The first season of The Testaments came to an end with several cameos from The Handmaid’s Tale stars — and a surprise kiss.
During the Wednesday, May 27, episode of the hit Hulu series, author Margaret Atwood made a surprise guest appearance as a guard in the jail where Becka (Mattea Conforti) was locked up after murdering her father. Becka was able to avoid a punishment because her mother took the blame for the crime.
Amid her freedom, Becka still had to get married to Garth (Brad Alexander). She first shared a kiss with Agnes (Chase Infiniti) — on whom she actually had a crush — before walking down the aisle and becoming Garth’s wife. Their arrangement remained unclear as Garth avoided having a wedding night with Becka, who appeared surprised by the development in her marriage.
The finale also featured a cameo from Elisabeth Moss as June, which took place as Agnes was starting to face her past and her origin. Ultimately, the show ended on a hopeful note as the main girls reunited while viewers continue to await their awakening in Gilead.
Meet the Cast of ‘The Testaments’ Spinoff — Including ‘Handmaid’s Tale’ Alums
The Testaments has already been renewed for a second season. According to Hulu, the show saw a 20 percent viewership increase, gaining over 11 million hours streamed globally over its first eight days across Hulu and Disney+.
The show’s views in its first day of release were up 76 percent ahead of the finale, and The Testaments‘ available episodes have amassed over 45 million hours streamed globally to date.
Based on Atwood’s novel of the same name, The Testaments is the sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale, which took place in a dystopian future where low fertility rates led women to be assigned to men for bearing children. The series aired from 2017 to 2025.
The Testaments is set four years later, with Ann Dowd’s Aunt Lydia serving as the narrator and viewers being thrust back into the dystopian future. Agnes and Daisy (Lucy Halliday) pose as “Pearl Girls” to infiltrate Canada in an attempt to smuggle incriminating information about Gilead’s regime, while Aunt Lydia acts as a covert source within Gilead.
In addition to Infiniti, Halliday, Conforti and Dowd, The Testaments stars Eva Foote, Rowan Blanchard, Kira Guloien, Amy Seimetz and Brad Alexander. Birva Pandya, Zarrin Darnell-Martin, Shechinah Mpumlwana, Mabel Li and Isolde Ardies make up the rest of the cast.
Which ‘Handmaid’s Tale’ Characters Were Recast in ‘The Testaments’ Spinoff?
When The Testaments premiered in April, creator Bruce Miller explained what writers pulled from the page — and what they didn’t.
“I’m trying to not necessarily take things in the order they happen in the book, but to take the big central elements and move them into a timeline that makes as much sense as we can,” Miller told The Hollywood Reporter. “We’re definitely trying to follow the overall story of the book, but the ins and outs of the actual storyline are difficult because characters are different ages, and we had to redefine the Daisy character to keep things practical in our world.”
Miller also wanted to expand in certain areas.
“With Handmaid’s, there was always stuff to mine. All the way up to the last season, we were mining pieces. A lot of these things are mentioned in the book very vaguely, and we said, ‘Oh, let’s take that seed and let it bloom,’” he continued. “But this is Margaret’s world, and that’s the resource that we should be going to. She’s a very solid storyteller, so if we’re going to do something different than what Margaret did, we need a reason. I’m trying to [adapt] as much as I can because I think it worked in the book for a reason, not because I have general fealty to the book.”
The Testaments is currently streaming on Hulu.
