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CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
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Positive:
97
Mixed:
20
Negative:
2
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Critic Reviews
UPROXXApr 23, 2018
Season 2 Review:
The new episodes deftly explore what happens next for June and everyone else in a way that feels true to the source material, while also feeling a bit looser and more sure of itself now that the story is wholly the series’ own. ... In many ways it was even better than The Handmaid's Tale's already impressive debut season.
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Apr 20, 2018
Season 2 Review:
This is not only an important show, one that gets into your head as few TV series can, it is also pretty much a masterpiece. ... Once again, the performances are astounding. And once again, the most astounding is Emmy winner Moss. ... The rest of the cast is extraordinary.
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Apr 18, 2018
Season 2 Review:
For those fascinated by how a society such as ours can devolve relatively quickly into a misogynist nightmare, and by how fragile our moral balance is, there’s nothing better out there, even the miraculous “Dark Mirror.” And The Handmaid’s Tale isn’t intriguing on a conceptual level only; it’s a deeply personal story about a few women who’ve been abducted. ... TV storytelling at its boldest.
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Apr 16, 2018
Season 2 Review:
The Handmaid’s Tale is just as brutal, visually pointed, and brilliantly acted as it was in season one. ... The former Mad Men star must wear an even wider variety of masks this season, and she takes them on and off with such controlled ease that it is sometimes staggering. ... She’s surrounded by equally convincing actors.
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Apr 26, 2017
Season 1 Review:
Atwood's spare narrative is haunting in the horrors it only hints at. The Hulu adaptation is 10 episodes (and judging from the gripping first three, hopefully there will be many more). The narrative is more fully fleshed out, and obviously more visceral, but it still leaves a lot to the imagination.
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Apr 26, 2017
Season 1 Review:
Moss’s performance is perfect: at once contained and open, withdrawn and bristlingly aware. ... The Handmaid’s Tale can stand on its own as a gripping drama; you don’t need to apply overlays about Trump-era conservatism or, say, parallels to the Duggar family to find its portrait of a women under duress moving.
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Apr 25, 2017
Season 1 Review:
It’s an astounding work of television, with a distinct visual palette that makes it seem as instantly authoritative as the book. ... Strahovski’s performance is as sharp and as unpredictable as Moss’s, and together the two actors expertly mine the gender dynamics of Atwood’s book.
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Apr 24, 2017UPROXXApr 24, 2017
Season 1 Review:
It’s a stunning performance by Moss. ... The more we get to know Ofglen, the harder Bledel’s performance hits, until a pair of scenes late in the third episode will leave you a puddle on the floor from what she does in them. The cast is excellent overall, particularly Dowd and Strahovski. ... Riveting new drama.
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Apr 21, 2017
ColliderApr 20, 2017
Season 1 Review:
The series is gorgeously directed, which in its own way acts as another juxtaposition to the horrors witnessed (rape, group murder, police brutality, genital mutilation, public hangings), allowing Handmaid to show the visual disconnect between the artificial world of peace that Gilead has created versus its sick reality. ... But all eyes should be trained on Moss, who again knocks it out of the park as a woman who must be meek in order to survive, but whose inner self is screaming to be released.
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Apr 13, 2017
Season 1 Review:
A faithful adaptation of the book that also brings new layers to Atwood’s totalitarian, sexist world of forced surrogate motherhood, this series is meticulously paced, brutal, visually stunning, and so suspenseful from moment to moment that only at the end of each hour will you feel fully at liberty to exhale.
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Apr 13, 2017
Season 1 Review:
As a show, The Handmaid's Tale is as crisply and elegantly made as anything I've seen on TV this year. It manages to bring a dystopian story to life in a way that works as episodic TV, sapping none of the book's power. This is a show that could work anytime and one that will likely be watched and discussed for years to come.
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Apr 3, 2025
Season 6 Review:
This season builds at a much more engaging pace than the past few ones. There is a sense of purpose and urgency that was especially missing last season, as well as a very cinematic execution, from Adam Taylor’s inspiring score and some effective Radiohead needle drops to the show’s signature framings of expressive faces. The jury is still obviously out on the last two installments, but this final bow sure feels like a triumphant comeback.
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Apr 16, 2018
Season 2 Review:
As a cautionary tale, Handmaid’s is never moralizing or hysterical, instead constructing a pervasive mood of dread through quiet, deliberate storytelling. Uncomfortable images linger--the camera watches, unflinchingly, for a full minute as a character performs a bloody act of self-mutilation in the premiere--and some of the most powerful scenes have no dialogue, yet swell with intense emotion: fear, hope, despair, desire.
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Apr 13, 2017
Season 1 Review:
[Elisabeth Moss'] take-and the show’s take--on the character is a distinct blend of what Atwood once identified as the main thrust of Canadian literature (survival) and a gumption most closely associated with the country Offred once called America. This can cause some tonal clash in the voice-over--the mission statement that closes episode one feels like it belongs in a different show--but it also gives The Handmaid’s Tale the necessary verve for an ongoing series.
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Apr 13, 2017
Season 1 Review:
Moss’ barely-restrained fury over her new lot in life is gorgeous to behold--the other characters are equally compelling. And when we see moments that Offred simply cannot (one book diversion pertaining to Bledel’s handmaid character, Ofglen, comes to mind), that story amplification pays off.
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Apr 23, 2018
Season 2 Review:
The new season of The Handmaid's Tale takes special delight in allowing bubbles of hope to surface in this opaque, sorrowful mire, only to submerge them before they can break open. Taken in large doses this makes for tough, wearying viewing. It’s also worth every moment of discomfort it dishes out. For now, we can take it.
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Apr 26, 2017
Season 1 Review:
Through careful direction and precise writing shaped by showrunner Bruce Miller, this is a drama that is remarkable in its ability to horrify while maintaining a delicate air. As threatening and oppressive as the world of Gilead is, the series has an energetic stamina about it that prevents the story from sinking under the weight of despondency.
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Apr 21, 2017
Season 1 Review:
Three episodes in, it looks like Hulu's best original yet. ... Offred's will to survive, and to somehow reclaim her stolen daughter, drives a narrative that might otherwise feel hopeless and that makes The Handmaid's Tale what every serialized show should be: a page-turner.
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TV Guide MagazineApr 13, 2017
Season 1 Review:
There's a solemn fascination in the details of soulless ritual depicted in the Handmaid's Tale ... A deadlier game of rebellion seems to be brewing, promising thrilling twists to come in this already terrific Tale. [17-30 Apr 2017, p.18]
Apr 8, 2025
Season 6 Review:
The story they’ve [showrunners Yahlin Chang and Eric Tuchman] opted for isn’t hope exactly, but more wish-fulfillment. If you are a progressive who has sat through too many awkward Thanksgiving dinners with conservative relatives or who cackles at every post in the Leopards Ate My Face subreddit, then has Hulu got a show for you.
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Apr 28, 2017
Season 1 Review:
Moss is stellar in the role, perfectly able to convey simultaneous resistance and forced acceptance of the bleak social structure. It's in the show's writing, though, that the true genius lies. There's not a single dull moment the whole series. Even when it starts to feel a little too close to home, it's impossible to look away.
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IndieWireApr 18, 2018
Apr 23, 2021
Season 4 Review:
As the fourth season moves along, so do plot similarities to past seasons and repetitions. Captures happen. Tortures happen. People die; sometimes because of June and sometimes not. ... Moss, with her stiff upper lip and watery blue eyes, is still one of the finest actresses this side of Meryl Streep. ... There’s an excellent subplot regarding Rita (Amanda Brugel). ... It also works when Handmaid’s Tale pokes fun at itself.
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Apr 8, 2025
Season 6 Review:
Like its first season, the drama’s sixth one arrives designed to meet this moment, showing us the risks that must be taken, again and again, to dismantle an out-of-control, overreaching power structure. It can’t happen overnight. .... This may not necessarily make you emotionally eager to watch these final episodes, but it does make this season as attuned to where we are in 2025 as the first was to the Zeitgeist in 2017.
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ColliderApr 3, 2025
Season 6 Review:
The episodes are a little uneven, with some lag in the beginning as well as moments of needless exposition. Overall, the series still concludes with a well-written, incisive outing that reminds us why it has long been necessary in our era, and why it remains more necessary than ever.
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TV Guide MagazineMay 6, 2021
Season 4 Review:
Grueling and gripping. [10-23 May 2021, p.9]
TV Guide MagazineApr 26, 2018
Season 2 Review:
Silence speaks volumes as June withstands the psychological abuse of the fearsome Aunnt Lydis (ann Dowd) and endures domestic tension. [30 Apr - 13 May 2018, p.13]
Apr 25, 2018
Season 2 Review:
Dowd’s performance is absolutely essential to keeping this show from tipping over into excessive self-seriousness. You’ll notice that whenever Handmaid’s Tale shifts away from Lydia and Offred, and back to the Canadian border and the subplot involving Offred’s husband, Luke (O.T. Fagbenle), and Moira (Samira Wiley), the show becomes deadly drab and dull.
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Apr 23, 2018
Season 2 Review:
It’s become a confident, emotionally rich series--but one that, by nature and obligation, is wrenching to watch. ... Often, though, The Handmaid’s Tale feels so determined not to be misread, to treat its subject with gravity, that its storytelling is heavy-handed and its peripheral characters stiff. Fortunately, the central performance is anything but. ... Without someone as expressive as Ms. Moss, The Handmaid’s Tale might not pull off its balancing acts.
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Apr 16, 2018
Season 2 Review:
In addition to being dark, the first six episodes of the new season are very, very good, something nobody could have taken for granted with Miller and company moving farther and farther from Atwood's source material (and with Morano too busy with a burgeoning feature career to return behind the camera this time around). With Moss again leading the way, The Handmaid's Tale continues to thrive in many of the same emotional, yet soaringly beautiful, ways it succeeded last year--though several key flaws remain unimproved and are sometimes even exacerbated because everything else around them is so good.
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ColliderApr 16, 2018
Apr 21, 2017
Season 1 Review:
Yet for all the horror of the show, I did not find watching it to be an entirely hopeless experience. The miniseries does not come with the novel’s stress-relieving framing device but Offred, with her sardonic asides, her sense of humor, the disobedience in her soul, if not her manner, is bracing company: She’s in this to survive.
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IndieWireApr 28, 2021
Season 4 Review:
The first three episodes of Season 4’s back half are not outstanding, though No. 8 is pretty damn close. They’re just good — they do what needs to be done, they do it well, and they don’t waste any time (well, they don’t waste as much time). June’s evolution pushes the series beyond the traumatic horrors of past seasons and into unsettling antihero territory. Eventually, Season 4 delivers on delayed payoffs and does so with as much urgency and, dare I say, joyous gratification as one can expect from this show.
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IndieWireMay 29, 2019
Season 3 Review:
Moss’ stalwart turn is more than enough to keep viewers’ rooted in June’s struggle. The set design, costumes, lighting, and more formal elements also burst with life, guiding the eye wherever it needs to be and providing a more active experience than the scripts would by themselves. Even with all these valuable attributes, “The Handmaid’s Tale” bites off more than it wants to chew.
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Apr 19, 2018
Season 2 Review:
The Handmaid's Tale remains intellectually nourishing, easy to admire, and difficult to endure. It's a beautiful test of stamina, offering only small reprieves from June's suffering. It embeds us alongside her, and remains dedicated to illustrating how exactly the villains can win.
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Apr 16, 2018
Season 2 Review:
Expanding Handmaid's into a multi-season TV series from a single novel by Margaret Atwood was always going to be tricky, and to maintain the core of the series as it moves beyond the book's roadmap, its characters have to suffer. Still, there's only so much trauma audiences can take before it becomes too much. Handmaid's would do well with a lighter touch.
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Apr 16, 2018
Season 2 Review:
Moss is the putative star of this vehicle, but Bledel is going to give her a run for her money. ... Increasing the episode count from 10 to 13 seems to have encouraged the writers to slow down the storyline and, worse, pad out each hour with flashbacks. There are too many of them. Some scenes of Moss waiting in limbo feel just like that. Waiting.
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Apr 8, 2025
Season 6 Review:
Taken on its own merits, there are definitely interesting story prospects for the final season of The Handmaid’s Tale. .... While it might be cathartic to watch June, Moira and others try to bring the government down, the show now might be too close to reality for our comfort.
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Sep 14, 2022
Season 5 Review:
The Hulu series obviously hasn’t lost any of its relevance, and indeed, some of its themes resonate in a more pointed manner. Yet while this season continues the grinding march toward the end of June’s story, it reinforces a sense that despite the promise of a conclusion that lies ahead, the show’s best days are behind it.
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Sep 8, 2022
Season 5 Review:
“Handmaid’s” is in a new, fascinating era, one that’s at its best when it’s unbounded from current events. Attempts, for instance, to tie the world of Gilead to the new American tradition of child-parent separations at the border are understandable in their intent but fall short. ... The show, in its fifth season, excels when it treats its situations as symbolic and its characters as real.
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The Daily BeastApr 28, 2021
Jun 4, 2019
Apr 24, 2018
Season 2 Review:
In season two, The Handmaid’s Tale continues to be an angry, searing piece of work. When it forces you to hold its infuriated gaze, it makes it clear that your inability to do so for long is exactly the point. But as it continues to broaden its world, the show needs to find a way to get more comfortable with the perspectives that make it most uncomfortable, or risk losing itself in its own myopic tragedy.
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May 16, 2017
Season 1 Review:
The icky, idiosyncratic force of Morano’s early episodes dims slightly, as the show hints at a more conventional path: “Escape from Gilead.” Maybe this move is inevitable; it might succeed. But there’s something lost along the way--the special beauty of a bleak ending.
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Apr 20, 2017
Season 1 Review:
Tale is paced maddeningly slowly (the result of taking 10 hourlong episodes to adapt a novel that was made into a single feature film in 1990) and too often belabors its most dramatic and intense moments. Even so, those moments are frequently powerful, thanks to Moss’ mesmerizing performance and a concept that is both timely and frighteningly timeless.
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ColliderSep 9, 2022
Season 5 Review:
All in all, Season 5 is full of scarce highs and really low lows, lots of heavy-hitting drama, and emotional scenes. Some of the biggest events of this season lead to some pretty uncomfortable viewing, but viewers who stick with it will be rewarded with some huge moments that will have repercussions for the final season.
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