What to stream this week: The strong Handmaid’s Tale sequel, plus five more picks

This week’s picks include the highly anticipated sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale, another spin-off to another hit (Jury Duty), some horror from Netflix and season two of the heartfelt comedy Sisters.

The Testaments ★★★ (Disney+)

After six seasons of The Handmaid’s Tale, the dystopian baton has been passed to this sequel. Once more we are in Gilead, the brutal Christian theocracy that has violently supplanted the United States and banished the modern world, including women’s rights, via murderous means. But 15 years have passed, and the focus is on the daughters of the establishment – the “godly girls” raised to be the dutiful, childbearing wives of the nation’s leaders. On screen, it’s a risky balancing act.

Like The Handmaid’s Tale, The Testaments has an acclaimed Margaret Atwood novel as its source material. Both shows were created by Bruce Miller, and both extend the books’ plot lines. Aunt Lydia (Ann Dowd), the brutal enforcer of Gilead’s misogyny who sought to break June Osborne (Elisabeth Moss) in Handmaid’s, is now running an elite girl’s academy whose teenage students include Agnes MacKenzie (Chase Infiniti). Although she’s unaware, Agnes’s privileged step-parents, the authorities, and the viewers know she is June’s oldest daughter, Hannah.

With the upright Agnes being asked to mentor a new student Daisy (Lucy Halliday), a convert to Gilead from Canada, the narrative is lodged in the concerns of these teenagers. They are young and indoctrinated, with no memory of America. Gilead’s atrocities, such as an offender having his hand removed by bandsaw, happen just out of focus. At times the storytelling has the tone, and pop soundtrack, of a Young Adult drama. Agnes has a cruel stepmother (Amy Seimetz), but her father (Nate Corddry) is a Gilead girl dad. “These women would change history,” Agnes says in a voiceover, but the path to their revolutionary agency is tricky. Showing Gilead’s hypocrisy means focusing on the girls’ naive parameters.

Several episodes are invested in the students competing to impress potential suitors via society rituals – it feels akin to a 19th-century romantic comedy, complete with dastardly sabotage by one ambitious mother. The glances between Agnes and a handsome young security agent, Garth (Brad Alexander), also linger.

Daisy, in particular, is written as too much of a rebel, but the connection between the teenagers is genuine and reflects the hope Atwood delivered on the page. But a crucial failure is reducing the focus on Aunt Lydia. The book gave her an extensive backstory, revealing how she chose to become a collaborator, but that’s compressed to a single episode here, alongside her zealous deputy, Aunt Vidala (Australian actor Mabel Li). Ultimately, the defining quality is Infiniti’s deeply felt performance as Agnes. The One Battle After Another star is compelling and when she’s on-screen The Testaments flourishes. The show goes to Infiniti and beyond. From April 8.

Something Very Bad is Going to Happen ★★★ (Netflix)

Subtlety is not the goal when your show is titled Something Very Bad is Going to Happen. Starting with a nightmarish flash-forward to a wedding ceremony, this horror excursion offers maximum menace: ominous bystanders, a blood-soaked bathroom and a future mother-in-law, played with creepy detachment by Jennifer Jason Leigh, are just the starting point for Rachel (Camila Morrone), who is travelling to her nuptials week with fiance Nicky (Adam DiMarco). Your expectation of “very bad” keeps growing.

Stranger Things creators the Duffer Brothers have a very prominent producers’ credit, but this is a far (muffled) cry from their supernatural heroics. Creator Haley Z. Boston (Brand New Cherry Flavour) is applying a Jordan Peele filter to marital tradition. There’s a sharp edge to even the banter between Rachel and Nicky, which suggests that the idea of finding “the one” is more of a risk than a reward. Then Rachel meets Nicky’s extended family.

Morrone, last seen in The Night Manager revival, holds the limited series together – her Rachel is torn between wanting answers and avoiding her worst fears. There’s a lingering suspicion that the institution of marriage itself is the ultimate horror, but the eight episodes have a tendency to draw out the narrative, complete with twists and plenty of horror tropes such as jump scares, without ever deepening it. The unspoken demand here is patience.

Privileges ★★★½ (HBO Max)

A survival thriller where the inequality is damning, this French series follows a determined young prison inmate, Adele Charki (Manon Bresch), whose pursuit of a second chance leads her to a day release job as a bellhop at a luxury Parisian hotel. With a manager, Edouard (Melvil Poupaud), who is demanding and encouraging, Adele has to manoeuvre through jealous co-workers and guests who think five-star service means they have an amnesty for their bad behaviour. There are some flashy sequences to highlight Adele’s risky business, but this is ultimately a well-honed drama.

Sisters ★★½ (Stan*)

There are two seasons of this transatlantic comedy, which was created by stars Sarah Goldberg (Barry) and Susan Stanley (Fair City). The former plays Sare, a Canadian who has just lost her mother, prompting a trip to Ireland in search of her father, which instead turns up the latter’s half-sister, Suze, who she didn’t know existed. There are some dark tinges to this exploration of mismatched siblings, who invariably go on a quest together, but despite the obvious dynamic between the leads, too much of the humour is derived from cultural stereotypes.

The Rise of the Red Hot Chili Peppers: Our Brother, Hillel ★★★ (Netflix)

The formative years – we’re talking the 1980s – of a band now in its institutional twilight provides a portrait of creativity that comes with palpable energy and tragic loss. The Red Hot Chili Peppers who emerged from Los Angeles featured lead singer Anthony Kiedis and bassist Michael “Flea” Balzary, but the group was galvanised by guitarist Hillel Slovak. Via archival footage and the testimony of his bandmates, plus the unnecessary AI re-creation of Slovak’s voice to read his journals, he emerges as a creative force felled by addiction issues that led to his death in 1988.

Jury Duty Presents: Company Retreat ★★½ (Amazon Prime Video)

Some concepts are simply meant to be one-offs. The American hoax comedy Jury Duty was a surprise success in 2023, with a put-upon everyman, Ronald Gladden, given the Candid Camera treatment as his faked jury duty surrounded him with actors, plus Paradise star James Marsden playing an exaggerated version of himself. The new season positions the equally likeable Anthony Norman as a temp at a resort working on an eccentric family company’s increasingly chaotic bonding weekend, but the tone leans too heavily into shock value. It’s pushing too hard for what should come gently.

Want more TV? We’ve got you.

• Newsletter: Find out the next TV, streaming series and movies to add to your must-sees. Get The Watchlist delivered every Thursday.
• Outlander: The Scottish time-travelling hit is coming to an end. Its Australian star David Berry talks about the show’s other great love story.
• The Testaments: Ann Dowd was terrifying in The Handmaid’s Tale. She thinks you should be more scared of its sequel.
• The Miniature Wife: Succession star Matthew Macfadyen had his pick of scripts when he said goodbye to the billionaire Roy family. This is what he chose to do next.
• Your Friends and Neighbours review: Season two find’s Jon Hamm’s light-fingered thief up against a formidable foe.
• Streaming guides: What to watch this month.

*Stan is owned by Nine, the publisher of this masthead.