Hot of its groundbreaking Emmy celebrations as the first TV show from a streaming service to win Outstanding Drama Series, The Handmaid's Tale is ready to go all in on Season 2. Hulu has ordered an expanded second season from the acclaimed drama, which will be 13 episodes as opposed to Season 1's 10. Another big change is that Alexis Bledel has been elevated to a series regular, meaning we'll be getting a lot more of Emily/Ofglen/Ofsteven and her backstory. Helping out with the latter, the show has cast Veep's Clea DuVall as Emily's wife.
Clea DuVall has been cast in the key role of Emily's wife, Sylvia. DuVall will be a guest-star as Emily's loving wife, according to THR, as well as the co-parent of their young son. Their storyline will mostly appear in flashbacks; as the Gilead takes full control of America, Emily and Sylvia make attempts to escape to Canada, suffering obstacles and roadblocks along the way. As viewers of the show no doubt know, that doesn't end up working out for the two of them, as Emily is an increasingly worse-off Handmaid throughout Season 1, but important details about her backstory will more than likely be revealed. With more tragedy likely to come, too.
Current televisions fans will likely recognize Clea DuVall best from her role as a series regular on the multiple Emmy-winning comedy Veep. On HBO's political comedy, DuVall plays the no-nonsense Marjorie, a former member of Selena Myer's (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) secret service detail and later becomes her daughter-in-law. DuVall also recurs on AMC's Better Call Saul. Her other credits include Carnivale, Argo, and Girl, Interrupted.
We're all more than a little curious about what's in store for Emily in Season 2, since it looked like she was on her way to getting executed last we saw of her. In an attempt to escape, Emily stole a car and ran over a man before eventually being captured by guards. Seeing as how the world of Handmaid's Tale pokes one's eye out for even the littlest of infractions, it seemed like Emily's days were numbered. With Alexis Bledel now a series regular, we'll have to how exactly she got out of this one. Did she manage to get away with the resistance, or is she shoveling toxic waste in the colonies? What more can they do to this poor woman?!
Season 2 of The Handmaid's Tale is currently scheduled to premiere sometime in 2018, with no official release date yet announced. However, there's still lots of great TV to get through until 2018 and you can learn all about it with our fall TV season premiere guide. For all the TV shows and movies arriving on Hulu in November, check out our handy list here. Make sure to stick with CinemaBlend for all your TV news updates!d
