The Testaments ★★★
After six seasons of The Handmaid’s Tale, the dystopian baton has been passed to this sequel. Once more we are in Gilead, the brutal Christian theocracy that has violently supplanted the United States and banished the modern world, including women’s rights, via murderous means. But 15 years have passed, and the focus is on the daughters of the establishment – the “godly girls” raised to be the dutiful, childbearing wives of the nation’s leaders. On screen, it’s a risky balancing act.
Like The Handmaid’s Tale, The Testaments has an acclaimed Margaret Atwood novel as its source material. Both shows were created by Bruce Miller, and both extend the books’ plot lines. Aunt Lydia (Ann Dowd), the brutal enforcer of Gilead’s misogyny who sought to break June Osborne (Elisabeth Moss) in Handmaid’s, is now running an elite girl’s academy whose teenage students include Agnes MacKenzie (Chase Infiniti). Although she’s unaware, Agnes’s privileged step-parents, the authorities, and the viewers know she is June’s oldest daughter, Hannah.
With the upright Agnes being asked to mentor a new student Daisy (Lucy Halliday), a convert to Gilead from Canada, the narrative is lodged in the concerns of these teenagers. They are young and indoctrinated, with no memory of America. Gilead’s atrocities, such as an offender having his hand removed by bandsaw, happen just out of focus. At times the storytelling has the tone, and pop soundtrack, of a Young Adult drama. Agnes has a cruel stepmother (Amy Seimetz), but her father (Nate Corddry) is a Gilead girl dad.
“These women would change history,” Agnes says in a voiceover, but the path to their revolutionary agency is tricky. Showing Gilead’s hypocrisy means focusing on the girls’ naive parameters. Several episodes are invested in the students competing to impress potential suitors via society rituals – it feels akin to a 19th-century romantic comedy, complete with dastardly sabotage by one ambitious mother. The glances between Agnes and a handsome young security agent, Garth (Brad Alexander), also linger.
Daisy, in particular, is written as too much of a rebel, but the connection between the teenagers is genuine and reflects the hope Atwood delivered on the page. But a crucial failure is reducing the focus on Aunt Lydia. The book gave her an extensive backstory, revealing how she chose to become a collaborator, but that’s compressed to a single episode here, alongside her zealous deputy, Aunt Vidala (Australian actor Mabel Li). Ultimately, the defining quality is Infiniti’s deeply felt performance as Agnes. The One Battle After Another star is compelling and when she’s on-screen The Testaments flourishes. The show goes to Infiniti and beyond.
The Testaments is streaming on Disney+ from April 8.
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Craig Mathieson is a TV, film and music writer for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via X.
