This morning, Hulu released the chilling first trailer for season two of its stunning, scary, awards-scooping drama The Handmaid's Tale. The second season will pick up with June (Elisabeth Moss) pregnant and beginning a mysterious new chapter, following her removal from her familiar prison in the house of Commander Waterford (Joseph Fiennes).

Moss, alongside executive producers Bruce Miller and Warren Littlefield, made an appearance at the Television Critics Association Press Tour on Sunday to talk about season two's depiction of the Colonies, June's pregnancy, and the origins of Gilead. Here are nine new things we learned.

1. The narrative is radically different from season one.

Moira (Samira Wiley) finally made it across the border to Canada in the season finale, and will spend season two adjusting to her newfound freedom—but she may not be the only one. "June is on the run, and you haven't seen that before," says Littlefield. "That narrative is where we begin the season."

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2. Episode two will delve into the Colonies.

You won't have to wait much longer to finally see the much-discussed, much-dreaded Colonies. The first we ever heard of this mysterious area was when Moira warned Janine (Madeline Brewer): "They'll send you to the colonies. You'll be cleaning up toxic waste. Your skin will peel off in sheets, and then you'll die." That's quite a premise to live up to, especially because Atwood's book never actually goes to the Colonies. "Margaret Atwood, of course, describes the Colonies, and it's a pretty forbidding world," said Littlefield. "In episode two, we go to the Colonies, and it's an expansion of our world."

3. Marisa Tomei will guest star.

No details about her character have been revealed yet, except that she'll make her first appearance in episode two, presumably as part of the Colonies storyline. It's also already been revealed that Clea DuVall will play Emily's (Alexis Bledel) wife in the new season, so the guest star game is strong.

4. Motherhood is a central theme of the new season.

June's pregnancy, as you might imagine, puts her in a very complex emotional position. "Bruce and I always talk about the impending birth, this child growing inside her, as a bit of a ticking time bomb," Moss said. "The complications of that are really wonderful to explore. It's a wonderful thing to have a baby, but she's having it potentially in this world that she may not want to bring it into. And if she does have the baby, the baby gets taken away from her and she can't be its mother."

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5. Season two has a much larger budget than season one.

Considering the award-winning success of the show, this is no surprise. "We did get a bigger budget, and much of it is [for] the expansion of our world in creating the Colonies, and by using the narrative timelines, we're able to see how Gilead came about. To follow the historical events of the creation of this world, as well as or characters."

6. The theme of resistance becomes more nuanced this season.

"There's more than one way to resist," Moss notes. "That's something that June finds out. There's resistance in the outside world, but there's also resistance within her."

"June's eyes have been opened up a little bit in season one," added Miller, "and so have ours. The resistance is a huge force operating in Gilead and one of the great things about the show is that there are so many forces hitting up against each other."

7. Ever since its premiere at the start of the Trump administration, the show has often felt startlingly close to reality, and certain dialogue in season one had to be changed for that reason.

"We wrote the line 'Make America Great Again' for season one, long before the presidential primaries had even started," Miller revealed, "so we had to change that line." As yet, nothing in the second season has had to be removed or re-shot, but with a few more months to go until its April premiere, "things could change." There have been scenes that they've written and shot for the series, "only to see almost exactly the same images on television."

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8. There are no fictional horrors in The Handmaid's Tale, and that guiding principle remains true for season two.

Atwood has famously pointed out that every aspect of Gilead has really happened at some point in history, somewhere in the world, and the show's producers hold that as a ironclad rule. "It's easy to come up with fictional cruelties," Miller noted, "and especially with perverse cruelties towards women, then it just turns into pornography. You have to keep it tethered to the world. It is a loser on almost every front to imagine evils."

9. June's voiceover becomes more crucial than ever in season two, as a means of bringing some (black) humor into an increasingly dark storyline.

"I would say arguably this season is darker than season one," Moss said, worryingly. "We love using [voiceover] because it's a way to get that tone into very dark moments that have that perspective. It's become June's voice."

Miller added that a central facet of June's personality is her humor, and the voiceover is a way of showing that she hasn't been completely destroyed by the regime. "June is funny," he said. "It's sort June versus Offred—June is us, looking at the situation, and it's messed up once you lose that perspective, which is something June's always fighting to hold onto. June is alive and well in there, more alive and well some episodes than others."

The season two premiere uses June's voiceover to pierce a moment of pure terror with surreal humor. "There's a lot of horror and cruelty and dread in the situation but there's also a lot of absurdity," he said. "I always feel like June is this close to turning to the camera and saying 'Really? Honestly? What the actual fuck?'"

The Handmaid's Tale season two premieres on Hulu on April 25.

From: ELLE US