The Handmaid’s Tale a spinoff Testaments made some big changes – especially when it came to the characters.
Based on Margaret Atwoodthe novel of the same name, Testaments one after the other The Handmaid’s Talewhich aired from 2017 to 2025 and takes place in a dystopian future where low fertility rates lead women to be assigned to men for the purpose of bearing children.
Testamentspublished in 2019, it is set 15 years after the events of The Handmaid’s Tale. In the show, Ann DowdLydia’s Aunt narrates as viewers are transported back to a dystopian future by characters such as Agnes of Gilead and Daisy of Canada. Together, they collect and smuggle incriminating information about the kingdom of Gilead out of the country. Agnes and Daisy pose as the “Pearl Girls” to sneak into Canada, while Aunt Lydia works as an undercover source in Gilead.
“Although I can’t continue the story of Offred, I can continue with the other three people involved in these events and tell the story of the beginning of the end, because we know from The Handmaid’s Tale that Gilead disappears,” Atwood told reporters at the 2019 event. empires disappear?
When Testaments premiered in April 2026, creator Bruce Miller He explained what writers did get off the page – and what they didn’t.
“I’m trying not to take things the way they happened in the book, but to take the big central things and move them into a timeline that makes as much sense as we can,” Miller told The Hollywood Reporter. “We definitely try to follow the whole story of the book, but the ins and outs of the real story are difficult because the characters are of different ages, and we had to redefine Daisy’s character to keep things working in our world.”
Miller also wanted to expand in certain areas.
“With my slaves, there were always my things, until last season, we were pieces of mines. A lot of these things are clearly mentioned in the book, and we said, ‘Well, let’s take that seed and let it bloom,’ ” he continued. “But this is Margaret’s world, and that’s the resource we have to go to. She’s a strong storyteller, so if we’re going to do something different than what Margaret is doing, we need a reason. I’m trying [adapt] as much as possible because I think it worked in the book for a reason, not because I have a common truth in the book.”
Keep scrolling to see which one The Handmaid’s Tale cast members did not move Testaments:
Agnes MacKenzie
After Jordana Blake starred as June’s daughter in The Handmaid’s Tale, Chase Infiniti takes on the role in The Testaments exploring Agnes as a child.
Commander MacKenzie
Jason Butler Harner originated the role of Hannah’s (aka Agnes’) father in The Handmaid’s Tale. In Testament, Nate Corddry is now the patriarch of the family.
