[Warning: The following contains MAJOR spoilers for The Handmaid’s Tale Season 6 Episode 8, “Exodus.” It also contains discussion of The Testaments book plot.]
Ann Dowd will reprise her position as Aunt Lydia in The Testaments, a by-product of The Handmaid’s Story at the moment filming in Canada. The final two episodes of The Handmaid’s Story‘s closing season — set to return out on Might 20 and Might 27 on Hulu — will convey the Emmy-winning drama to an in depth whereas organising the spinoff. Lydia isn’t the one Handmaid’s Story character on the middle of the story.
June (Elisabeth Moss) and Luke’s (O-T Fagbenle) daughter, Hannah, can be a most important character. Hannah (who was renamed Agnes by her Gilead mother and father) can be barely older and performed by Chase Infiniti. The third most important character is called Daisy, to be performed by Lucy Halliday. The collection is ready in Gilead within the years after the top of the plot of The Handmaid’s Story. Dowd tells TV Insider that the spinoff kicks off about “4 to 5 years” after the occasions of the collection finale.
“For these younger girls, rising up in Gilead is all they’ve ever identified, having no tangible recollections of the skin world previous to their indoctrination into this life,” the collection description says. “Going through the prospect of being married off and dwelling a lifetime of servitude, they are going to be pressured to seek for allies, each new and previous, to assist in their combat for freedom and the life they deserve.”
The Testaments is an adaptation of the 2019 Margaret Atwood novel of the identical title, the one official sequel to the 1985 Handmaid’s Story novel. Within the e-book, the Pearl Women are a subclass simply earlier than turning into an aunt. The Pearl Lady system was based by Aunt Lydia as a part of her efforts to reform Gilead. The Pearl Women are aunts in coaching who selected this path usually as an alternative choice to being pressured to marry too younger. They bear years of coaching as Supplicants, after which develop into Pearl Lady missionaries despatched to completely different nations similar to Canada to recruit younger girls to maneuver to Gilead and be part of their trigger. A profitable Pearl Lady mission means turning into an aunt on the finish. The Pearl Women uniform is a silver gown and pretend pearls.
It’s not identified if Hannah/Agnes and Daisy can be Pearl Women in The Testaments collection, however the Pearl Women can be of nice significance to Aunt Lydia.
TV Insider spoke with Ann Dowd about Lydia’s main climactic second in The Handmaid’s Story Season 6 Episode 8, “Exodus,” wherein Lydia units her handmaids free, thus permitting them to hold out a plot to kill the Boston commanders. The fallout of this determination can be seen in Episodes 9 and 10, the ultimate two episodes of the collection. Right here, Dowd previews how the ultimate episodes of The Handmaid’s Story arrange The Testaments, teases the brand new Lydia viewers will see within the spinoff, and shares some insights concerning the Pearl Women.
You’re filming The Testaments now, proper?
Ann Dowd: Sure, we’re.
I do know you possibly can’t inform me a lot in approach of plot, however how a lot time has handed for the reason that finish of The Handmaid’s Story when The Testaments begins?
4 to 5 years, I might guess. I feel that’s what I used to be informed.
Ann Dowd as Aunt Lydia in ‘The Handmaid’s Story’ Season 6 Episode 8, ‘Exodus’ (Disney / Steve Wilkie)
Lydia falls to her knees and begs God for forgiveness after she lets the Handmaids go in Season 6 Episode 8. What’s the standing of Lydia’s relationship with God after this? And the way is that evolving in The Testaments?
Her perception in God and the sensation [of] can she please be forgiven that she has completed mistaken, it brings her to her knees, begging for God’s forgiveness. She doesn’t let go of God. She holds on even tighter and begs for forgiveness. Her perception in God stays current proper by The Testaments. She’s not put to the check like she is in Handmaid’s in The Testaments, no less than not but, however perception in God and God is central to their world, no query. And in her world, for certain. And [it] stays that approach.
In The Testaments, is she in additional of a revolutionary mindset, or is she protecting? Is it each?
I might say protecting. They’re dwelling a life that Lydia believes in, and the truth that these Pearl Women come of their very own volition, they make the choice to return and want to be healed, they’re very, very treasured to Lydia as at all times. That continues to be the identical, her devotion to her women. It’s not the Handmaids in The Testaments, it’s the Pearl Women. The Handmaids are nonetheless a part of Gilead, however that’s not what we’re specializing in in The Testaments.
And these Pearl Women have chosen this life?
Sure, they’ve. They’ve come to her damaged.
I think about that’s an enormous factor for Lydia. She’s not forcing these women into this anymore. Now she’s taking good care of women who select to be there.
Sure, precisely. [They] exit in search of individuals who want to return to Gilead. That’s their job to graduate into the best place. They’ve rather a lot to do with bringing within the women. As soon as they’re there, Lydia and her aunts take cost, they usually’re keen. They’re keen. They need to study. They need to find out about God. They need to speak about God.
It seems like Aunt Lydia is identical however nonetheless very completely different in The Testaments. It’s not as a lot of a stark distinction from Handmaid’s into Testaments.
Effectively, not from the top of Handmaid’s. What you see on the finish of Handmaid’s deeply, deeply impacts how she goes by The Testaments. Getting her place, discovering her approach. What does Gilead imply to me now? What can I maintain onto that’s truthful and holy and never stuffed with violence and lies and corruption? I imply, to suppose that the commanders have been doing this for thus lengthy, and it went proper over “my” head. When you need to dwell with your self after these errors, you go away and also you go to a spot the place there’s silence and also you’re alone, and also you’re with God solely, and you might be checking out the next step. “What am I going to do?”
The Handmaid’s Story, Tuesdays, Hulu
The Testaments, Collection Premiere TBA, Hulu