Is June In The Testaments?
Today we’re sorting out who is who in The Testaments, because the cast is big and a lot of people are asking, is June in The Testaments?
The short answer: not by name in the book, but strongly implied, and yes in the Hulu series, played by Elisabeth Moss. The spoiler level for this video is light. I will reveal who Daisy really is, which happens about a third of the way in. I will not spoil the ending, Aunt Lydia’s final plan, or what happens to Gilead.
The Three Narrators
The book is told by three people. Aunt Lydia writes a hidden manuscript, which she calls her holograph. Agnes and Daisy each give a witness testimony, one from inside Gilead and one from Canada.
That alone makes the characters easy to confuse, because their names change. Agnes will eventually be called Aunt Victoria. Daisy is the name she grew up with, not the one she was born with, and in Gilead she’ll be called Jade. So here is the cheat sheet, one narrator at a time, starting with the woman everybody fears.
Aunt Lydia
Aunt Lydia is the most powerful woman in Gilead and the book’s most compelling voice. Before Gilead she was a family court judge, and the book says she grew up in a rough, violent family and fought her way up through scholarships and night jobs. She was fifty-three when the regime arrested her.
Now she is the senior Founder of the Aunts, the women who run the women’s side of Gilead. She keeps secret files on everyone, has a statue of herself, and writes the story of how she got here. On Hulu she is played by Ann Dowd.
The Other Aunts
Lydia shares her power with three other Founders. Aunt Elizabeth is a former senator’s assistant who went to Vassar. Aunt Helena used to work in public relations and misses her shoes. And Aunt Vidala, who teaches religion, is Lydia’s fiercest enemy, always sniffing out weakness. She also has a runny nose.
There are also teachers. Aunt Estée is the kind one at school, and Aunt Lise teaches flower arranging. Aunt Gabbana is the matchmaker who finds husbands for girls. On Hulu, Mabel Li plays Vidala.
Agnes
Agnes Jemima grows up in a Commander’s house, the daughter of Commander Kyle and his Wife Tabitha. She goes to a school for privileged girls, wears pink and plum dresses, and stitches handkerchiefs for the Aunts. She is polite, observant, and secretly angry.
When Tabitha dies, Agnes gets a stepmother, Paula, and her world turns cold. Later she takes the new name Aunt Victoria. In the Hulu series, she is Agnes MacKenzie, played by Chase Infiniti.
How Old Is Everyone?
People search how old is Hannah in The Testaments, so let me clear up the ages. In the book Agnes is a child at the start, about thirteen or fourteen when her marriage is arranged. She is admitted to Ardua Hall at fourteen, and nine years later she is in her early twenties when her mission begins. The book never calls her Hannah.
Daisy is sixteen, or so she thinks. The book says the two sisters are about eight or nine years apart. In the Hulu series, Agnes is reportedly around fourteen or fifteen, and she and Daisy are close in age.
Who Is Daisy?
Here comes the spoiler. Daisy grows up in Toronto and believes her parents are Neil and Melanie, who run a used clothing shop called The Clothes Hound. On her sixteenth birthday, everything changes: the people she trusted are not her parents, her birthday is wrong, and she is Baby Nicole.
Baby Nicole is the baby smuggled out of Gilead whose face is on propaganda posters. She is the daughter of a Handmaid, and the half-sister of Agnes. In Gilead she goes by Jade. On Hulu, Daisy is played by Lucy Halliday, but the series reportedly drops the Baby Nicole reveal.
Is Daisy June’s Daughter?
So, is Daisy June’s daughter in The Testaments? In the book, yes, in everything but name. Agnes and Daisy share a mother, a Handmaid who escaped Gilead and works with Mayday. The book never gives her a name. A professor in the final pages links her to the tapes of The Handmaid’s Tale, which is how readers know she is Offred, the narrator of the first book.
The series is different. There, Agnes is June’s daughter, Hannah. Daisy is a Mayday recruit who works with June but is not her child.
Commander Judd
Commander Judd is the villain you love to hate. He is a founder of the regime, a Son of Jacob, and the head of the Eyes, Gilead’s secret police. He looks like Santa Claus, with a white beard and rosy cheeks, and smiles like it too.
He also goes through Wives the way other men go through socks. He has a taste for very young brides, and he and Lydia have a long, edgy partnership. On Hulu he is played by Charlie Carrick.
Shunammite
Shunammite starts as Agnes’s school friend, or rival. She is bossy, sure of herself, and the first to tell Agnes secrets that hurt. She repeats her first opinion louder when anyone disagrees.
Light spoiler: she ends up marrying very high, and it is not as happy as she expects. Her name comes from the Bible, and Rowan Blanchard plays her on Hulu. I’ll leave her fate for the ending video.
Becka
Becka is Agnes’s quiet friend at school, a dentist’s daughter who is thin and anxious. When Agnes hears the cruel story of the concubine, it is Becka who weeps.
Becka’s life is shaped by a terrible thing that happens to her at home, and her loyalty to Agnes becomes one of the book’s emotional anchors. I won’t tell you where her path leads, because it belongs in the ending video. Mattea Conforti plays her on Hulu.
The People Around Agnes
Tabitha is the adoptive mother Agnes loves. She tells Agnes a fairy tale about being chosen, and sings her a prayer every night. Paula is the stepmother, ambitious and cold. And the Marthas, Zilla, Vera and Rosa, are the servants who raise Agnes in the kitchen and may be the most loving people in her life.
On Hulu, Amy Seimetz plays Paula and Kira Guloien plays Rosa. In the book, the household also includes Commander Kyle, who barely speaks.
Neil and Melanie
Spoiler for the first third. Neil and Melanie are not Daisy’s parents. They are Mayday volunteers who were given the baby to keep her safe, and they hide it behind the ordinary routine of a clothing store.
Melanie is cheerful and brisk, sings songs from musicals while she sorts clothes, and never lets Daisy out of her sight. Neil collects clocks and old cameras and handles the money. They are overprotective because they are protecting a secret, not because they are boring. Their fate is one of the first big shocks of the book.
The People Around Daisy
In Canada, Daisy meets Ada, a leather-jacketed woman who is secretly in Mayday. Elijah is a quiet man who once taught law. George is a street man who may know more than he lets on. And Garth is a young fighter from the Republic of Texas who trains her.
Garth is played by Brad Alexander on Hulu. And in the series, he sits closer to Agnes’s side of the story than he does in the book.
The Hulu Cast At A Glance
Since the cast is the most searched part of this show, here is the quick list, as of October twenty twenty-six. Ann Dowd is Aunt Lydia. Chase Infiniti is Agnes. Lucy Halliday is Daisy. Rowan Blanchard is Shunammite. Mattea Conforti is Becka.
Mabel Li is Aunt Vidala, Amy Seimetz is Paula, and Charlie Carrick is Commander Judd. Brad Alexander is Garth, and Elisabeth Moss guest stars as June. A few of the series characters, such as Commander Weston, were created for the show and are not in the book.
Are There Handmaids In The Testaments?
Another popular question: are there Handmaids in The Testaments? Yes, but they are in the background, not the lead. You meet a Handmaid who lives in Agnes’s household, and her story is one of the book’s saddest moments. You see Handmaids walking in pairs, and a mob of them in a stadium.
The book is mainly about the Aunts and the girls who might become Wives. But the Handmaid system, and the women trapped in it, shape everything.
How They Connect
Here is how the three narrators connect, without spoiling where it goes. Agnes and Daisy are sisters, though neither knows it at the start. Lydia has known for years, and she is the thread between them.
Every character you meet, from Becka to Judd to the Marthas, ends up tied to one plan that Lydia has been building in secret. The ending video shows how that plan works. For now, remember that these three voices are secretly writing the same story.
Your Turn
That’s your cheat sheet to who is who in The Testaments. Which character surprised you most, Lydia, Agnes or Daisy? And did you read the book or watch Hulu first? Tell me in the comments.
Next up on the channel is the full ending explained, and I’ll hold nothing back. Subscribe so you don’t miss it, and thanks for watching.
