The season one finale of Hulu’s The Testaments is now streaming and it connects to what happened at the end of the original series, The Handmaid’s Tale.
Elisabeth Moss‘ June Osborne returned for another appearance in the sequel series.
The Testaments follows young teens Agnes (Chase Infiniti), dutiful and pious, and Daisy (Lucy Halliday), a new arrival and convert from beyond Gilead’s borders. As they navigate the gilded halls of Aunt Lydia’s elite preparatory school for future wives, a place where obedience is instilled brutally and always with divine justification, their bond becomes the catalyst that will upend their past, their present and their future.
In episode three, Elisabeth made her first appearance when we learned about Daisy’s back story and how she’s actually a Mayday spy who has infiltrated the Gilead society as part of the resistance.
Daisy grew up in Toronto with her parents, who owned a vintage shop. One day she arrives home to find that her parents were killed. Elisabeth Moss‘s June shows up to rescue her from Gilead spies, who tried to abduct her from the police station. June explains to Daisy that she actually was born in Gilead and was smuggled out of the country to Canada, where she was adopted by her parents. In the book, Daisy actually had a much different story.
June and Daisy reunite in the finale of season one
Mayday decides to get Daisy out of Gilead because of some emotional reactions she’s been having to things going on. They don’t think she has what it takes to be a spy and stay undercover. When she’s taken to June to go back to Canada, she insists that she wants to stay and fight. She promises that she’s going to commit to the cause and bring down Gilead, saying that she’s going to recruit an army of teenage girls to help her.
June gets an update on her daughter Hannah (aka Agnes)
June’s daughter Hannah was taken from her at the beginning of The Handmaid’s Tale and she spent the entire six seasons on that show trying to get her back, but was unsuccessful.
Hannah is now a teenager who goes by Agnes and she’s the main focus of The Testaments. Agnes becomes Daisy’s guide at school at the beginning of the sequel series and they become close friends.
During Daisy’s meeting with June in the finale, she rambles off the names of girls she’s met and how strong they are as young women. When she mentions Agnes, June realizes that Daisy knows her daughter.
Elisabeth Moss told THR, “One of the best written moments in that scene, in my opinion, is the where you get to see June hear it. It’s always better to see on camera if the character has something happen to them, or if they realize something. We get to see her realize and discover where exactly Agnes is on camera. If we had gone with her being completely all-knowing, we would have been robbed at that moment. That moment is so moving when she realizes, and drops her tough exterior. She drops her composure, and you just see her as a mom. She’s nothing but a mom all of a sudden, not a resistance fighter. June is a mom who wants to get her daughter to safety.”
“So I think Bruce did absolutely the right thing. What we decided on was that she knows Hannah’s Gilead name is Agnes MacKenzie. She has an idea of where she is, but I don’t think she knew exactly where she was. She doesn’t necessarily know Daisy knows her and is friends with her. In my opinion, she just has her suspicions. I think we have room to add or subtract how much she knew, but she doesn’t have it 100 percent confirmed [until that moment],” she added.
Agnes learns that June Osborne is her real mother
In one of the final moments of the episode, Daisy tells Agnes that her real mother is June Osborne. Agnes only knows of her as “the terrorist” and doesn’t believe Daisy.
When Daisy tells Agnes that she thinks her real name is Hannah, that’s when things click for her. We later see Agnes go into her room and dig out a piece of artwork from her childhood. Written at the bottom of the paper is the name “Hannah.”
At the end of the episode, Agnes proudly tells Aunt Lydia that she’s the daughter of June Osborne.
In the book, Daisy is actually the daughter of a very important character.
Posted To:Chase Infiniti Elisabeth Moss hulu Lucy Halliday Television The Handmaid’s Tale The Testaments
