The Testaments Season 1 Finale: Agnes’s True Identity Unmasked — And the Twist That Launches Season 2

One year after The Handmaid's Tale bowed out on Hulu, its follow-up The Testaments just dropped a Season 1 finale that actually dares to aim for hope. The season took its time building out Agnes McKenzie (Chase Infiniti) and Daisy (Lucy Halliday) and digging into Aunt Lydia's (Ann Dowd) past, but the back half hits the gas. Spoilers ahead.

Picking up after the murder that blew everything open

Episode 9 ended with Becka (Mattea Conforti) killing her abusive father, Dr. Grove (Randal Edwards), in grisly fashion. The finale, "Secateurs," lives in the fallout: Becka is locked up, Agnes' future is suddenly shaky, and you can feel the ground shifting under Gilead for the first time in a while.

Agnes learns her real name, and it changes everything

Agnes is, in fact, Hannah Bankole, the daughter of Luke Bankole (O-T Fagbenle) and June Osborne (Elisabeth Moss), taken by Gilead years ago. Handmaid's fans already knew, but the reveal still lands because it finally clicks for Agnes. After a very teen, very Gilead-poisoned moment where she basically calls June a terrorist, she starts connecting the dots: her mother survived, fought back, protected people. That same spark is in her.

Then Agnes finds an old drawing in her secret keepsake box with the name 'Hannah' scrawled on it. It's a nice echo from The Handmaid's Tale Season 5, Episode 9, when we saw that exact act of kid-sized rebellion. That memory unlocks something for her now.

Agnes tells Aunt Lydia the truth. Lydia says she knew June, and that June never quit. Translation: neither will they. On paper, they're talking about the more immediate mess of getting Agnes married off, which is complicated by Gilead's girl-color caste system and Agnes shifting from Green back to Plum. But under the surface, it's a quiet, pointed acknowledgment of resistance.

Case in point: Aunt Lydia and Aunt Vidala orchestrate a cover so Becka's mother takes the blame for Dr. Grove's murder, effectively saving Becka. By the end, Agnes' eyes are wide open about what Gilead really is. The last shot of Agnes, Shu (Rowan Blanchard), and Daisy walking together with pinkies linked is a small gesture with a loud message: the rebellion energy is only getting louder in Season 2.

Daisy's parents are still a mystery

The finale gives us Hannah, but it does not give us Daisy's lineage. In Margaret Atwood's novel, Daisy is Nichole, the daughter of June and Nick Blaine (Max Minghella). The show can't do that cleanly because Daisy is the same age as Agnes here, which breaks the timeline. And yeah, when June pours her heart out to Daisy, I wondered if the series would hand-wave the math and go for it anyway. They didn't.

She doesn't obviously line up as Charlotte, Janine's daughter, or one of the Angel's Flight kids either. Maybe the show keeps her disconnected from legacy characters. What they are doing, very clearly, is making Daisy feel like June's spiritual heir. She chooses to go back into Gilead to help the girls she just met, danger be damned. That is classic June.

Why Commander Weston really dumped Agnes

Agnes tells her fiance, Commander Weston (Reed Diamond), that she was one of the girls Dr. Grove abused. He uses that knowledge to push for help for Becka, then turns around and breaks the engagement. Her father blames the proximity to the Grove scandal.

The uglier, likelier truth: Weston views Agnes as "tainted," and he now realizes she is someone who will speak up if he hurts her. Given his history of domestic violence, he's shopping for someone quieter and easier to control.

The kiss: tender, hopeful, and complicated

One tonal shift from The Handmaid's Tale to The Testaments is the age of its leads, which lets the show carve out small pockets of sweetness. Agnes and Becka's kiss lands in that space. It happens as Becka readies for her wedding to Garth (Brad Alexander). Becka does have romantic feelings for Agnes, and the kiss is a little candle in a pitch-black room. Her marriage may be "better" than Handmaid duty, but locked alone in her room, this is not a happy ending.

For Agnes, there's no clear romantic charge yet. It reads as comfort, loyalty, and maybe a soft goodbye.

Yes, that was Margaret Atwood

Early in the episode, the author herself shows up as a worker in the facility holding Becka. She has a brief exchange with Aunt Lydia and drops one sharp line:

"Don't agitate her."

It's a cheeky pick for a cameo, considering how fascinated Atwood has always been with Lydia, and there's a neat irony to seeing the creator blend into the machinery of Gilead.

Season 2 is happening, and the numbers are strong

Hulu already ordered The Testaments Season 2. The show is performing: 45 million hours viewed through the first eight episodes, and a 76 percent jump in viewership from Episode 1 to Episode 8. There's plenty of runway with these characters, so don't be shocked if it goes beyond two seasons.

Where the story could go next, with a book spoiler flag

Book spoilers ahead for The Testaments.

The series still has a lot of Atwood material in the tank. In the novel, Agnes becomes a Supplicant, essentially an Aunt-in-training, to dodge marriage. She eventually gets hold of documents that expose Gilead's rot, including Paula's affair with another Commander and a plot between the two to kill their spouses. That evidence leaks to Canadian media, sparks a revolt that topples Gilead, and June reunites with both of her children.

The show has tweaked timelines and changed Daisy's identity, so not all of that maps 1:1. But the direction is clear enough: more of Gilead's secrets coming to light, information funneled to Canada, and these characters linking up with Mayday in a more deliberate way.

Where to watch

All 10 episodes of The Testaments Season 1 are now streaming on Hulu.