All good things must come to an end, including Hulu’s acclaimed series The Handmaid’s Tale, which has just cast Veep’s Timothy Simons to appear in its final season. Per Variety, Simons will have a guest-starring role in the award-winning series that began in 2017, and is based on the novel by Margaret Atwood. Starring Elisabeth Moss, The Handmaid’s Tale became the first streaming show in history to win the Emmy for Best Drama, which – along with shows like Stranger Things a year prior – paved the way for other streaming services to begin presenting viewers with high-quality original programming.
Simons is best known for his role on Veep, where he portrayed Jonah Ryan, who started off as the White House liaison to Vice President Meyer’s office, but by the final season became her presidential rival, peddling numerous conspiracy theories akin to what we’re seeing in the current race for the White House between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. For his efforts, Simons was nominated for five Screen Actors Guild Awards, winning one for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble Cast in a Comedy Series. He’s also set to appear in the upcoming second season of Percy Jackson and the Olympians on Disney+, portraying the role of Tantalus, the interim Activities Director at Camp Half-Blood.
For The Handmaid’s Tale, Simons will join the returning Moss (June Osborne), as well as fellow regulars Yvonne Strahovski (Serena Joy Waterford), Ann Dowd (Aunt Lydia), and Bradley Whitford (Commander Lawrence). Filming for the sixth and final season is already underway in Toronto, with an expected premiere date of spring 2025.
The Handmaid’s Tale Is Only the Beginning
While The Handmaid’s Tale has managed to both captivate and horrify audiences over the last five seasons with its story about women forced to bear children under a totalitarian regime fighting back against the patriarchy (sound familiar?), its story doesn’t end there. Though the final season will close the book on Moss’ character, a new chapter will begin in The Testaments, a spinoff series that’s currently in development, based on Atwood’s sequel novel of the same name.
Published in 2019, the story is set 15 years after the events in The Handmaid’s Tale and is narrated by three women: Aunt Lydia, and June’s two daughters, Agnes and Daisy. It’s already been confirmed that Dowd will return to reprise her role in the new series, though it remains a mystery if Jordana Blake will also return in some capacity to reprise her role as Agnes. Casting for Daisy has also yet to be announced.
What is known is that The Handmaid’s Tale’s head showrunner, Bruce Miller, stepped aside in 2023 so he could put his focus solely on developing The Testaments. While it’s assumed by many that the series will go into production at some point in 2025 for a 2026 release, that has yet to be confirmed at this point, since news on the spinoff has been sparse.
For now, you can watch all five seasons of The Handmaid’s Tale streaming on Hulu, and see what role Simons takes on when the final season airs next year.