Atwood

But for “Handmaid’s” creator Bruce Miller and star Elisabeth Moss, who also directed several episodes in the final season, the series, based on the 1985 book by Margaret Atwood, was never about what the women wore.

And fans of the series know the action will pick up 15 years later when “The Testaments,” based on a 2019 sequel by Atwood and now in production, begins airing.

An emotional cliffhanger tied to logistics — a spin-off sequel titled “The Testaments,” based on the novel written by “The Handmaid’s Tale” author Margaret Atwood, in the aftermath of the show’s success, will launch later this year and focus on June’s daughter, who was renamed Agnes by her new family, and the other young women of Gilead.

Like the 1985 Margaret Atwood novel it’s based on, “The Handmaid’s Tale” provided a startling and harrowing look at what can happen when unchecked power and a totalitarian mindset, combined with religious extremism and social engineering designed to strip women of their autonomy, become codified.

There’s that Margaret Atwood quote that defines the whole show that we use, which is, “Nothing changes instantaneously. In a gradually heating bathtub, you’d be boiled to death before you know it.”