The Testaments

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm experiencing cognitive dissonance between Lydia's backstory was portrayed in THT, and did not fit exactly with this one. Wish they had found a way to mesh them more successfully.

Yes, the HT backstory was more nuanced and made it clear that the seeds had already been planted for her to become a true believer. This was a definite shift and made less sense, since here her motivation was entirely about expediency.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm experiencing cognitive dissonance between Lydia's backstory was portrayed in THT, and did not fit exactly with this one. Wish they had found a way to mesh them more successfully.

Yes, the HT backstory was more nuanced and made it clear that the seeds had already been planted for her to become a true believer. This was a definite shift and made less sense, since here her motivation was entirely about expediency.

Omg I had completely forgotten the other version of her backstory. That was even more chilling from the perspective of character development, need to re-watch!

[Anonymous]

Seemed like foreshadowing with Aunt Lydia’s monologue about how it was not good to make friends in Gilead. Do you think she matched Garth with one of Agnes’ friends?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm experiencing cognitive dissonance between Lydia's backstory was portrayed in THT, and did not fit exactly with this one. Wish they had found a way to mesh them more successfully.

Yes, the HT backstory was more nuanced and made it clear that the seeds had already been planted for her to become a true believer. This was a definite shift and made less sense, since here her motivation was entirely about expediency.

Omg I had completely forgotten the other version of her backstory. That was even more chilling from the perspective of character development, need to re-watch!

I am struggling with this new backstory for both Lydia and Vidalia. I don’t see how you go from a normal progressive public school teacher to being all in on rape and torture in 15 years. The survival story only makes sense up to a point — I just don’t see a full grown woman changing her worldview programming this completely in 15 years. Plus why would Judd pick this rando to run the whole thing? It makes no sense when there were probably lots of middle aged church ladies who had already shown that they could be plenty judgemental towards lesbians and single moms etc. Heck. I feel like you could pick some women out of this admin pretty easily to do that job — you wouldn’t want to pick the AP English teacher from McPS to do it.

I do wonder if the writers did any research into ordinary people collaborating with fascist regimes. Like the people who worked at concentration camps who maybe weren’t all in on the concept but were llle “well, there’s a war and I need a job so I guess I can rationalize this somehow….” Trevor Noah’s new comedy special has a bit where he’s talking about who would you be in history—like who would you be in the pre civil war South. It’s probably one of the deepest questions we can ask ourselves — who would we be when surrounded by a system of institutionalized depravity.

I also want to know more about th blonde aunt, and also about Agnes’s martha and her step mom. I sort of feel like Agnes step mom maybe went to NCS and was in a good sorority at Vandy or something and her dad was a governmental official involved with sons of Jacob.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm experiencing cognitive dissonance between Lydia's backstory was portrayed in THT, and did not fit exactly with this one. Wish they had found a way to mesh them more successfully.

Yes, the HT backstory was more nuanced and made it clear that the seeds had already been planted for her to become a true believer. This was a definite shift and made less sense, since here her motivation was entirely about expediency.

Omg I had completely forgotten the other version of her backstory. That was even more chilling from the perspective of character development, need to re-watch!

I am struggling with this new backstory for both Lydia and Vidalia. I don’t see how you go from a normal progressive public school teacher to being all in on rape and torture in 15 years. The survival story only makes sense up to a point — I just don’t see a full grown woman changing her worldview programming this completely in 15 years. Plus why would Judd pick this rando to run the whole thing? It makes no sense when there were probably lots of middle aged church ladies who had already shown that they could be plenty judgemental towards lesbians and single moms etc. Heck. I feel like you could pick some women out of this admin pretty easily to do that job — you wouldn’t want to pick the AP English teacher from McPS to do it.

I do wonder if the writers did any research into ordinary people collaborating with fascist regimes. Like the people who worked at concentration camps who maybe weren’t all in on the concept but were llle “well, there’s a war and I need a job so I guess I can rationalize this somehow….” Trevor Noah’s new comedy special has a bit where he’s talking about who would you be in history—like who would you be in the pre civil war South. It’s probably one of the deepest questions we can ask ourselves — who would we be when surrounded by a system of institutionalized depravity.

I also want to know more about th blonde aunt, and also about Agnes’s martha and her step mom. I sort of feel like Agnes step mom maybe went to NCS and was in a good sorority at Vandy or something and her dad was a governmental official involved with sons of Jacob.

Yeah the way they show it in the show makes no sense. They pick this one random lady to head up all the women’s stuff? But then again maybe in the context of sons of Jacob all the women would have to have been married so they didn’t really have any older single ladies running around?

I want to know about the aunt who says she’s “the original pearl girl”.

[Anonymous]

The friend who is in love with Agnes will be paired with Agnes's guardian since no one else wanted her except for the guy who got her drunk. She will then join Mayday through him, team up with the pearl girl from Toronto, and eventually get out of Gilead. This will obviously cause issues between her and Agnes. Agnes will most likely be placed with someone horrible to turn her against Gilead.

[Anonymous]

That episode was chilling. The bins with the rings, phones, and clothes. Ugh.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:That episode was chilling. The bins with the rings, phones, and clothes. Ugh.

Reminds me of similar scenes from the Holocaust

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm experiencing cognitive dissonance between Lydia's backstory was portrayed in THT, and did not fit exactly with this one. Wish they had found a way to mesh them more successfully.

Yes, the HT backstory was more nuanced and made it clear that the seeds had already been planted for her to become a true believer. This was a definite shift and made less sense, since here her motivation was entirely about expediency.

Omg I had completely forgotten the other version of her backstory. That was even more chilling from the perspective of character development, need to re-watch!

Right. It explained how she became hard and bitter, which brought out her inner sadism. Definitely made more sense.