Gilead—the setting for Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale and its new sequel, The Testaments—is an extremely repressive, dangerous environment, especially for the women who live there. In The Handmaid’s Tale, viewers watched Elisabeth Moss’ character, June Osborne, endure torture and cruelty but also discover the beauty in small, surprising moments, not to mention puncture the tension with rueful, snarky observations.
That’s only possible because The Handmaid’s Tale gave June frequent voiceovers, carrying over her perspective from Margaret Atwood’s novel and allowing her to express herself in ways that her surroundings wouldn’t allow.
The Testaments, based on Atwood’s follow-up novel, is told from a few different points of view, and the show retains that element. As we’ve seen in the first three episodes, which arrived this week on Hulu, main characters Agnes (played by Chase Infiniti) and Daisy (Lucy Halliday) both get voiceovers, framed as their future selves reflecting back on the events the audience is watching.
Though this offers a reassurance that both women will survive this awful place, it also allows the viewer to see what’s going on below the surface. In Agnes’ case, we hear her wryly pointing out how naive she was in the story we’re watching. For Daisy, an outsider who’s new to Gilead, we hear her reactions to the strange and terrifying place she’s trying to acclimate herself to.
“I think [the voice-overs are] so important because so much of what’s going on in the show, and for these characters, they’re not able to articulate their thoughts at the time,” Halliday told io9 at a recent Testaments press day. “It’s a very repressed environment, and their true feelings aren’t allowed to be shared. So it’s very interesting to be able to have that reflective element to showcase to the audience about what they’re really feeling.”
She continued. “The element of it being their future selves is particularly exciting because I think we’ve all looked back on events that we’ve gone through or times in our lives and not really understood the gravity of that situation or the extremes of that situation. I think it adds a very interesting element for the viewers to be able to have that multi-dimensional approach.”
Infiniti agreed and added, “Especially with Daisy’s character, her inner dialogue is exactly what the audience would be thinking in that situation. Getting that perspective on the things that are unsaid, especially in Gilead—I mean, there’s a lot that even we don’t say in our lives, and it’s that tenfold in Gilead—is really nice to have. Again, I love Daisy’s inner dialogue because it’s just so real and genuine. And then with Agnes you kind of feel where she is in her life, and I also think that’s very fascinating.”
Halliday also pointed out that the narration can also bring a dash of humor—a much-needed addition to the otherwise grim world of The Testaments. “I think it also adds a levity quite often to the scenes, and I think that’s the juxtaposition that we have in reality: whenever there’s a harsh event that we’re going through in life, we often have a lighter attitude, or we try and find the levity in the situation. Or, you know, we make a joke about it. And so to have that element featured in the voiceover is, I think, quite relevant to the audience.”
You can watch the first three episodes of The Testaments now on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+, with new episodes arriving Wednesdays.
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