The Testaments–To Girl Power, A Covenant for the Future

The new Hulu series, The Testaments, is a sequel to the blockbuster six-season “The Handmaid’s Tale” (See my May 14, 2017 and June 2, 2025 reviews) Both series are  based on  novels of the same name by Margaret Atwood.  

Continuing  the dark world where Gilead girls are trained to become Gilead women, The Testaments is a coming-of-age drama set in the same dystopian fascist autocracy resulting from a religious coup portrayed in “Handmaid’s Tale”. 

A  totalitarian regime that has overthrown the United States, Gilead’s policies are fundamentally targeting the  oppression of girls and women. Without any choice,  girls and women are forced into slavery, some sexual and others psychological.  All have no agency over their own lives.  

Unsurprisingly, Gilead’s dictatorship has begun to wither and rot from within. New female participants have to be recruited from other countries in order to provide enough reproductive “supply” for the male-dominated  society. 

Residents are segregated along strict sexual and class lines with each social group  confined to a regimented behavioral code. Code infractions are punishable by torture or death. There is absolute erasure of the difference between private and public life.  No one–male or female– has any autonomy, even at the top of the hierarchy.   The elite, however,  are given more benefits.  One of these privileged is a teenage girl, Agnes (Chase Infiniti), a student “Plum” in the prestigious academy for the daughters of  Gilead’s powerful Commander class.  Aunt Lydia (Ann Dowd) is the headmistress.

Agnes is the  beautiful kind-hearted virgin and adoptive daughter to an influential and wealthy Commander (Nate Corddry) and his wife Paula (Amy Seimetz).  This young ripe Plum is about to be “picked”(=promoted) to be a Commander’s wife, once a suitable candidate is matched with her.

Too clueless to understand what married life will probably be like for her, Agnes joyfully expects a match made in heaven.  She is unaware of the heavily proscripted life mandated by the autocratic Gilead theocracy with its savage and repressive edicts to love and obey one’s master/husband.   

Agnes can’t read. She can’t write. She isn’t allowed access to calendars. She can’t look at boys.  And Agnes has found a major crush among the  Guardians (Brad Alexander’s Garth) who are tasked with protecting the Gilead teenage girls’ chastity.

The academy’s mission is to educate in the “domestic arts”: embroidery, table setting, modest dancing, demure body posture.   No curriculum fostering independence and intellectual development.  Aunt Lydia  watches over the daughters of Gilead’s elite literally and in the form of a towering statue in the school’s atrium.

As one of Aunt Lydia’s favorite Plums, Agnes is assigned to be the role model for Daisy (Lucy Halliday), a recruit/Pearl from the “immoral and heathen” city of Toronto.  Daisy, who has experienced life outside of Gilead, will be the pivotal figure who influences Agnes in an incipient awareness of the Gilead culture of denunciation.  As her guide, Daisy will encourage Agnes to navigate a psychological landscape overflowing with landmines. Having old friends is the politics of last resort.  Making new ones will be the first step toward change. And Daisy will become Agnes’s new friend.

Tyrants see the hook on which to hang everyone else.  Daisy represents not being hooked.  In her note to June (the main character in “Handmaid’s Tale”, played by Elisabeth Moss), Daisy says:  “Nothing can be more powerful than a teenage girl”.

And the closing scene is of Daisy and Agnes leading other girls to the tune of “I’m a female rebel”.  

All cast members give powerful, unforgettable performances, especially the three leads:  Ann Dowd (Aunt Lydia), Chase Infinity (Agnes), and Lucy Halliday (Daisy).  

Great story and enactment!

Availability:  Hulu 

Note 1: This series detours from the novel, The Testaments, with some character arcs completely different from Atwood’s narrative, particularly the character of Daisy.  That is a good thing, since Daisy becomes so much more defiant and instructive in teaching Agnes.

Note 2: Season 2 is in production.