The Handmaid’s Tale usually hits our TV screens in the summer, so you’d be forgiven for assuming that the fourth season of the dystopian drama would do the same – particularly as the season three finale ended on such a nail-biting cliffhanger.

However, it’s now been revealed that those desperate to know what’s next for Elisabeth Moss’ June Osborne and her resistance to the extremely cruel dystopian regime of Gilead will have to wait until much later in the year.

Warning: the remainder of this article contains spoilers for The Handmaid’s Tale, so please proceed with caution.

Speaking to Digital Spy about the delays to the show, which is based on Margaret Atwood’s book of the same name, Moss revealed that the season will not start shooting until the end of the month.

“Part of the reason why it’s taken a little bit longer, besides just timing, is that we are making it a bit of a bigger season this year,” she said. 

“We’re really stretching the limits of our capabilities, production wise, and we’re on the move a lot.”

Moss added: “We’re not sitting in a studio between four walls very much, so it really is a bigger season and that’s taken a little [longer].

“I’ve been in Toronto since mid-January prepping.”

It’s worth noting that the final episode of season three, entitled Mayday, saw June shot by one of Gilead’s guards but not before she managed to smuggle dozens of children (far more than the 52 originally expected), Marthas and Handmaids onto a waiting plane.

Here’s a recap of what happened, for those who don’t have the scenes burned into their memories like we do:

Of course, some fans expressed disappointment that June didn’t escape Gilead herself. However, as show creator Bruce Miller noted in an interview with Forbes, “by helping all the children and Marthas and Handmaids escape, she was trying to hurt Gilead”.

“She’s punching back and she’s stubborn as fuck,” he said. “But she couldn’t step foot on that plane without her daughter, Hannah. 

“This wasn’t about her saving herself, she’s in ‘I am going to hurt Gilead’ mode.”

Of course, June and her fellow Handmaids are now in a position to take Gilead down from the inside out. They are perfect invisible agents, able to move between Commanders without raising suspicion. And, as Miller himself has pointed out, there’s nobody to accuse them of anything.

“June shot and killed the only guard that could say otherwise,” he said.

So what can we expect from season four? Well, something very different. June is no longer confined to her Commander’s house, she has an army (the uniform of her loyal soldiers isn’t just red, though, but green and even blue), and she has seen that she truly does have the power to change things for the better.

“It’s a slow and steady process but June is trying to change things,” Miller explained.

We don’t doubt that. 

Click here for more on The Handmaid’s Tale season four, including casting details and predicted release date.

Images: Hulu/Channel 4