Filming for the fifth season of ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ is underway in Brantford
Welcome back, June Osborne.
The Handmaid's Tale" has started filming its fifth season in the area.
The Emmy Award winning program shot in Toronto at the end of February and in Brantford this week.
Brantford's economic development and tourism department sent out a release welcoming the film crew and cast to the city and telling residents what streets would be closed for filming.
The program filmed in Victoria Park as well as on streets in the vicinity of the park; Wellington, George, Darling and Dalhousie.
Laurier's Brantford campus also sent out a release telling staff and students of the filming and warning of delays in entering the building.
The campus is in the former Carnegie library overlooking Victoria Park. Laurier said film crews are expected to make use of the imposing stairs of the library.
This is the second time The Handmaid's Tale" has filmed in Brantford. It came in the fall of 2020 and shot scenes of the main character June (Elisabeth Moss) and another handmaid being in the middle of an airstrike. The city was standing in for Chicago. The fourth season ran on CTV Drama Channel and the Hulu streaming service in the U.S. from April to June 2021.
The Handmaid's Tale" is based on the 1985 book by Margaret Attwood. It focuses on June Osborne who finds herself living in a part of the United States that is taken over by a fundamentalist-totalitarian society and renamed the Republic of Gilead.
Fertility rates have collapsed and fertile women like June are forced to be concubines to Gilead's childless leaders. She is renamed Offred and forced to live with a couple of leaders, the most notorious being Commander Fred Waterford (Joseph Fiennes).
Spoiler Alert: The finale of the fourth season was a whopper. The season saw June escape from Gilead to Canada. Commander Fred and his wife Serena Joy (Yvonne Strahovski) have also fled to Toronto. June seeks justice before the International Criminal Court over the commander's treatment of her.
In the last episode,The Wilderness," Commander Fred winds up being traded to Gilead for the release of 22 handmaids. After that is done at a border checkpoint, he is delivered to June by Commander Nick Blaine (Max Minghella). He is beaten to death by former handmaids in the woods.
What is coming up for the fifth season is anyone's guess. The production company did not return a request from The Spectator for comment. The elaborate set in Brantford looks to be for a public ceremony in Gilead.
The program was anchored in Hamilton for the first two seasons when it used a house at Bay Street South and Aberdeen Avenue as the home of Commander Fred. The commander's house burned down in the third season.
During filming of the fourth season, the program shot at Durand Park, Hutch's on the Beach and the Dundas Valley Conservation Area.
There is a website called Filming Locations by Atlas of Wonders' and it has done a good job of outlining many Hamilton locales.
During the first season, the program shot at the Scottish Rite, James Street Baptist Church, the HSR MacNab Street Bus Terminal, Liuna Station and at Cootes Paradise.
In Season 2, it shot at Mohawk Sports Park, the former Spectator building (the newsroom and pressroom stood in for an abandoned Boston Globe), David Braley Health Sciences Centre, Ivor Wynne Centre at McMaster University and in the Hidden Valley Park Road tunnel under the QEW in Burlington.
Season 3 saw it shoot in the former Denninger's shop in Burlington and The Cotton Factory. Season 4 also saw the show film at the Royal Botanical Gardens, Barton Street East (near Ottawa Street North) and an apartment building on Charlton Avenue West.
In Cambridge, the show has shot at the Main Street bridge over the Grand River, Mill Race Park, Cambridge Arts Centre and Langdon Hall. The show has also filmed in Oakville, Georgetown, Rockwood, North Dumfries Township, Woolwich Township, St. George and Port Colborne.
Daniel Nolan is a freelance writer who writes about film for The Hamilton Spectator. He can be reached at dannolanwrites@gmail.com