Chase Infiniti, left, and Lucy Halliday in a scene from 'The Testaments.'Steve Wilkie/Disney via The Associated Press
The Testaments has a message for young people: Stand up and take notice. The Handmaid’s Tale spinoff, which filmed in and around Toronto and debuted last month on Disney+, continues Margaret Atwood’s stories of Gilead and its themes of gender inequality, loss of identity and extreme totalitarianism.
The series, based on Atwood’s 2019 follow-up to her 1985 tome The Handmaid’s Tale, follows Agnes (Chase Infiniti), the daughter of June/Offred (Elisabeth Moss), and a new character named Daisy (Lucy Halliday). The teens offer insight into a new side of Gilead, at an elite preparatory school run by Aunt Lydia (Ann Dowd), where they learn obedience and how to be good wives.
The series involves the same creative team behind the award-winning Handmaid’s Tale, which wrapped after six seasons in April, 2025. Bruce Miller continues as showrunner, having collaborated with Atwood on the characters over the past several years, while Moss, Warren Littlefield and John Weber serve as executive producers. Fellow executive producer Mike Barker, who directed a dozen episodes of the original series, returns behind the camera to set the tone on the first three episodes.
“Margaret started to talk about The Testaments in 2018, just after The Handmaid’s Tale started,” Miller says. “She told me not to kill certain people, and I had a long time to think about the transition and to plan it.”
If The Handmaid’s Tale was about rebellion and finding your voice, The Testaments is about resiliency, awakening and the power of storytelling.
“We’ve said many times we would be happy to quietly walk away if these themes were no longer relevant, but they may be more relevant than when we started,” Littlefield says.
“These women go through an awakening in Season 1. What are they going to do with that knowledge and how are they going to deal with a world they have known since birth? The veil is lifted as to what Gilead really is for them and they stand up. That feels like a pretty good message to put out into the world today.”
Part of the draw of this series, Weber says, is following these adolescent girls going through the same period of life that all teens go through. Only here, they go through it in a dark and uncertain world that serves as an alternate reality.
“There’s this hopeful, youthful vibrancy that’s even comedic at times in the show,” he says. “But it’s all in this world of powerful Commanders and a dystopian society.”
Chase Infiniti, left, and Lucy Halliday.Russ Martin/Disney via The Associated Press
Infiniti, who recently had a breakout role in this year’s Oscar-winning One Battle After Another, says that the power of using your voice is incredibly important in this project’s world, where girls aren’t allowed to read, write or vote.
“It’s inspiring for young girls to see, especially considering the higher powers try to make it seem like these girls don’t have power in their voices,” she says. “The friendships in this show highlight that this isn’t a solo battle.”
Halliday says that sometimes change comes in small forms, and this show exemplifies the importance of tiny actions toward this goal.
“It highlights the ability we have as individuals to stick up for each other and to protect each other and to enact change,” she says.
While The Testaments opens up that younger world and sparks the idea of rebellion from within, it purposefully stays away from Handmaids and mentions of that sect of Gilead. Instead, it shifts certain roles to show kinder Commanders, who would treat young women of a certain standing a lot nicer than they would a Handmaid, Marthas who serve as mentors, and most importantly, the sisterhood of the Aunts.
Ann Dowd as Aunt Lydia in a scene from 'The Testaments.'Disney+/via The Canadian Press
That includes the return of the character of Aunt Lydia, revered in Gilead since the events of The Handmaid’s Tale, and the introduction of new aunts and mentors, including Aunt Vidala (Mabel Li) and Aunt Estee (Eva Foote).
“The Aunts are incredibly valuable, loyal servants to these women, and are infusing them with all of these values,” says Littlefield. “What remains to be seen is whether they will stand by the girls as they gain wisdom, knowledge and awareness, and go through their awakening. How do they play that chess match?”
For Dowd, returning to the role of Aunt Lydia was an opportunity to explore a new side of the character.
“What happens at the end of The Handmaid’s Tale for Lydia changes her for the rest of her life,” she says. “What she goes through is as deep and profound an experience as is possible, and you see a changed woman in The Testaments.”
Editor’s note: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that the series debuted in early May. It debuted in April.