The colors on the show's palette now include alternating resignation, rage, supplication and subversion; Elisabeth Moss continues to excel, but glimpses of the world beyond her have grown yet more intriguing.

Moss's stare is one of the most powerful things in television.

By heavens, Handmaid's is harrowing.

Hulu released two episodes to start, and will introduce a new one each week through mid-July. All I can say is, thank goodness! As much as I admire the series, it is terribly difficult to watch. In fact, the second season seems even darker than the first.

Showrunner Bruce Miller and his team - which includes Atwood as consulting producer - took a risk in expanding things, but they've succeeded brilliantly.

Grim stuff, but compelling - oh, my, it was compelling. And terrifying because it doesn't seem impossible that this stuff could happen.

Elisabeth Moss can say more with her eyes and her face than most actors can with 1,000 words.

Narratively, we are beyond Margaret Atwood. The author is still involved, but the story has fresh energy, and maybe even a sense of freedom, now that it doesn't have to worry about being faithful to a text.

The creeping dread, tension and moments of sheer terror that defined Season 1 remain but now swell under the new stories, flashbacks revealing where the hardening, slipping of society began.

The Handmaid's Tale is nobody's idea of a chill watch, but the series' vision of a dystopian, fundamentalist society run by vicious theocrats continues to captivate.

The first two episodes made available for review were a confident return, a vengeful approach that offers no reprieve from the stark intensity of its cocoon.

One of the bigger flaws from last season is we didn't get an indication of how Gilead was able to take over the government so quickly, and it's something they're definitely working on this season.

The Handmaid's Tale could never be called upbeat, but it goes to a truly dark place in the episode "Other Women."

"Other Women" unearths an unpleasant time in June's past, and also parades a new fresh hell before her eyes

The Handmaid's Tale hasn't eased up on its harrowing bleakness, and having left Margaret Atwood's source text behind, it currently has the thrilling feeling of being off the map.