The Gripping Full Trailer for 'The Handmaid's Tale' Season Five Teases a Bloody Reckoning

Blessed be your streaming queue: come mid-September, it'll start being home to the fifth season of The Handmaid's Tale. It's the batch of episodes we've all known is coming since 2020, when the hit dystopian series was renewed for this fifth season before the fourth even hit. And, thanks to that fourth season, it promises one helluva reckoning.

Saying that anything to do with The Handmaid's Tale is stressful is like saying that Gilead looks like a terrible place to live. Praise be the obvious again and again. Still, if you want to call the show's sneak peeks at its upcoming fifth season tense, disquieting and unsettling, all of those words fit. Hulu, which airs the series in the US, has just dropped the full trailer for season five — and, unsurprisingly, nothing is well. If you're up to date on the series you'll already know why.

Of course, things are never well in The Handmaid's Tale — but now June (Elisabeth Moss, Shining Girls) faces the fallout from her actions in the show's last go-around, and Serena's (Yvonne Strahovski, Stateless) in-mourning getup speaks volumes. In the new trailer, June doesn't just navigate more than a few consequences. Still fighting Gilead from afar, with Luke (O-T Fagbenle, Black Widow) and Moira (Samira Wiley, Breaking News in Yuba County), she admits how much she enjoyed her most recent choices.

As for Serena, she's in profile-raising mode in Toronto, as Gilead's influence creeps into Canada — and Commander Lawrence (Bradley Whitford, Tick, Tick... Boom!) and Aunt Lydia (Ann Dowd, Rebecca) are endeavouring to reform Gilead.

Also returning among the cast: Max Minghella (Spiral: From the Book of Saw), Madeline Brewer (Hustlers), Amanda Brugel (Snowpiercer) and Sam Jaeger (The Eyes of Tammy Faye).

With all of the above, blessed be the bleak dramas, too, which is exactly what The Handmaid's Tale has been serving up since 2017 now. Of course, on the page, this grim look at a potential oppressive existence has been drawing in fans since the 1985, when Margaret Atwood's book first hit shelves. A film followed in 1990, and opera in 2000 — plus a sequel novel in 2019.

Yes, there have been many ways to dive into The Handmaid's Tale over the years, but only one keeps winning small-screen awards and stars a phenomenal Moss.

The date to mark in your diary: Thursday, September 15, given that the show will return in the US on September 14. Down Under, episodes air weekly on SBS in Australia, and stream via SBS On Demand — and hit Neon in New Zealand — at the same time as in America.

Check out the trailer for The Handmaid's Tale season five below:

The fifth season of The Handmaid's Tale will hit start airing in Australia and New Zealand from Thursday, September 15 — on SBS TV, and to stream via SBS On Demand and Neon, with new episodes arriving weekly.