Becka Gets Drunk At The Ball

Dance, dance, we’re falling apart in three-quarter time!

Forgive me the liberties with the Fall Out Boy classic, but our girls waltz closer and closer to repressed-adolescent chaos in this week’s “The Testaments,” in which the Greens are put on public display for their future Commanders like a tray of teacakes. Pretty, little, subjugated teacakes.

The episode is an inflection point for Becka, in particular: The girl is spiraling, and it doesn’t help that the Commander with whom she spends the most time during the hour thinks it’s a good idea to ply her with booze.

Distract us all from this with your sweet, closest-thing-we’ve-got-to-young-love story, Agnes and Garth! Distract us like the wind!

Read on for the highlights of “Ball.”

Agnes’ voiceover at the top of the episode tells us that she’s not even sure what Dr. Grove did to her while she was sedated in his office, but she still feels shame about it. Still, Agnes takes those awful feelings and stuffs them away, then dresses for the ball — “our one night to approximate being teenagers,” she says.

All of the girls get ready together at the school. Becka is very happy to see her best friend, but Agnes is stiff with her, given everything that went down at the dentist. Becka, of course, doesn’t know about any of it, and she’s hurt by Agnes’ stilted reception. But then Aunt Estee swings through, pumping them all up, and it’s time to hit the dance floor!

To start the evening off, there’s a gorgeously shot group dance with the Greens, Plums, and some Pinks. Then the Greens dance with their dads; Agnes freezes when she sees Dr. Grove squiring Becka around the floor. Commander Weston, a bearded and steely eyed older man, asks Commander MacKenzie if he can dance with Agnes. Of course, Commander MacKenzie says OK.

While that’s happening, an elderly Commander puts his hands on Daisy in the hallway. She immediately says, “Don’t touch me!,” which triggers him to call her a “heretic b***h.” Only Garth’s stepping in and saying he’ll deal with her defuses the situation, and the older man leaves in a huff. Garth lets Daisy know that Mayday is pleased with her intel about the Japanese chocolates in Commander MacKenzie’s study: They suspect he’s brokering a deal for artillery, and they want her to find out more.

As the Greens take a break in the dressing room, Becka confronts Agnes about her weirdness, but Agnes lies and says it’s nothing. Because Shunammite loves mess, she jumps in and assumes they’re competing for the affections of the same commander.

When the young ladies return to the ballroom, it’s time for the older Commanders — aka the ones who’ll actually get their pick of the Greens — to come to the floor. Sure, Penny got one of the younger ones in the most recent round, Agnes informs us, but that’s not the norm: Usually, daughters from the best houses get the more established misogynists, er, Commanders.

Weston certainly falls among those ranks, but he’s called away to the war room by Commander MacKenzie. Garth is asked to step in and take his place, and the evening takes a rosy turn for sweet Agnes. “So this… is what it’s supposed to feel like,” she voiceovers, gazing up at her crush.

A few couples away, Becka is having a decidedly different experience. The Commander she’s dancing with put something in her punch, and the alcohol is starting to have a major effect on her. “Please forgive me,” she says as she leaves him, mid-dance. When Aunt Lydia gets wind of what’s happened, she’s irate: She takes Commander Judd to task for his peers’ disgusting behavior — made all the worse because the girls are conditioned to do whatever Commanders say. He dismisses her concerns, then later consults Aunt Vidala with his thoughts that Lydia is slowing down. It’s time to discuss “our vision for the future,” he tells her, which can’t be good.

Shu hands off a drunk and sad Becka to Daisy; the Pearl Girl shepherds her to the bathroom, where Becka admits that she doesn’t want to be touched or looked at by any of the gross men in the other room. (She also hasn’t eaten in days, thanks to her anxiety over the ball, which is why the booze hit so hard.) “I know it’s a sin, but sometimes, I close my eyes and I pray for God to broom away the Earth and extinguish the stars,” she says. “OK,” Daisy says, “well, you’re more articulate than most drunk girls.” (Heh.)

Becka suddenly becomes very interested in Daisy’s experience of running away, and Daisy wisely redirects her to focus on how much her friends — like Agnes — love her. “Not the way I love her,” Becka says quietly, and Daisy figures it the whole situation out right away. “You’re OK. It’s OK to feel this way,” she reassures Becka. A short while later, Becka rallies and returns to the party.

Elsewhere, Aunt Gabbana ushers Agnes to meet some Commanders. “I hope you can fulfill their expectations,” she says, dumping the girl into a conference room where Commander Judd is sitting at the end of a long table. A bunch more men are on whatever passes for Zoom in this accursed place. Agnes is quizzed; the first question, about how she’ll fulfill her wifely duties, brings her to tears.

Surprisingly, Judd shows compassion by turning off the camera and giving Agnes a little pep talk, calming her down before he signs back on and they try again. Afterward, Agnes finds Becka, and things are more normal between them than they’ve been all episode. They commiserate about how the evening went. “Worse comes to worst, I’ll just run away,” Becka says. Agnes jokes that she’ll come along, and they can steal Paula’s favorite horse as a getaway vehicle.

Aunt Lydia is lighting into Aunt Vidala over the girls who were “plied with drinks” when the bell starts to ring: Hulda got her period, and she joyfully kneels before Vidala. Nearby, Shu fumes: She’d brought a mushroom tea to the ball in hopes of bringing about menarche, and she’d shared it with Hulda. Yet Shu remains a Plum.

On the drive home, Commander MacKenzie tells Garth that “the efforts on the front have begun” (uh-oh) and that the Guardian will be promoted to Commander in a few weeks. To Agnes, this is the best possible news, because it means Garth is technically in the running to be her Commander. And while we all know that nothing good happens in Gilead, let’s give her this moment of starry-eyed-ness, shall we?

Now it’s your turn. What did you think of the episode? Sound off in the comments!