The following story contains spoilers for the Season 1 finale of The Testaments.
After 10 episodes of The Testaments, the new revolution is truly primed to start in Gilead.
Throughout Season 1 of Hulu’s Handmaid’s Tale spin-off, Daisy (Lucy Halliday) has been something of a lone wolf in this unfamiliar-to-her world, posing as a Pearl Girl-turned-Plum while also secretly working with Mayday. But after Agnes (Chase Infiniti) has her wedding called off and finally learns of her real identity as the daughter of June Osborne (Elisabeth Moss), the young woman is back in her own plum dress, ready to take on the system alongside her new friend.
“The thing with Agnes is, so much of her life was literally being upended before that [reveal], and so much of her life was changing, and that was kind of like the final nail in the coffin that really just blew up her perception of who she really is,” Infiniti tells Gold Derby. “When she goes up to Aunt Lydia [played by Ann Dowd], and she’s like, ‘I know that my mom is June Osborne,’ she’s not shaken by it at all. She’s actually standing in it and is confident in it. I’m very excited to see how that continues to manifest and how she tackles finding the truth in her own story.”
Since Agnes is now the daughter of a high-ranking Commander (Nate Corddry), most of the whispers about her true maternal lineage have avoided her ears. However, the reverence some have for her has pushed its limits, and that’s likely to continue in the show’s just-announced sophomore year.
When Agnes confides in her betrothed Commander Weston (Reed Diamond) that Dr. Grove (Randal Edwards) assaulted her, and asks him to help Becka (Mattea Conforti) — who has been taken by the Eyes for killing her same abuser — he does. But then he calls off his wedding to Agnes because of how close to that “scandal” she is.
Becka was being held in a jail under the watchful eye of guest star and celebrated Handmaid’s Tale author Margaret Atwood, reprising her role as an Aunt from the preceding show’s series premiere. “[Margaret is] the hardest-working 86-year-old on the planet,” Testaments executive producer Warren Littlefield says. “And whenever you engage with Margaret, you’ve learned something. I do; I learn something about America each time I talk to this brilliant Canadian.”
Agnes’ father is sympathetic to his daughter losing her betrothed, which forces her to go back to being a Plum. But her stepmother Paula (Amy Seimetz) has a breakdown and lashes out at Agnes.
“I think it’s humiliation,” Seimetz tells Gold Derby about that moment. “I wish she were a better person, but this moment has gotten the insecure side of her. It’s like a straight-A student, right? It’s like, ‘I did everything I possibly could. I showed you everything.’
“For Paula that breakdown is basically the humiliation of the system,” the actress continues. “And the thought that she tried so hard and she did everything correctly, and that she wasn’t able to keep it in control. It’s not just that she’s lashing out at Agnes — it’s really the fact that she’s not in control of what happens next.”
Daisy is ultimately the one to break the news to Agnes in a matter-of-fact manner, which was a deliberate “That reveal or that bombshell is very intentional,” she notes. “Daisy’s dropping it knowing exactly what she’s igniting. There’s no slip of the tongue, and there’s no, ‘Oh, I’ve accidentally just said something that I shouldn’t have.’ And because it’s so intentional, our performance, delivery, and everything about that scene had to be articulated and choreographed in a very intentional manner as well.”
Daisy slips out of Gilead under the cover of night to meet up with June, who wants to pull her out of her undercover operation. But the younger woman is insistent that she stay put, telling the former revolution leader that it’s her turn now. During the course of their conversation, Daisy mentions Agnes, and June latches onto the name, asking Daisy if Agnes is her age. Daisy then realizes that her friend is also June’s her daughter and shares what she can. Daisy heads back to Gilead armed with a new confidence — and so did Halliday.
“By the end of filming, obviously I was still in awe of [Moss] and I think she’s incredible, but I had spent four or five months filming,” she says. “So doing then that final scene with June felt really brilliant because it really was an emulation of how I was feeling, but [also] how Daisy was feeling. To have even just that parallel was lovely.”
The scene where Daisy tells Agnes that June is her mother results in Agnes remembering a bit of her former life. “That was probably one of the scenes that we shot for the longest because it is such a big reveal,” Infiniti says. “I just remember that was a day that we would try it [one] way, and then Lucy and I would have conversations with [director] Mike Barker. The three of us would have a debate about it, and then we would go back and record it with slight adjustments. We really wanted to make sure that it was right, and it felt like it fit perfectly for everything that’s come before it.”
The show doesn’t offer a flashback, but rather stays on Infiniti’s face as her eyes flicker with understanding and then follows her home to look through her hidden treasures from the “before” world, where she unfolds a childhood drawing she did that she signed with her real name. Agnes then confronts Lydia with her new knowledge, but only in regards to how it may affect her finding a new option for a husband. That she is still considering a marriage may say a lot about how ready she is to step into her mother’s shoes.
“If you think about how Agnes grew up, regardless of her relationship with the memory of her mother, June Osborne was a terrorist; she was Osama bin Laden in their world,” observes Testaments creator and showrunner Bruce Miller. “I think she’s horrified by what that means in terms of her personality. Is she going to have this residual June-ness that she has to deal with? It’s what keeps her so strong the whole first season, but I think it absolutely changes all of their relationships.”
Meanwhile, Daisy telling June that it’s her turn to lead this revolution doesn’t mean June is out of the story going forward. That’s not even the last scene they truly share, as Daisy sends June a secret note in a delivery of honey to keep her apprised of what’s going on.
“[Daisy] respects June enough, and I think that she’s going to feel like she needs June, so I think that having direct contact, even if it isn’t fruitful, is going to be very important between the two of them,” Miller says. “The June part of the story doesn’t end until Hannah has a fate. I don’t think she’ll ever stop being part of the story.”
Similarly, Becka (Mattea Conforti) is not going to stop being a part of the story, despite moving out of the school and into a marital home with Garth (Brad Alexander). Meanwhile, Lydia is able to convince Becka’s mother to claim she was the one who really murdered her Dr. Grove — a direct result of Daisy reminding Lydia that she knows some women who would do anything for their daughters. Even though the dentist was set to be executed for molesting the Plums under his care, a woman striking down a man in Gilead must be punished, so Becka’s mother is hanged.
Still, Becka doesn’t escape getting married — something she has been clear about not wanting. “I knew from the get go that Becka never wanted to get married as a result of her sexual orientation,” Confortisays. “She always knew that she was different in the sense that she didn’t align with the same properties that Gilead had been preaching and teaching. She’s always known that she’s different from her peers in that sense, but she didn’t exactly know why until she has that encounter with Dr. Grove and kills him.
“In a way, it’s killing all of that negative feedback and that limitation,” she continues. “I think also she thinks that killing him is a way of finding a space where she can belong in this universe, finally. It’s really disheartening when she finds herself still married.”
Other Plums like Hulda (Isolde Ardies) was also marked for marriage this season, and despite what she went through with Dr. Grove, she still seemed to buy into the system. Shunammite (Rowan Blanchard) has also been deeply devoted to Gilead ways, and she’s glimpsed walking pinkie in pinkie alongside Agnes and Daisy at the end of the season.
“She loves her friends, and she doesn’t want to be separated from them,” Blanchard says. “That [final shot in the show] was the last thing I got to shoot in the season so it was really special. What I see in that scene is a moving forward. …It would take a lot to unravel her ideas of Gilead; she doesn’t really see that there’s a lot wrong, but in the end she starts to see it.”
“What we’re left with at the end of the season is there is a bond and a trust with these young women as they march down that hall,” Littlefield says. “We’re left with the feeling, like we are in the world, that maybe the patriarchy screwed up, but there’s hope with a new young generation. In our show with their awakening, the expectation is: ‘Now what are you going to do about it?’ And that is positive and reassuring for an audience.”
