Reader beware: This story contains spoilers for the first four episodes of "The Testaments" and the book by Margaret Atwood.
The new“Handmaid’s Tale”spin-off smells like teen (Holy) spirit.
The new Hulu spin-off “The Testaments” follows the teen girls of Gilead, who grow up with a far different view of the totalitarian regime than the Handmaids. Agnes and her peers are raised in affluent households and groomed to be married off to men twice (or more) their age. They pour tea and learn to embroider, frolic around the parks and greet each other with “May the Lord open.” But as Agnes approaches womanhood, the cracks are already beginning to show. Everything changes when a new peer arrives from Canada, secretly planted by the resistance to gather information on Gilead.
“The Testaments” is loosely based onMargaret Atwood’s 2019 sequel. The book is told in three perspectives – Daisy, Agnes and Aunt Lydia, a central figure in “The Handmaid’s Tale.” But in its first four episodes, the new Hulu show makes major changes to Atwood’s novel.
‘The Testaments’ show on Hulu makes major timeline changes
The biggest difference between “The Testaments” show and book is the timing.
The book weaves through two alternating timelines. In the past timeline, Agnes finds out her birth mother was a Handmaid and not her beloved adoptive mother, Tabitha. When Tabitha dies, her father remarries Paula, who is eager to get Agnes married off quickly. While she's a pre-marriage preparatory school student, Agnes is sexually assaulted by her dentist. She becomes depressed and anxious about marrying. Becka, Agnes' best friend at school and the dentist's daughter, also cannot fathom marrying a man, especially an older, abusive one. After threatening to harm and kill themselves, Becka and Agnes beg to join the "higher calling" of the aunts rather than marry. They go to live at Ardua Hall, the housing and training facility of the aunts, and learn to read.
In the present day, Aunt Lydia is writing down her life story and recalling the early days of Gilead. Canada-born Daisy (under the fake name “Jade”) comes to Ardua Hall and Gilead as a Pearl Girl after her parents are murdered. Agnes and Becka meet Daisy and learn through Aunt Lydia that she’s actually baby Nicole, a famed missing child who was born in Gilead and smuggled out.
But this collision only happens in the last third of the novel. “The Testaments” book spends much more time chewing on the rise of Gilead and its oppression of women than on Daisy and Agnes' sisterhood. The show, however, pushes the schoolgirl friendship angle from the jump. There is no Ardua Hall and aunt training (at least not yet), and Daisy is sent to shadow Agnes at preparatory school. She becomes a reluctant part of their clique.
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Creator explains Daisy’s character change in ‘The Testaments’
Agnes and Daisy, essentially classmates in the series, are assumed to be around the same age. But in the book, Agnes is several years older.
This is because the girls are both insinuated to beJune’s daughters. One daughter, Hannah, was born pre-Gilead and later taken from June. The other baby is Holly, whom June had with Nick and the Waterford family later renamed Nichole ("Nicole" in the book). She's eventually smuggled out of Gilead.
By the time June's second baby is born in Season 2 of the Hulu series, Hannah is alreadyan elementary-aged childplaced with a new family and renamed Agnes. Presumably, then, Agnes would be well into adulthood by the time teen Daisy/baby Nicole comes back to Gilead.
Show creator Bruce Miller told The Hollywood Reporter that Daisy is “not Nichole/Holly” like in the book. He wanted Agnes and Daisy to be physically together at school and close in age.
“I tried to make June very much a mother figure in Daisy (Halliday)’s life – an absent mother figure, but a mother figure she knew,” Miller said. "June had the notoriety that Nichole had in the book. And I tried to cast someone who looked similar or reminiscent of June. I tried to keep the essence of Nichole as much as possible with our Daisy, but still make her her own character and her own person. I had to make a decision. I didn’t want to bend time and tell everybody the time space continuum isn’t true.”
There are lots of other smaller plot changes with Daisy’s character. In the book, she’s fumbling her way through Gilead, often badly. The other aunts let her slide because she’s a new recruit, but she is by no means a natural. This is a far cry from Daisy in the show, who blends right in and knows exactly how to mind her “Praised be”s. In the book, she’s all alone.
She doesn’t know who is secretly helping Mayday. But in the show, there’s another operative accompanying her. Garth, who poses as a Guardian and shares Mayday information with her in hushed hallway whispers. Daisy in the show is closer to a spy than a grieving fish out of water.
Clare Mulroy is USA TODAY’s Books Reporter, where she covers buzzy releases, chats with authors and dives into the culture of reading. Find heron Instagram, subscribe to our weeklyBooks newsletteror tell her what you’re reading atcmulroy@usatoday.com.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:Is 'The Testaments' about June's daughter? Show makes major changes.
