New Delhi, April 8 -- Throughout the six-season run of "The Handmaid's Tale," dread hung over the series like a perpetual rain cloud. It made sense because the U.S. had turned into a totalitarian society called Gilead where women were stripped of their rights. In "The Testaments," debuting Wednesday on Hulu, Gilead is still Gilead - but there are glimmers of hope as a through-line.

Like its predecessor, "The Testaments" is based on a novel by Margaret Atwood of the same name. It takes place five years after the events of "The Handmaid's Tale," and follows privileged girls in Gilead who are on the cusp of adulthood. Viewers are reintroduced to Aunt Lydia (Ann Dowd) from the original, who now runs a school training girls to be proper young...