When Does ‘Handmaid’s Tale’ Season 2, Episode 3 Release On Hulu?

Many viewers may have been able to binge the whole first season of “The Handmaid’s Tale” if they started watching after the drama started winning Emmys or Golden Globes. Unfortunately, they will have to wait if they want to devour Season 2 in one long binge-watching session.

“The Handmaid’s Tale” Season 2 premiered Wednesday on Hulu with the release of two new episodes. Season 2, episode 3 will be released a week after the season premiere on Wednesday, May 2 at 12 a.m. EDT. There will be a new episode every week until all 13 episodes have been released. The season is expected to finish in July.

[Spoiler alert: Vague spoilers for the third episode are below.]

In the third episode, June will reflect on her life pre-Gilead while she is hiding at the abandoned newspaper office. Audiences will get to meet her mother, Holly (Cherry Jones). June’s mother was a very politically involved feminist, and the Hulu show will reveal what became of her when Gilead took over.

June’s mom is a big character in the book, and showrunner Bruce Miller told the Hollywood Reporter last year that it was important to include her more in the second season. Even as the story goes beyond Margaret Atwood’s novel, they cannot ignore the woman who had the most influence over June’s life.

“We've been thinking about her a lot. June’s mother is a big character in the book and representative of an interesting kind of feminism that was seemingly more of that time,” he said. “June’s memories of her mother and her activism are very vibrant in the book, so we’ve been talking about her from day one of Season 1, and it just didn’t seem like enough time to do her justice. In Season 2, we mention her a little bit, but we just don't want to short-shrift her story. It’s a story we want to tell — she was one of the most memorable characters.”

Meanwhile, episode 3 also features the return of Moira (Samira Wiley). When viewers last saw her, she had escaped Gilead and arrived in Canada. She reunited with June’s husband Luke (O-T Fagbenle), who had put her on his family list. While she is definitely enjoying her freedom, Gilead still haunts her.

New episodes of “The Handmaid’s Tale” premiere Wednesdays on Hulu.