Devouring crushes, embarrassing first bouts and playground bickering: this is the daily life of the heroines of The Testamentsthe first three episodes of which have been available since Wednesday April 8 on the Disney+ platform. However, this is not a new teen show American, but from the sequel to the dystopian series The Handmaid’s Tale: The Handmaid’s Tale (2017-2025).
The young girls in bloom in this new series – Agnes, Daisy, Hulda and the others – evolve in the fascist regime of Gilead, which deprives women of all freedom. But these students at Aunt Lydia’s school are also, deep down, teenagers like any other, who see the arrival of their period as an important social advance and want to leave as quickly as possible the youth that they will spend the rest of their lives regretting. As actress Lucy Halliday, who plays Daisy, explains, “girls are girls no matter where they are, even in Gilead. Adolescence is an experience that transcends where we live.»
New adaptation by Margaret Atwood
Nine years ago, landed on our screens The Handmaid’s Taletelevision adaptation of the legendary novel The Scarlet Handmaidby Canadian writer Margaret Atwood, published in 1985. The dystopian series follows the cruel fate of June Osborne, a young mother forced into sexual slavery under the new totalitarian and deeply misogynistic regime of Gilead. In this universe, women are prohibited from reading and are grouped into categories, each with its own color code. The Scarlet Handmaids, to which June belongs, are fertile women assigned to the households of the ruling class to be ritually raped every month.
Released in April 2017, somewhere between Donald Trump’s first installation in the White House and the tidal wave of the #MeToo movement, The Handmaid’s Tale quickly became the symbol of a new cultural and political era. Its costumes are adopted in feminist demonstrations around the world and its violent twists and turns brandished as a warning.
Nearly a decade after the development of this sinister and stifling program, the showrunner Bruce Miller is now adapting the sequel, also based on a novel by Margaret Atwood (The Willspublished in 2019). The main protagonist of the series The Testaments is a teenager named Agnes (Chase Infiniti, noted very recently for her role in One battle after anotherby Paul Thomas Anderson). June Osborne’s (supposed) daughter is a student at Aunt Lydia’s school, an academy for future brides. As her period begins, bringing her a little closer to a forced marriage, her existence will be turned upside down by the arrival of Daisy, a young “Pearl” who has voluntarily converted to the ideology of Gilead.
A “teen show” with a less heavy atmosphere
If torture, sexual assaults and hangings still serve as a backdrop, The Testaments immediately turns out to be more luminous and lighter than its predecessor. While The Handmaid’s Tale made us experience the horror through the eyes of June, an ordinary woman who experienced the political upheaval of her country, the protagonists of The Testaments belong to the most naive and privileged class of Gilead. They are daughters of Commanders, raised in sumptuous homes and protected from the violence of the regime. Ideologically indoctrinated since birth, they have never known an alternative and fervently believe in the system in which they grew up.
A cultural isolation which allows the characters to skillfully distance themselves from certain hackneyed archetypes of teen show. For example, Shunammite (Rowan Blanchard) is the closest thing to a plague… But “how to imitate a “mean girl” attitude (“bad girl”, editor’s note) when you have never seen the film Mean Girls?»underlines Bruce Miller. Despite his penchant for spicy projections, Shunammite thus reveals a fascinating complexity, which makes him one of the most multidimensional characters of this first season.
This adolescent sequel abandons the gratuitous violence of The Handmaid’s Tale and develops a whole gallery of endearing female characters, focusing above all on their friendship. Without avoiding the atrocious political context in which it takes place, the learning story rather favors the narrative and visual codes of teen show. Lucy Halliday, who plays Daisy, puts it this way: “I hope viewers will be surprised by the lightness and optimistic nature that our series contains.”
Back to basics and “competence porn”
Lucy Halliday’s reflection echoes an increasingly widespread expectation. While the international political context has irreparably darkened since 2017, fiction has paradoxically moved away from the prevailing narratives. Even the series with the most dismal universes seem to want to return to the traditional role of TV: distraction. This is also the case of A Knight of the Seven Kingdomsthe spin-off of Game of Thronesstreaming on HBO Max in January and February. More comical, short and light, this derivative series marks a striking contrast with the original one, known for its many beheadings, rapes and infanticides.
It’s no coincidence that the biggest trend in current series is the “competence porn” (literally “skill porn”). This expression refers to programs featuring heroic characters, disproportionately talented and good at resolving crises, like the doctors of The Pitt (two seasons since 2025), journalists passionate about The Paper (one season since 2025) or ambassadors of The Diplomat (The Diplomat in English, three seasons since 2023).
This renewed serial lightness, however, does not prevent certain works from being politicized. Whether it is The Pitt and his remarks on contemporary American politics, or the less and less dystopian universe created by Margaret Atwood.
For young actresses, a “responsibility” and a message to convey
Unlike their characters, the juvenile actresses of The Testaments are far from naive. All aged around twenty, they grew up with The Handmaid’s Tale as a reference. Mattea Conforti, who is 19 years old, was “a little too young to watch the series on TV, but (his) family was a fan”just like the parents of Rowan Blanchard, 24, who plays Shunammite. Here they are now carrying a new chapter in feminist pop culture.
In an era where Hollywood personalities offer increasingly closed communication, it is also refreshing to see the young cast of the series talking about the “responsibility” that this story gives them. Mattea Conforti says he was “immediately attracted by the challenge that this project represented and by the social and political importance of the messages that we wanted to convey”.
“The day we are no longer relevant, we will happily retire. But that’s not the case. The themes of our series are more relevant than ever.”
For her part, Lucy Halliday affirms that “Unfortunately, it’s not difficult to play disenfranchised women, because you don’t have to look very far to find examples of this in the real world. Just turn on the news and see that this is still happening today. When Margaret Atwood wrote these books, they were based on historical facts, but we see in the news that history repeats itself. To be part of a work that can help, in any way, to foster progress or change, is a real privilege. And none of us take it lightly.”
As for Warren Littlefield, one of the co-executive producers of the series, he has not said his last word: “We always said with Bruce (Miller) that the day we were no longer relevant, we would happily retire. But that’s not the case. The themes of our series are more relevant than ever.”
