The Handmaid's Tale S4: Here's How The Show Adapted To The Pandemic

The Handmaid's Tale Season 4 has arrived, with the first three episodes now available to stream on Hulu. It was one of the numerous productions made during the pandemic. Star and director Elisabeth Moss has now shed some light on how filming the show during the pandemic actually led to a positive development for the show.

She told Deadline that there is an episode in the new season that was supposed to be a "much bigger scene." Due to health and safety measures, however, it was shrunk down to feature only June and one other character. This wasn't the original design for the scene, but Moss remarked that it served the show well in a way she didn't originally expect.

"We had to shrink it down, and it's a beautiful scene now. It's very emotional, it's very intimate and that did happen several times, where we had to just have these two people in a room, and we had to boil the scene down to what it really was," she said.

This wasn't always possible, as some scenes still required larger groups of people. To get around this, the visual effects team on The Handmaid's Tale stepped up and created digital crowd replacement shots.

"But ultimately, our show is about the relationship between the people, and the pandemic really did allow us to embrace that," Moss said.

Joseph Fiennes, who also stars on The Handmaid's Tale, told Deadline that the pandemic drove the creatives on the show to come up with new ideas, and due to this, "it's a phenomenal season."

Episodes 1-3 of The Handmaid's Tale Season 4 are available to stream now on Hulu, with the remaining six coming on a weekly basis.

The Hulu original series has already been renewed for a fifth season. In a statement, showrunner Bruce Miller said, "We're very grateful to Hulu and MGM that the show will be returning for a fifth season, and especially to our loyal fans for their support."

For more, check out GameSpot's roundup of all the new shows and movies on Hulu in April.

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