Movies & TV The Testaments Don’t Let the Bastards Break Your Pinky Swears: The Testaments Season Finale Big cameos and a familiar name from the past mark a grisly Gileadean coming-of-age. By Natalie Zutter | Published on May 27, 2026 Image: Disney/Russ Martin Comment 0 Share New Share Image: Disney/Russ Martin Surprisingly, or not, Gilead did not retain the “something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue” tradition for its twisted wedding culture. But the show must go on, and this dystopian theocracy will not let a little murder get in the way of marrying off its child brides to creepy old Commanders in order to keep the cycle going. That at least a few of these nuptials go off with only minor hitches is a testament (heh) to Gilead’s ability to self-perpetuate, but also a hint at how the rot at its sinful core will eventually destroy the system from the inside out. Someone’s getting married, someone’s getting dumped, someone’s getting hanged, someone’s pulling a Runaway Bride Pearl Girl. We’ve got the two most recognizable faces of The Handmaid’s Tale TV show and book, and yet still it’s a surprisingly low-key first season finale. At least we got confirmation of the season two renewal, confirming that the latter half of Margaret Atwood’s novel should make it to our screens. Spoilers for The Testaments season 1. Content warning for sexual assault of minors. This season had more setup than it needed, though (as I mentioned in my review of the series premiere) that was likely in order to onboard new viewers who hadn’t watched much of The Handmaid’s Tale. Did we need an entire episode detailing Lydia’s all-too-easy adjustment to the new world order? Perhaps, in order to watch her pick out the Aunts’ trademark color and reveal herself perfectly willing to execute fellow teacher and future fellow Aunt Vidala. But because this season has not functionally changed anything about Lydia in the present (book spoilers notwithstanding), those flashbacks could have just as easily fit into next season. The Testaments most thrives on its sequences of spectacle: the menarche midnight initiation, the tea parties, the prom, the Field Trips, the Assemblies—Daisy’s beplumming! The weddings that we do get in the finale are muted; Becka’s is a hasty affair done in private, the others presumably happening off-screen. Yet it’s telling that the episode is titled “Secateurs,” for the pruning shears that Becka wields in the name of justice—but also for our core squad of Plums and Greens to be pruned, their bonds trimmed or uprooted by the demands of Gileadean society. Blessed Are Those Who Thirst for Justice Image: Disney/Steve Wilkie The L.A. Times’ review of The Testaments makes the point that The Handmaid’s Tale was a story for the first Trump administration, while The Testaments is for the Epstein files. The prom episode awfully illustrated this, with the bait-and-switch of the Greens getting to dance with the junior Commanders to let their guards down and get all dreamy-eyed, only for the elder Commanders to cut in as the nauseating reality of the husbands who expect their love and devotion—who know exactly which taboos they are gleefully breaking in the name of purity and virtue. And yet it’s Becka’s father who makes the greatest transgressions, flouting not only moral codes but also Gileadean rules of ownership in order to molest these poor girls who come to him for dental work. It should have come as no surprise to anyone that Becka, a Plum-turned-Green raised on gory an-eye-for-an-eye justice, would take it upon herself to pass judgment on her father and make sure he couldn’t harm anyone else in her class or even (shudder) the Pinks. I was surprised that Commander Weston was willing to bring Becka back to her home long enough for her mother and Lydia to come up with the solution; that her mother take the fall, having outlived her usefulness as the Wife of a disgraced pervert, and let Becka step into her groomed Wife role. Of course, the consequence is that once Weston discovers Agnes was one of the victims, he drops her as damaged goods. The Agnes/Becka kiss was bittersweet, especially as Agnes is still losing both her best friend and her beloved crush in one awful swoop. I think on one level it meant the same thing to both of them, but on another level it may not have; but that’s the kind of adolescent messiness I’m looking forward to next season. Surrogates Image: Disney/Russ Martin The June/Daisy confrontation almost made up for the changes from the book. Over the course of the season it’s become clear that this Daisy is not June’s daughter Nichole, nor seemingly connected to any significant character from The Handmaid’s Tale; instead, she’s a kind of surrogate daughter for all of them, representative of someone whose birth parents got her out of Gilead even if they couldn’t join her. In some ways, that lack of familial connection gives Daisy a bit more leeway to stand up to this living legend, to throw June’s own baggage back into her face. June’s all ready to yank her out of the operation, only for Daisy to mention Agnes and then reverse everything, making June the one who is too emotionally compromised yet agrees to keep her in. Though it raises the question, was Mayday’s plan to just throw Daisy the Pearl Girl into a random part of Gilead as the proverbial spaghetti against the wall and see how she sticks? I assumed the entire point was to drop her in to infiltrate the Plums and report back on Agnes and/or get her out. Yes, June’s shock at the chance of Daisy meeting Hannah was a lovely reversal that entirely changes the course of their argument while having June confer a gruff maternal kiss of luck that she knows will never actually make it to her daughter. But it also stretched credulity as to what Mayday is even trying to do in Gilead at this point. So far they’ve attacked school buses, but it’s unclear if they’re trying to hurt the girls or save them. And while June managed to wipe out a bunch of Commanders in one fell swoop four years ago, there is still an upsettingly large number of old men licking their chops at the prospect of marrying young girls. Soooo what’s the plan? The Handmaid’s Daughter’s Tale Image: Disney/Steve Wilkie It’s a daisy chain: Daisy tells Agnes about her mother’s true identity, or rather confirms what Agnes had always suspected and tried to repress; Agnes acknowledges to Lydia that she knows about her infamous bloodline. Lydia refusing to deny it establishes the slightest of bonds between them, that hints on how they might interact next season in order to recover some sort of future for Agnes. BOOK SPOILERS START I was certain that this season would end with Becka and Agnes, or perhaps Agnes and Daisy, running away together to become Aunts-in-training, like they do in the novel. We spent so much of this season learning about the pipeline from Pinks to Plums to Greens to Wives that it would have been interesting to have been given a clear diverting path; instead, they seem to be withholding that option for season two. SPOILERS END I was mistaken about the role of Handmaids in Gilead; it sounds as if the Red Center is still operating, albeit no longer trusted to Lydia’s care, and that Handmaids are still an option for plenty of families. I think it would be too on-the-nose for Agnes to follow in her mother’s footsteps and become a Handmaid; not to mention, it wouldn’t fit her role as the daughter of such a prominent commander, even if she is a jilted Green. But again, with June killing the Commanders and freeing the Handmaids, it raises the question of what women (or girls) left in Gilead have been chosen for that role. Pinky Swears Image: Disney/Russ Martin Now that Becka is a Wife, she’ll be relegated to her new household with Garth. If Agnes or the others want to see her, it will have to be on her domain, rather than being able to steal moments at the school. It is a keen bit of worldbuilding that she’ll no longer have a reason to be present in the other girls’ daily lives and routines, so Agnes must renew or strengthen her bonds with Daisy and Shu via pinky swear. (And what about poor Hulda! I guess she’s days away from being married off herself.) That final image is reminiscent of The Handmaid’s Tale in the later seasons, as June’s world was expanded by making connections with not only other Handmaids, but with Marthas and Jezebels and Wives—that is, other women across Gilead’s social strata. As this next generation starts to actually grow up and into mature roles, I’ll be curious to see how their discontent and dissension might start to spread across households and potentially even to their Commander husbands, especially as Garth continues to work with Mayday. It is a bit of a letdown to have the voiceover culminate on the same sound bite as the biggest pre-series promo: the notion that there’s nothing more dangerous than a teenage girl. Because a lot of the early press led with that idea, I expected the season to build on it; instead, it feels a bit like ending where we began. But if you think about it, the finale does fulfill the old wedding rhyme: Agnes recalling herself as Hannah is something old and new; Daisy receiving June’s hug is something borrowed; and Becka’s mom is something blue, the Wife taking the fall for her daughter so that she can adopt the garb. Maybe there was some spectacle, less flashy but still tapping into a shared language. Pearls & Pins Image: Disney/Steve Wilkie If we want to be cheeky about continuity, I wonder how life has treated Margaret Atwood’s Aunt character between her season one cameo and now. Last we saw her, she was backhanding June/Offred; now she wears all-black and instructs Lydia not to agitate Becka when she visits her in prison. Perhaps Aunt Margaret has become some sort of jailer or inquisitor? Speaking of continuity, it was a cool touch for the showrunners to hold onto Agnes’ drawing from The Handmaid’s Tale season five, back when she still knew how to write her real name. In a nice nod to Atwood, Daisy’s real name is Marguerite. One of my favorite scenes this season was the godawful reproductive system talk the Greens get, followed by Daisy mollifying Shu with the real birds and bees talk, culminating in Rowan Blanchard’s pitch-perfect delivery of “swims up!?” Was that young Nichole playing rocket stomp outside June’s house in Canada when she gets the message from Daisy? Four years ago June left her with her mother Holly, but she seems more settled now aside from the occasional Mayday shuffle. Commander Judd is gonna be the big bad in season two, right? In both books, there’s some fun speculation in the epilogue as to which of two similarly-named Commanders is Offred’s tormentor, Commander Fred Waterford or Commander B. Frederick Judd. So the showrunners must be gearing up to do more with him… What did you think of The Testaments season 1? What do you want to see in season two?[end-mark] The post Don’t Let the Bastards Break Your Pinky Swears: <i>The Testaments</i> Season Finale appeared first on Reactor.