Hulu just dropped the first three episodes of The Testaments, the follow-up series to The Handmaid’s Tale. The show takes place four years after June Osborne’s uprising in Boston. The story now follows Agnes MacKenzie (played by Chase Infiniti), a young girl growing up inside the strict world of Gilead. She attends Aunt Lydia’s preparatory school, where young girls learn to become obedient wives. The first two episodes show Agnes getting her first period and entering the marriage market. She also gets paired with a mysterious new girl named Daisy (played by Lucy Halliday), a Pearl Girl from Toronto who has hidden plans. The episodes are titled “Precious Flowers” and “Perfect Teeth.”
The Testaments released on April 8, 2026. Viewers in the USA can watch on Hulu starting at 12 a.m. PT or 3 a.m. ET. Fans in the UK can stream it on Disney+ at 8 a.m. BST. Indian audiences can watch on Disney+ Hotstar at 12:30 p.m. IST. Australian viewers get access at 5 p.m. AET on Disney+. The first three episodes dropped together. The remaining seven episodes will come out weekly every Wednesday. The season finale is scheduled for May 27, 2026.
Agnes Reaches Womanhood and Faces a Scary Truth
The first episode shows Agnes waking up to find blood on her bedsheets. She has gotten her first period. In Gilead, this is a big moment. Girls wearing pink and plum clothes move to green dresses when they start menstruating. Green signals they are ready for marriage. Agnes feels happy at first because she was taught that having children is her only purpose. But she also feels scared. She tries to hide her stained underwear, but her stepmother Paula catches her. Paula gives her an embroidered pad cover made by Agnes’s dead mother Tabitha.
At school, Agnes goes to the bell tower and rings the bell. All the younger girls rush outside to see who has “blossomed.” Aunt Vidala gives Agnes a green pin. Her friends cheer for her. But Shunammite, one of the Plums, acts jealous and makes small mean comments. Becka, Agnes’s closest friend, already got her period earlier. Becka seems sad when Agnes asks to celebrate together. She just says she has another dress fitting.
Episode two shows a darker side of becoming a woman. Dr. Grove, Becka’s father, calls Agnes for a teeth whitening appointment. He talks to her nicely at first. He puts a lead vest on her for an X-ray. Then he makes a comment about her breasts being tender. He touches her inappropriately while adjusting the vest. Agnes does not know how to react. She starts having nightmares about her future husband. She worries that marriage might mean living with a man who touches her in ways she hates.
Daisy the Pearl Girl Brings Trouble
Daisy arrives at the school as a Pearl Girl. Pearl Girls are young women who were not born in Gilead. They come from outside countries and choose to join the regime. Many are runaways looking for a new life. The Plums do not trust Pearl Girls. They think Pearl Girls tell the Aunts about any rule-breaking to prove their loyalty. Aunt Lydia orders Agnes to show Daisy around the school. Agnes does not want to do it.
During an assembly, the Aunts bring a Guardian with his hands tied. They accuse him of masturbation. The girls must decide if he deserves punishment. They scream for violence. Daisy gets sick watching the crowd demand blood. She swears, using God’s name the wrong way. Agnes helps her clean up and promises not to tell anyone. But the next morning, Daisy thinks Agnes will report her. So Daisy confesses first. She also tells the Aunts that Agnes knew about the sin and hid it.
Both girls get punished. They must brush their teeth with a foul soap paste. The other girls chant “Dirty girl!” at Daisy. After the punishment, Agnes tells Daisy to go back home. Daisy fires back, saying some people do not have homes to return to. She asks Agnes for another chance. The episode later shows Daisy hiding a radio in a secret compartment in her bed. She listens to forbidden music and smiles, remembering skateboarding freely. She also draws a map of the school and hides matches in another girl’s bedpost. This suggests she works with Mayday, the resistance group.
Aunt Lydia Shows a Gentler Side
Ann Dowd returns as Aunt Lydia. But this version of the character feels different from The Handmaid’s Tale. Dowd told ABC News that after the events of the original show’s finale, Aunt Lydia faced deep shame. She saw the pain she caused to the Handmaids she claimed to love. This broke her down. In The Testaments, she acts gentler and more vulnerable. She still runs the school with strict rules. But she also seems to watch everything carefully. Dowd hinted that Aunt Lydia keeps secret records. When the right time comes, she will use that evidence against Gilead.
In episode two, Aunt Lydia takes Agnes from her home in the middle of the night. She brings her to a pool room with hooded figures. The figures remove their hoods, showing they are the other Green girls. Aunt Estee baptizes Agnes underwater. Aunt Lydia speaks about how hard it is to be a woman. She says Gilead was founded to put women back in their “rightful place.” The scene feels both spiritual and controlling.
What Gilead School Rules Look Like
The show explains Gilead’s school rules in simple ways. Everything runs on a color system. Little girls in pink, teens without periods in plum, and girls ready for marriage in green. The girls learn embroidery and drawing. They cannot read books because reading is banned for women. They learn that their only value is having babies.
At the school, the Aunts teach obedience through fear. Punishments happen in front of everyone. The girls learn to enjoy watching others suffer. Agnes says in a voiceover that she stopped feeling sick at the sight of dead bodies hanging from nooses. She sees a new Martha named Zilla who had her tongue removed for blasphemy. Agnes feels bad but thinks Zilla deserved it for breaking the rules. This shows how Gilead programs young minds to accept cruelty as normal.
Chase Infiniti told Teen Vogue that filming the punishment scenes felt freeing but also terrifying. She said the rage the girls show comes from a real place. Lucy Halliday added that being on the receiving end of all that screaming was unsettling. She said it made her realize how thin the line is between reality and acting. Everyone has the ability to act in animalistic ways.
Agnes and Daisy’s Unlikely Bond
Even after Daisy betrays Agnes, the two girls stay connected. Aunt Lydia forces them to keep spending time together. Agnes starts to see that Daisy does not fit in Gilead. Daisy asks too many questions. She reacts with disgust to the violence. She seems to remember a different life, one with music and freedom.
Lucy Halliday shared with Teen Vogue that she read Margaret Atwood’s book when it first came out in 2019. She already knew this world before joining the show. Chase Infiniti said she was 17 when The Handmaid’s Tale first aired. She remembers it taking over her high school. Everyone was talking about it. Now she plays a key role in the sequel.
The show also explores how Agnes feels about her mother Tabitha. Tabitha died when Agnes was young. In a flashback, Tabitha tells young Agnes a story about a girl trapped in a castle with wicked witches. Tabitha says she could only save one girl, and she chose Agnes. She promises Agnes that she will have a baby grow inside her. She will not become a mother through the violent Ceremony that Handmaids endure. This memory gives Agnes comfort on the day she gets her period.
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Why This Story Matters Now
Ann Dowd told ABC News that Margaret Atwood is not a prophet. Atwood always says she takes everything from history, not from guessing the future. But Dowd sees scary echoes in real life. She pointed to the loss of abortion rights in some US states. She talked about how women’s bodies are up for debate again. She urged people to stay alert and speak up. She remembered texting Elisabeth Moss after Trump won the election. Moss wrote back in Latin: “Don’t let the bastards grind you down.”
Chase Infiniti shared her own memory of realizing her body was up for discussion. She was eight years old when adults told her to watch what she eats. Her male classmates never got the same talk. She also remembered getting her first period and feeling ashamed. She hopes the show helps people speak more openly about periods. Taking away that shame is important, even if she does not agree with Gilead’s other methods.
The show does not try to soften Gilead’s horrors. But it shows them through the eyes of girls who do not know any other world. Agnes does not dream of escape. She dreams of being a good wife. That makes her story even more painful to watch.
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