[Warning: The following contains MAJOR spoilers for The Handmaid’s Tale series finale.]
The Handmaid’s Tale came to an end after six seasons on Tuesday, May 27. While June (Elisabeth Moss) and Luke (O-T Fagbenle) were tragically not reunited with their kidnapped daughter, Hannah (Jordana Blake), Hannah’s story isn’t over yet. She will be a main character in the upcoming spinoff, The Testaments, which is currently in production in Toronto. And we know that Hannah, who was renamed Agnes by her Gilead parents, will still be living in Gilead in the spinoff. With June and Luke still alive and fighting for Mayday and fighting to find Hannah in The Handmaid’s Tale series finale’s end, the door is open for them to appear in the spinoff centering their daughter.
Hannah was seen in The Handmaid’s Tale series finale, but only in flashbacks and in a vision June had of her daughter in the episode’s final moments. Hannah was played by Jordan Hutson (seen above, with Moss) instead of Jordana Brewster. The Testaments is a tale about growing up in Gilead. The series will tell that story through Hannah/Agnes, as laid out in Margaret Atwood’s 2019 novel of the same name. Chase Infiniti will play Hannah, who’s slightly more grown up in this spinoff. And Ann Dowd will return as Aunt Lydia. The third main character is a girl named Daisy, played by Lucy Halliday.
Because of Hannah’s kidnapping at the start of the series, viewers never got to know Hannah very well in The Handmaid’s Tale. She was intermittently seen throughout the series when used as a tool to make the rebellious June fall in line and break her spirit. We’ve also seen plenty of Hannah flashbacks to the years before Gilead overthrew the U.S. government and began its fascist regime.
What may viewers be surprised to learn about Hannah when we finally get to know her in The Testaments? And will Aunt Lydia be as present in her and Daisy’s lives as she was in June’s? The Testaments showrunner Bruce Miller (executive producer and creator of The Handmaid’s Tale series and its former showrunner) tells TV Insider what to expect, revealing some details about “the plums,” daughters of Gilead in training to become wives as seen in the original series.
“To answer the second part, first I would say that Lydia is certainly as involved in the lives of Daisy and Hannah/Agnes in The Testaments as Lydia was in the life of June, but in a very, very different way,” Miller shares. “In the beginning of The Handmaid‘s Tale, Lydia is certainly a formidable and terrifying character. In The Testaments, her role is taking care of educating the plums — the most precious girls in Gilead, one of the most precious resources in the country. Lydia is not required to mete out punishment to the plums, but she is not in the role of breaking the spirit of worldly women who know modern life, as she did with the handmaids.”
“You’re right that we didn’t get to know Hannah very well in The Handmaid‘s Tale, which was kind of central to the tragedy of June,” Miller goes on. “She was not able to get to know her daughter well as she got older. So is this Hannah (who’s now called and thinks of herself as Agnes) who we expect her to be? I don’t know. I certainly see the June inside of her, and I hope over the course of the season and the course of the show, Agnes is going to try to change her world in ways that would make June very proud.”
The Handmaid’s Tale, Seasons 1-6 Available Now, Hulu
The Testaments, Series Premiere, TBA, Hulu
This story originally appeared on TV Insider
