We’re at episode eight of The Testaments, and that means several of our young brides-to-be are inching toward actually getting married. As alarming as that is, there are still some dreadful rituals to claw through first—and the distinct sense that several breaking points are close to being reached.
The Testaments has been careful to operate (as much as it can) as a standalone from The Handmaid’s Tale. If you know the broad strokes of the earlier show’s plot, including who June (Elisabeth Moss) and Aunt Lydia (Ann Dowd) are, you can get by, though having watched Handmaid’s does bring more understanding to the proceedings.
This is underlined in “Broken,” which references two major events in The Handmaid’s Tale, including something that happened all the way back in season three. And the way they’re worked into The Testaments is both deft and illuminating.
In “Broken,” the eligible Greens—including Agnes (Chase Infiniti), Becka (Mattea Conforti), and Hulda (Isolde Ardies)—are now engaged. Even the girl who tripped at the tea party got matched up.
Not everyone is happy about this change in status; Agnes, as we know, pines for Garth (Brad Alexander), who’s engaged to Becka, who pines for Agnes.
Also unhappy is Shunammite (Rowan Blanchard), who hasn’t gotten her period yet. Not only is she envious of everyone else, she’s worried it will never happen for her. In that case, she can’t get married or fulfill what she and Gilead see as her God-given purpose. The Aunt Lydia School offers no comfort, as Shu and Daisy (Lucy Halliday) are pointedly excluded from “copulation class.”
(This stings even though sex education in Gilead is basically “do whatever your husband says.” As Agnes wryly observes in voice-over, “Our education was left wanting.”)
Things get even more dire when Daisy, an undercover Mayday agent who has zero intentions of marrying into Gilead, gets her first period. “Broken” is full of desperate secrets—mostly concerning Becka’s dad, a dentist who molests his teenage patients—but Daisy’s dilemma is a mighty one, not the least because she has no access to tampons or pads and is forced to dress entirely in stark white Pearl Girl outfits.
She begs Shu not to tell, and this is the first time these two have a genuine connection. A little later in the episode, they have another private conversation, and it’s here we get some real insight into why Shu is so desperate to conform. Fitting in is a teenage girl survival tactic in general, but the stakes are much higher in Gilead, where a woman’s life path is determined by her body’s biological capabilities.
“I’ve done everything that I’m supposed to,” Shu moans. She’s followed all the rules and guidelines and put on a happy face for her period-having friends. She’s endured daily grilling by her hopeful mother. And yet, nothing’s happened. She’ll end up an “old, withered prune,” and here’s Daisy trying to conceal her own miraculous transformation.
“You lucky slut,” Shu sighs. But we soon learn there’s more to this than jealousy or wanting to be like everybody else.
“I can’t let my parents down,” she confesses to Daisy, explaining that her little brother was “one of the 68 taken on the Night of Tears.” Her mother still wears his picture in a locket, and Shu has long felt the burden of being the only child left. “I can’t be barren… she doesn’t deserve that.”
Daisy, who, as we know, studied Gilead in school back in Toronto, knows the “Night of Tears” by a more familiar name: “Angel’s Flight.”
Viewers of The Handmaid’s Tale will recall it well. (And it was 86 kids, not 68—did Gilead miscount, or is this an inconsistency between the shows?) Back in season three, a pregnant Handmaid is grievously injured and then kept tethered to life support until her baby is far enough along to deliver. June is intimately involved in the whole agonizing ordeal, and as she’s watching over the dying woman, she vows to free as many of Gilead’s children as possible.
In the season three finale, “Mayday,” we follow that dangerous plan put into action, as a network of Marthas and Handmaids gather children in their care and smuggle them onto a plane bound for Canada, giving them the gift of growing up free from Gilead’s cruelty.
June, who’s shot during the mission, stays behind in Gilead, gazing up in triumph as the plane takes off. Her younger daughter made it to Canada in season two; her older daughter, well… she’s still in Gilead. (If you know, you know.)
The Testaments picks up four years after The Handmaid’s Tale’s sixth season, so rewind a bit to season three, and we can guess Angel’s Flight happened around seven years ago. Shu would probably have been around nine years old—but even if she’d been older, she wouldn’t have the framework to understand why her brother’s escape from Gilead is a good thing. Gilead is all she’s ever known, and of course she’s going to join her mother in grieving what they see as a family tragedy.
We get another insider perspective on one of June’s successful acts of rebellion when the scene shifts to Becka’s engagement party. While, again, most of the focus is on Becka’s pervy dad, we also get an intriguing callback to the final season of The Handmaid’s Tale. Garth’s father, a formerly powerful Commander, is now an invalid, still suffering from the effects of being poisoned by Mayday.
Handmaid’s Tale fans know exactly what that means: He was in Boston and ate the cake that Rita made for Serena Joy’s wedding. In season six episode “Exodus,” Handmaids killed dozens of drugged Commanders. Garth’s dad dodged that fate, but he’s still paying the price for his role in Gilead.
Incredibly, though he has every reason to hate Mayday, Garth hates Gilead instead. As we know, he’s Daisy’s Mayday contact. He plays the part of a dutiful Guardian (he’s soon to be promoted to a Commander), but he’s also an active part of the resistance.
But Garth—whose take on his father is that he was a brave man, “just fighting for the wrong side”—is also a cautionary tale. We haven’t gotten much insight into boys raised in Gilead. This is a story about the woman of Gilead, first and foremost. But much like the Nick character in The Handmaid’s Tale, whose ability to be sympathetic had some distressing limitations, we can see that Garth is emotionally stunted.
He’s trying to do the right thing. He has a moral compass and he knows Gilead is a rotten place. But he’s also ill-equipped to face his impending marriage to Becka with anything other than a sense of duty. He’s just doing what’s expected of him and going through the motions. Feelings don’t come into play at all—he has a hard time understanding Daisy’s anger and frustration when she vents to him about Mayday. Agnes’ crush on him is a completely alien concept.
You can imagine that if Shu’s little brother had remained in Gilead, he’d be just as hollow inside. Maybe he’d be like Garth and decide to support the rebellion—or maybe he’d become yet another malevolent product of his environment.
Speaking of, it sure seems like a certain dentist is going to be dealt with very soon, but we’ll have to wait to find out if Aunt Lydia or Daisy makes that happen first.
New episodes of The Testaments arrive Wednesdays on Hulu and Disney+.
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