(CNN) "The Handmaid's Tale" isn't the best TV show ever, although it's plenty good. But it's hard to think of a series that has been better calibrated to tap into the zeitgeist and unease of its cultural and political moment.

The Hulu series returns for its third season this week, making another trip to the dystopian land of Gilead, where women live under patriarchal domination, with some used as little more than breeding stock for their overlords.

Without giving too much away, the new episodes feature a nascent resistance, pluckily operating under the noses of their oppressive masters; and some particularly striking and iconic visual imagery in one of the later episodes previewed.

Novelist Margaret Atwood created the underlying scenario in 1985, but the program -- an Emmy winner in its first season -- has become a powerful symbol , with the crimson cloaks that the handmaids are forced to wear showing up as a means of silent protest.

Previous seasons of "The Handmaid's Tale" coincided with, among other things, the birth of the #MeToo hashtag. The series comes back amid a push toward restrictive anti-abortion laws, which have made the image of a society that seeks to control and coerce women, for many, feel less like the stuff of science fiction, and more a cautionary tale.

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