u/TheRewster1106

What was that experience like? Was it confusing watching it in this order? Was it genuinely surprising finding out, for instance, that Agnes is June's daughter at the end of the season?

I watched TT almost immediately after binge watching THT for the first time earlier this year, so I had June's experiences and her traumas fresh in my mind as I watched her daughter's story. I'm just curious what the experience was like for those who watched it in the opposite order?

Also, same question about the books for any who read TT before THT too!

(Reposted from The Handmaid's Tale sub--hope that's OK.)

What was that experience like? Was it confusing watching it in this order? Was it genuinely surprising finding out, for instance, that Agnes is June's daughter at the end of the season?

I watched TT almost immediately after binge watching THT for the first time earlier this year, so I had June's experiences and her traumas fresh in my mind as I watched her daughter's story. I'm just curious what the experience was like for those who watched it in the opposite order?

Also, same question about the books for any who read TT before THT too!

With season 2 about to start filming and set to release (most likely) next year, I thought it'd be fun for us to post our predictions for where this series will go.

Book spoilers ahead!

I think the next season will start with Agnes asking Daisy about her mother, and Daisy will tell her how June took care of her after her parents were killed, planting the seeds for Agnes starting to see June as something other than a terrorist/criminal.

I predict the Garth-Bekah marriage will start off contentious (she won't have liked being locked in her room), but to his surprise, she'll eventually want to join Mayday after hearing that Garth is a double agent (probably after Daisy blabs something in her hearing). After that, the two become (literal) partners in crime. Bekah will want to recruit Agnes, but Garth will find it too risky.

Somehow Shunamite will find out June Osborne is Agnes's birth mother, which will create a rift between the two (because Shu blames June for her brother's disappearance), but only temporarily.

After not getting her period, Shu will eventually become Aunt Immortelle. She'll learn how to read, and Aunt Lydia will subtly share things with her that will begin to unmask the rot upholding the Gilead system.

The Mackenzies will get a handmaid in season 2, Ofkyle. Agnes doesn't approve of this at first because it will feel like she's being replaced. Eventually she'll sit with her discomfort long enough (and through conversation with Daisy) to learn that the real reason she doesn't like this is because her birth mother suffered as a handmaid.

Agnes will decide to overcome her resentment and befriend Ofkyle, learning that her real name is Crystal. Eventually Crystal will get pregnant and then die in childbirth. By this point, she will have become a genuine friend to Agnes, who is devastated first of all at her death, and second by how uncaring Kyle and Paula are about Crystal's fate, now that they have Baby Mark. This will be the beginning of a rift between Agnes and her "father" Kyle.

Meanwhile, I think Daisy will continue communicating to June via the honey jars we saw at the end of season 1, mostly about her daughter but also about general happenings in Maryland. She'll tell her about Crystal's fate, which will prompt June to set up a memorial for her in Toronto's "Little America," and she finds Crystal's family, who are able to pay their last respects. They thank June, but June tells them it was only possible because of her daughter Hannah.

Eventually Agnes finds out about Daisy's correspondences with her mother and reprimands her first for not telling her and second for how much trouble she could get into for writing to June Osborne of all people. Daisy agrees to send one last note to June (so she doesn't worry about the abrupt silence) and offers Agnes the opportunity to say something to her mother. Scene change to June in Canada, reading Daisy's last letter, but then the voiceover changes from Daisy to Agnes as she tells her mother something like "Dear Mom, I'm OK, I'm surrounded by friends, you don't have to worry about me," and you see the emotion on June's face reading Hannah's words for the first time.

Those are my season 2 predictions. I think season 3 will show Agnes becoming Aunt Victoria and deepening her partnership with Aunt Lydia. Shu will teach her how to read, and Lydia will send her numerous incriminating files.

The worst will be her "mother" Tabitha's death file. She'll learn that Paula poisoned her (and killed her first husband) so she could marry Commander Mackenzie and improve her status. Kyle didn't kill her himself (which is different from the book), but he knew about it and helped Paula cover it up. This furthers the rift between Agnes and Kyle and leads to open enmity between her and Paula.

This news makes Agnes very wistful for a mother figure, and she wonders if she could have what she had with Tabitha if she were to find June again. Daisy assures her she will.

Lydia will gradually feed Agnes info about not only her birth mother but also about her birth father Luke as well. There isn't as much info on him, but Agnes is grateful for what little she can learn. As for her mother, her deeds sometimes appall her, sometimes inspire her, and generally fill her with pity for what she endured. She also reads files on the Commanders and finds just how deep the rot goes that undergirds all of Gileadean society. She comes to see her mother less as a desperate criminal and more as a hero for fighting back.

The last thing she reads are about the various attempts that June made over the years to get her daughter back. Agnes knew nothing of this previously, and for the first time feels genuine affection for her birth mother.

As those who've read the book know, the time will eventually come for the escape into Canada. Aunt Lydia will have finished her journal of all of Gilead's wrongdoings and give it to Aunt Victoria and Daisy (the latter of whom has returned to Pearl Girl status for the purposes of this mission) to leave Gilead and get the information into Mayday's hands in Canada.

There will be a teary goodbye scene between Agnes and Bekah as she and Garth do undercover work to set up their escape. And there will be a far more tearjerking scene when Shunamite/Aunt Immortelle sacrifices herself so Agnes and Daisy can make good their escape (she'll tell them to find her brother and tell him she loved him). Likewise, as the walls close in around Aunt Lydia, she will poison herself to make sure she tells Gilead nothing of her plans, but not before enjoining Aunt Vidala to take care of their girls in a post-Gilead world.

In the book, Lydia inserts a microdot into Daisy/Nicole's tattoo to smuggle the info that way, which gets infected, leading to a near-death scene as she and Agnes row to the Canadian shore. In the show, Daisy has no tattoo, and there is no microdot. Instead, I predict there will be a firefight between Mayday forces and Guardians on the water. Either Hannah or Daisy will end up shot by a Guardian--probably Hannah, just to up the dramatic stakes for the audience.

So, bleeding out, Hannah will help Daisy row to shore after the gunfight. Daisy will want to save Hannah instead and do first aid, but Hannah urgently tells her Gilead will capture and kill them both if they waste time, and the mission is more important than one life. So they row and reach the Canadian coast.

There, a bunch of Mayday operatives await, including June and Luke. Their elation at seeing Hannah immediately turns to horror as they see her covered in blood and barely able to stand. She's rushed to the nearest hospital and spends an agonizing night on the fence between life and death. As we all know, of course, she'll pull through; she'll regain consciousness and have that very emotional reunion with June and Luke that we've all been looking forward to seeing for years.

So after all that will come the episodes focusing on Hannah acclimating to her new life outside Gilead with her birth family. She'll get to know her parents--the good, the bad, and the ugly--and meet her little sister, Holly/Nichole. Daisy will help her adjust, and I think there will be a comedic "fish out of water" episode where she shows Hannah the city of Toronto and takes her shopping for clothes.

I think season 4 will be the final season, focusing on the fall of Gilead. The info smuggled out by Hannah and Daisy is disseminated all over the internet, destabilizing Gilead's authority and leading to power struggles across the republic. The capital in Washington is particularly unstable. June and Luke see a golden opportunity to strike a fatal blow against the country and join US forces going there. Hannah and Daisy, knowing that Bekah, Garth, and the others are in danger, vow to go as well.

At first, June is opposed to letting her daughter back into Gilead. But this is June's last and greatest test, not only accepting her daughter as her own person, but also as a fellow comrade, realizing that this is her fight too. Moreover, Daisy and especially Hannah have inside information on that region of Gilead, particularly on Commander Mackenzie (whom I predict will have overcome the power squabbles to find himself on top). This, then, will lead to Hannah's last and greatest test of her own, whether she can bring herself to betray and bring down the man who had been the only father figure she'd ever known for so many years.

So they devise a plan where Hannah returns to Kyle, making up a story of how she was kidnapped by her birth parents and forced to live in sin, but has only just escaped and now has valuable intel that will destroy June Osborne and Mayday for good. For Kyle, the prospect of landing a blow against such great sinners and getting his "daughter" back is too good to pass up. Paula, of course, doesn't believe it for a moment, so Hannah will have to neutralize her somehow. (Maybe she kills her?--it would be the only time in the series I predict Hannah will take a life.) As for Daisy, I'm thinking she keeps Commander Judd preoccupied by agreeing to become his wife--and then poisons him in recompense for Penny and the other wives he's had killed.

In the end, thanks to Hannah's and Daisy's efforts, Washington falls and the US retakes the capital. June and Luke are about to kill Kyle (and eager at the prospect!) when Hannah intervenes to save his life, saying that he genuinely cared for her for over a decade, and despite everything she still loves him in a way. So at Hannah's urging, Kyle is taken alive; she sometimes visits him in prison (the only one to do so). Baby Mark is taken and put into the custody of Crystal's family in Canada.

During the final battle, Garth sacrifices himself to save Bekah, leading to a very bittersweet reunion between her and Hannah. During her time away from Gilead, Hannah realized her love for Bekah is more than platonic. So during the finale (after a time skip so they're no longer teenagers), Hannah and Bekah get married in a joyous ceremony that is the utter antithesis of Bekah's forced wedding at the end of season 1. (Daisy is their maid of honor, of course.)

I predict the final scene of The Testaments will show Hannah and Daisy in a Hague-style courtroom where the two will give their testimonies on their experiences in Gilead. With her mother and father there in support, Hannah begins with the first words of the first episode (just like The Handmaid's Tale ended), "You're probably wondering what it was like for me, growing up in Gilead."

Sorry for the length, and kudos to you if you read all the way down this far. Also sorry that this got relatively fanfic-ish, but I suppose that's the nature of prediction posts.

TL;DNR version: Hannah/Agnes goes through some shit, but eventually finds happiness in the end.

As a new fan of The Handmaid's Tale and a lifelong Zelda fan, this is exciting news to me!

Unconfirmed what role she'll be playing exactly, but it's apparently a queen figure of some sort. (Zelda's mother perhaps?)

I have a coworker named Hannah, and once I accidentally almost called her Agnes. Thankfully I stopped myself in time--I'm sure she would've been very confused otherwise!

Hi all! I'm new to the fandom and finished watching both The Handmaid's Tale and The Testaments both for the first time a few weeks ago.

THT had been on my radar for several years, but I either kept forgetting about it or just hadn't gotten around to it yet. When I finally did decide to watch it, I had some trepidation going in because the series is long, and while I knew almost nothing about it, I did know the subject matter could be intense and very heavy.

Now I watch a lot of TV shows. I live alone, so I normally watch an episode or two of a show at dinnertime while I eat, as a nice escape from the stresses of the day. Usually I watch something, get to the end and say, "That was cool," and then move on to the next show.

But y'all, I got super into this show. I binge watched THT, all six seasons, in a span of only two or three weeks. I was devoting every spare moment outside of work to watching it. I even had trouble sleeping some nights because I had to know what happened to the characters next (cue the meme "I don't need sleep, I need answers!").

I devoured both books in short order after finishing THT. As for TT the TV series, I initially planned to do as I had with THT and wait several years for all the seasons to air and then binge watch them all in one go. Yeah, that lasted all of about a week before I said "fuck it" and watched all 10 episodes of season 1 in two or three days. And now I have to wait for season 2 like everyone else. 😝 In the meantime, I've watched cast interviews on YouTube (for both shows), done deep dives here on Reddit, and joined one or two Facebook groups--I almost never do this for other shows I watch!

Funny story: As I was watching Handmaid's, I was tangentially aware of the existence of The Testaments and (from a brief glance at Wikipedia), I knew it took place some years after THT, and the main character was named Agnes, with a mixed race actress cast for the role.

And I remember thinking to myself, "Agnes... Isn't that Hannah's fake name in Gilead? Well, I hope that's not the same Agnes who's June's daughter because I'm going to be pretty upset if I watch all six seasons of this show and June doesn't get Hannah back!"

🙃 Weeeeeeelllllllllp. 🙃

In all seriousness, though, after watching all six seasons of THT and the first season of TT, I think the way they're doing it now is much better, especially exploring Agnes's character in TT, and so that long anticipated reunion between mother and daughter (a decade in the making now!) will be all the more meaningful after such a long wait. There's a reason why Bruce Miller is the showrunner and not Reddit user TheRewster1106. 😉

I'm not a parent myself, but (at the risk of oversharing) I lost my mother as a teenager--I wasn't much older than Agnes and her friends in TT. So in some sense I feel like I'm living vicariously through Hannah/Agnes, who's destined to meet again her long lost mother. I see a lot of my own mom in June, in fact. I think that's why I've been so drawn to both of these series.

Also, I've concocted probably a dozen different scenarios in my head for the inevitable June-Hannah reunion, so I'm eager to see how it actually comes about (though I doubt it will be in S2). Like I said, both shows have lived rent-free in my head ever since finishing. 😜

So yeah, I came for the politics and then stayed for the characters. Both shows are so perfectly cast that I can hardly think of a weak spot acting-wise in either. I will admit that some of the writing gets a little off the rails in S4-6 of THT (esp. S4, which I personally think is the weakest season though still good overall), but as someone who watches a lot of Star Wars and Marvel/DC stuff, I don't think it bothered me as much as it did other fans of the series.

It does feel a bit weird to be a male fan of both of these shows (the beard in my avatar gives me away!), since I know I'm not the target demographic of either. (I think the fandom of these shows and books is probably 90% women?--which makes sense, of course.) I've lurked in this subreddit (and The Testaments sub) as well as a couple Facebook groups for a few weeks now. This is my first topic I've posted here, though I have posted little comments in threads here and there. As a man, part of me feels like I shouldn't really belong here, but with the limited activity I've had in this fandom so far, I've had mostly good interactions with the users here, so I appreciate you all for that.

Thank you if you made it to the bottom of my rambling screed. Now on to wait for Testaments season 2!