawed and she’s made mistakes, but she’s a genuine hero who never gives up and never stops fighting for justice and freedom. I hope people feel inspired and empowered by her journey.

• Gross! Bill Maher opted to be a willing participant in Donald Trump's propaganda stunt, praising the autocratic wannabe as "gracious and measured" and lauding him for the "generous amount of time" spent. [Deadline]

  • Maher got awfully defensive when The WaPo's Josh Rogin pointed out he had "played the game of proximity is principle" and was effectively a "prop in [Trump's] PR stunt." [Mediaite]

• ICYMI: Status filed a notice asking the New York Supreme Court not to seal a trove of documents that will soon be filed in Smartmatic’s $2.7 billion defamation case against Fox News. [Status]

  • The raw documents: You can view our court filing here.

• While the U.S. announced a tariff pause on electronics produced in China, Trump threw that into question Sunday when he declared, “There was no tariff ‘exception.’” One can only imagine what is going through Tim Cook’s head right about now! [Daily Beast]

• But it’s not all sunshine and rainbows in Silicon Valley. Meta will head to trial this week, facing off against Trump's Federal Trade Commission over its acquisition of Instagram and WhatsApp. [The Verge]

  • Ahead of the trial, Meta added Dina Powell McCormick and Patrick Collison to its board. [Axios]

• David Zaslav's pay package at Warner Bros. Discovery was revealed to have risen to $52 million in 2024—an eye-popping figure getting a lot of attention internally as his company cuts costs to the bone. [LAT]

  • Meanwhile, WBD said in an SEC filing that John Malone will step down from the company's board of directors. [Deadline]

• Bernie Sanders made a surprise appearance at Coachella, using the opportunity to blast Trump and Elon Musk. [THR]

  • At the music festival, "Green Day" altered the lyrics of "Jesus of Suburbia" to support Palestine. [Variety]

• "Saturday Night Live" cold opened ripping Trump for his disastrous tariffs. [YouTube]

  • But the real star of the show was this "White Lotus" parody starring the Trump family. [YouTube]

  • That said, the spoof was unkind to "White Lotus" star Aimee Lou Wood. She later said that "SNL" apologized to her for the "mean and unfunny" parody. [THR]

• Jason Isaacs addressed all the rumors of "White Lotus" cast infighting by telling people it's "none of your business." [Variety]

• "The Pitt" creator R. Scott Gemmill teased season two, saying it will take place over the Fourth of July weekend, picking up about 10 months after season one. That will allow Dr. Frank Langdon to have attended rehab, with the new season beginning on his first day back in the emergency room. [TV Line]

• Apple TV+ canceled "Mythic Quest" after its fourth season. The series will now air a new finale episode with a different ending to put a bow on things. [The Wrap]

• Who is happier with these numbers, David Zaslav or Pamela Abdy and Michael De Luca? “A Minecraft Movie” crushed it in its second weekend, hauling home $80.6 million at the domestic box office.

  • The Warner Bros. film has now printed $550 million in global receipts!

• Placing No. 2 at the domestic box office was “The King of Kings,” with $19 million.

• “The Amateur,” the well-promoted spy-thriller starring Rami Malek, earned $15 million.

• Elsewhere, “Warfare” snagged $8.3 million, “Drop” $7.5 million, “The Chosen: Last Super Part 3” $5.8 million, “A Working Man” $3 million, and “Snow White” $2.8 million.

  [Data via Box Office Mojo]