'Handmaid's Tale' Spotted Filming On National Mall (Photos)

WASHINGTON, DC -- If you spotted a group of women dressed in red on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, it wasn't a protest -- it was a shoot for a TV show.

The Handmaid's Tale -- a dystopian drama where a totalitarian society controls the lives of fertile women known as "Handmaids" -- was filming on the National Mall on Friday, and pictures of the set began popping up on social media (embedded below).

Stars Elisabeth Moss, Yvonne Strahovski, and Joseph Fiennes were all on hand for the filming.

Here's why you might be seeing a bunch of handmaids on the National Mall today https://t.co/jGoXZG2L27 pic.twitter.com/IdqAQoZond
— DCist (@DCist) February 15, 2019

Spoilers for Handmaids Tale Season 3: here on set in DC and Offred, Serena, and Fred are all here for some sort of ceremony #handmaidstale pic.twitter.com/MRWwXmZJrl
— Steven (@hashtagsteven) February 15, 2019

The background will be edited, as the show is set in the fictional country of Gilead not America. The Washington Monument will be made to look like a cross in the show, which was teased during the Super Bowl earlier this month.

If you saw the gathering Friday and didn't know this, you could be forgiven for thinking it was a protest. Last year, numerous protesters dressed as Handmaids went to the Hart Senate Office Building to protest the Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court confirmation hearing.

(Photo by Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for Hulu)