The Testaments Breakdown - Book Readers Only - Episode 7

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]Did you think The Testaments was going to be a Disney version of The Handmaid's Tale? This episode was a harsh reminder that we are still in Gilead. All of those monsters lurking in the shadows are starting to reveal themselves. But we were also blessed with one beautiful beam of sunshine, Miss Rita Blue, bursting onto the screen, looking happy in her cute little house with her cute little garden and her sly little June doppelganger. It was the only part of this episode where familiar felt good.

[00:00:28]There is a lot to get into in this episode, but first, if you're new here, I'm Marjorie. This is The Red Resistance, and on this channel, we do talk a lot about the book. If you don't want to hear about the book in relation to this show, you don't want to watch this video. But if you don't mind spoilers on the source material or rabbit holes on potential theories as we figure out where this adaptation is going, then you are in the right place and welcome. And a big welcome back to everyone else. Thanks for being here.

[00:00:54]Thanks for commenting. Thanks for hyping every comment saying that you're waiting on what I have to say about this show rocks my world in the best way possible.

[00:01:02]So, thank you for letting me dissect this show with you. It is a very lucky thing that I get to do. And with that, we have a lot to cover. So, let's get into episode 7, commitment. And since we're all book readers here, I think we have been trying to figure out when the TV show Jud is going to start looking more like the book Jud. And it turns out that Jud of the TV show isn't Jud at all. It's Weston, right? Are we all in agreement here that Weston is gonna take on this Jud character? Well, it feels like we're picking up momentum that isn't going to slow down until we crash into the season finale. Now, Rita wasn't the only familiar voice we got here. The episode starts out with Mark Towell giving us an update on Radio Free Boston, and then we see that Daisy's listening to this update on her contraband radio in the middle of the night in her Pearl Girls dormatory. So, we find out that Gilead had attempted to invade Boston. They were unsuccessful and the loss of life was high. And now the dignitaries from the United States government and Canada are meeting in the UN to discuss the violence at the border. And the show does such a good job of putting blinders on our point of view in order to get a better understanding of why Daisy is behaving the way she is and making the decisions she's making. Because just based on that little update, I'm craving so much information about what's happening elsewhere in the world. And as Daisy says in her voiceover, none of that information is getting past the news blackout propaganda bubble that Daisy has to operate in now. As she reiterates that even if anyone in Gilead did know this news, they weren't going to talk about it. And then we jump to a flashback of where we last left her at the coffee shop with June. And now we're going to get a fuller picture of exactly how Daisy got here. And I had a lot of questions about how Mayday was sending this child into Gilead, why they were, and what they did to prepare her. And after my first watch of this, I did initially think like, okay, I can understand a little bit more if Daisy was insistent upon going. If she said, I'm going in. I'm not going to Colombia.

[00:03:00]It was her choice. And then they've facilitated it since. That was my first read after my first watch. But every time I've watched this since I'm starting to think that this was June's plan all along. June is the background character that is not witnessed, but is referenced throughout. It does feel like June has her fingerprints all over this plan to get Daisy into Gilead. So, we know that June left Daisy in this coffee shop at what appears to be daybreak because at that point they had kind of been through the night and now sun was coming up. June deposits her at this coffee shop and says, "Someone's going to come to get you. You're never alone."

[00:03:34]And here we are watching Daisy wait for someone to come get her. And we see Daisy waiting and the sugar packets piling up and the waitress is asking her if she wants more coffee. And you can see every time someone walks in, she's looking and anticipating and waiting for this contact to show up. And her voiceover says, "June told me to wait for someone to come. I waited and no one came." And it's crazy to think about the 24 hours that this girl has just had.

[00:03:58]She was living a very normal teenage life, hanging out with her boyfriend, getting high. Then her parents are murdered and she's scooped up by a woman that she's never met and told that her parents are Mayday and Gilead is after her. And then she's just left at a coffee shop for an entire day just waiting with anticipation of every person that walks in. The waitress eventually kicks her out. And it's not until that point when they're standing outside at night 12 hours later that she finally reveals herself as Mayday. And as soon as she does, she looks at Daisy and she says, "I didn't think you would last. June was right." So, it was a test the whole time to see how well she can follow directions, to see if she's still in contact with anyone else, to see if she's been followed by Gilead operatives. Based on what we know about Mayday, I can see a world in which they do need to be cautious before they bring somebody in that they're going to move if the goal was truly just to move her to a safer location. But it doesn't feel to me through this episode that the goal was ever actually to get her to Colombia. It was more to present her with a choice that's not really a choice. So then she feels like she has decided to go into Gilead. But I'm really starting to think that Daisy didn't have a whole lot of options here.

[00:05:14]And that is definitely a theme we see throughout the show is a lot of times when it comes down to survival, the choices you have are not ideal. And the only choice that Daisy's getting here is fresh start. on a freight plane to Colombia or as a spy in Gilead.

[00:05:28]Everything about her former life has just been wiped away. The more times I watch this episode, the more I'm convinced they were never planning on sending her to Columbia. But I can also see a place in which everything for Mayday is happening really fast in terms of Daisy coming into their grips. It is possible that Linda just had to get through her shift with Daisy just sitting there before she could move her to the next location. But if that was the case, they could have just told her that Linda was there and she had to sit it out through the shift before she moved on. Instead, they basically gave her a riddle of you're never alone, wait for Mayday to contact you, and then just left her. If this was logistically something they had to do is just let her wait it out here. Then they would have told her what was going on, but they gave her no information and then they wanted to see what she would do. And we're already seeing in this first scene that Daisy's not getting a lot of information and she's going to have to make decisions based on the limited information she has. So, it really does feel more like they're just setting her up and testing her to see if she has the ability to be the pawn that they need her to be in this Mayday scheme that I imagine is much larger.

[00:06:33]And based on the book, there's a lot more people in play. like, yeah, when she's like, it feels right now like they're sending her into Gilead with nobody, but are we going to find out eventually that Lydia has been pulling a lot of the strings and and does have a protective bubble around her in some sense, as much as one can in this world where nothing's really guaranteed? I don't know. There's a lot of questions still to be answered. So, then we cut back to Daisy in the Pearl Girl dormatory and she's putting back the radio in that loose footboard. And we've seen her do this before and I swear we saw her get caught doing this. Wasn't it Talia that saw her putting something back? Like she saw something. Her eyes were open. I don't know what she saw exactly, but Talia saw something. And I was feeling at that point that Daisy was too casual about listening to this radio at night, assuming that these girls were all sleeping or not going to say something if they weren't sleeping. I don't know. This radio has just been stressing me out and it's been feeling very much like Czechov's gun. And now we're watching Daisy put it back in basically daybreak seconds before Aunt Estee walks in. So it just feels inevitable that this contraband radio is going to cause a problem for her at some point. And we know at the end of this episode it's actually going to cause a problem for Talia. And then Estee comes in to wake them up for their treatments.

[00:07:54]And that's such Gilead, glossy, nondescript language that you know it's going to be a euphemism for something much harsher. So on that ominous note, we cut away to Agnes and her matches.

[00:08:04]And Paula is beaming as she's got Agnes' three matches laid out on the table. And it's so gross because they're older than Paula is. And she wants Agnes to receive this news with joy. And it's very clear that Agnes is only looking for one person in those prospects. And G is not there. And Paula can pick up on Agnes' disappointment. And she tries to tell her like, "You've done really well.

[00:08:26]These are really powerful men." And she points out Weston specifically and he is the one that we saw asking Agnes to dance at the ball. And I'm pretty sure he's the one that must have got pulled away when Gar had to step in. And Paula is now explaining he's really important.

[00:08:41]This is the one you want to impress. And if you do well for yourself, you're going to have a very comfortable life.

[00:08:45]And this is the part that's like confusing me through this episode. Um, and through just trying to figure out Paula in general because in the book, it's very clear that she just wants Agnes gone. She wants her married off and gone so she can rid her household of her presence. She already has a handmmaid. They're trying to have a new baby. And it seems like she just wants Agnes out of her life. But that's not the case with TV show Paula. TV show Paula, I don't know. I'm trying to figure out like what her motivations are. I think it has to be purely a status thing. If Agnes marries well, then it'll look good on Paula and their household. Because I don't get the impression that she has any real love or concern for Agnes' well-being. Like, she doesn't need her to be happy. She just needs her well married. And it's so hard to watch Agnes deflate as she gets this news because as unrealistic as it was to hope there was a world in which she could ever marry Gar, it's hard to watch her have that realization because we've seen her try so hard to go along with this marriage idea. It's what she's been brought up in. It's what she's been told is important and she does want to do the right thing because that's the way in which she has been brainwashed to perceive her future and to perceive herself. But all of those ideas were much easier to get behind when she had this idealized image in her head of what this would look like. But now she's got a personification of her husband in three different forms right in front of her and you're watching her see exactly how bleak her future looks. It's just hard to watch. And Rosa is the only one that cares that Agnes would feel this way. So after Paula leaves, she tries to comfort her with remember God has a plan for us all. And in this world where Rosa has absolutely no effect on anything that is happening in Agnes' world, that's really the only placation she can give her. Maybe this will all work out somehow. Then we cut back to Daisy and Talia's treatment, and it's Aunt Gabana wearing protective goggles and wielding a laser because apparently she's the aunt with the laser certification for tattoo removals. It always makes me laugh at the vast array of things that these aunts are in charge of being the sole proprietors of this women's sphere.

[00:11:03]I could see a world in which Ankabana has Medpa in her pregill history. So sure, she's removing tattoos. More interestingly, the tattoo that Daisy has is not the God love tattoo. It's just a rose with thorns. It does kind of serve its plot here. It makes sense that she would still need a tattoo to be a reasonable panandler that's going to get pulled into Gilead and essentially trick the Pearl Girls into smuggling her in.

[00:11:31]And then it also makes sense that once she gets there, it's going to have to be removed and it works out well to remove it here while we talk to Talia because I had said earlier like I can't imagine a world in which someone would willingly just go into Gilead as a Pearl Girl. Um, but it's Talia and girls like this that absolutely would. And this episode did a really good job of showing how convincing these pearl girls could be if you're desperate enough. And I thought this scene was a really effective way in just a sentence or two of getting across that there was enough trauma in Talia's life with the fact that she hadn't spoken to her mother or seen her mother since she was eight. And she doesn't really know why she tattooed her name on her and now Gilead's removing it. It's all symbolically very much on the point of Gilead literally removing any trace of her mother and it highlights the fact that there's a lot of trauma there. Then we cut to the girls having lunch and discussing their matches. The scene starts with Holda talking about two different commander matches she has and one has beachfront property and the other has a 10 handicap and shootite quickly is like what does that have to do with anything? what does that stat mean in terms of his ranking in Gilead?

[00:12:42]And Ha says, "Well, my dad says it's good." And so she says, and she goes, "Is that good or bad?" And Holda says, "Is and Holda says, well, my dad says it's good." And I kind of rabbit hole for a little bit here of like, "Is it good? I don't think it's actually that good." He sounds kind of like a casual golfer. I don't really know golf all that much. Why is Hold's dad lying to her? Is he plating her? Does he just want her happy? what are Hold's parents like? And in the end, I don't think any of that matters. I think the point of that statement is actually that fact that her dad is golfing with him. This is his colleague. Once again, these men are marrying their daughters off to their co-workers and their friends, the guys that they golf with. That's why her dad knows his handicap. But more importantly than Holda and her prospects is what Shunomite says about Weston.

[00:13:28]This was almost as big of a shock for me as Rita popping onto the screen.

[00:13:32]Shunomite says that Weston is in charge of the eyes. He had a wife before, but she died. And by the end of this episode, it's pretty clear that Agnes is going to be engaged to him. So, we finally met Jud of the books, right?

[00:13:43]It's got to be a big reason of why Jud in the books is able to get away with what he does with his wives is because he's in charge of the eyes. He's very high up. And that's why Lydia can scheme in the way she can because she also has his reflective power and she's got dirt on him. And so, I was waiting to see Jud of the TV show look more like the Jud of the books. And it turns out that Weston's the jud of the books. And everything that we see in this episode with what Daisy finds out about him pregill and what Paula says about him and his new wives and breaking in horses, like this is going to be the ominous ultimate man villain of this book and series. But then Shunamite continues talking about how Agnes is going to have like a million Marthas.

[00:14:25]And it makes sense that the amount of Marthas that a commander has is going to indicate his rank, his importance within this society. and Weston is very important. My skin was already crawling when Shunamite revealed who Agnes' top match was. But then she follows it up with that statement of, "Well, Paula can just gift Rosa to you on your wedding day." And I know we've seen humans be gifted as wedding presents on the show before. We saw it after Serena and Wharton's wedding when she got the handmade. And you could say that these child brides are functioning in the same way. They're essentially rewards for commanders as they gain status. But it never gets less jarring to hear a person being gifted to another person. And Shunamite says it so casually. This is common place to her and that's the scariest part. But then we shift to Becca and her matches and Agnes is a little too happy to hear that she's had any matches at all. She practically falls out of her chair with relief. And it's got to be so relentlessly difficult for Becca to not be understood by the people that she's closest to. She keeps trying to say how much she doesn't want to get married and no one in her sphere can even contemplate a world in which that's something to entertain. But then Becca has to run through her matches and it's Commander Maddox, the one who hold says, "Didn't he try to get you drunk?" And Shunamite says, "Try, he succeeded."

[00:15:47]Which, yeah, that was exactly what I was thinking. But I did think it's really funny that in this setting it's Junomite that's saying the reality of the situation, but when Jehoshaphat did the same thing, she slapped her across the face. So I thought it was funny that Halda was like kind of picked up on the we're not going to say the actual situation. We're just going to say the optics that we want people to believe, which is a very Gilead thing to do. But in this setting, Shunomite's like, "No, he did get her drunk and now he gets to marry her. This is bullshit." Which is fair and true and a good point. And then her other prospect is a commander from the colonies. So all of this um colony talk of getting married to a commander from the colonies, it does happen. And I'm curious if this is just like a status thing that these girls have decided is lowest for them or if there is like a real hierarchy within the commanders. And if you're a commander at the colonies, then you kind of are on the [ __ ] list of commanders. like you're kind of useless and you just need to put you somewhere. I'm curious if it's as negative a distinction for the commanders as it is for these girls being married to one of them. But right now, Becca's options aren't great.

[00:16:57]Colonies or Maddox or she says G. And she doesn't want to have to be the one to deliver this news to Agnes and she gets up to leave. And Agnes chases her out to clarify that she's not upset with her. She understands that she doesn't choose who she's matched with. But then she follows it up with, "Please don't marry him." And this is actually just everything Paula was saying before of her prefrontal cortex just not being developed. This is teenage bravado. She knows what she's saying doesn't actually make any sense. But she knows Becca has no say in who she chooses to marry. And even if she did, she would have to pick Gar. There's no other option. She's got Maddox, Colonies, or Gar. Of course, she's going to pick G. He's by far the best option. So, it's crazy for Agnes to ask her to not marry him in this situation, but she's just reacting to her disappointment. She's very understandably upset, but Becca's more upset because she's got to explain this to Agnes. I don't get to choose any of this. My parents are going to choose. I don't want any of this. And that's all she keeps telling Agnes, "I don't want to get married anyway." And Agnes just looks at her and goes, "You should want to get married. Why do you not want this? You have everything I want. I would want to get married and have babies with this man. Why don't you?"

[00:18:09]But then she tells Agnes that she wants to jump off a cliff and Agnes tells her not to be so dramatic. And that is such a gut punch for Becca. And when she tries to explain it and say, "I thought we were the same, but maybe we're not."

[00:18:21]Agnes tells her to grow up. She says, "I actually want to get married and have babies, but you're the one who gets them as a match." And she's just speaking out of hurt and disappointment. Her prospects are terrible, but her best friend has been given the future that she wants, and she can't understand why Becca is unhappy with this. But all of this is cut short when West won and the eyes show up and you see these armed men come in as this little gaggle of pinks walk by and they look so small and young and vulnerable against these men with guns. And it's just a really good reminder of the violent reality that these girls are being brought up in. And Weston comes in with a presence that makes it clear that he doesn't answer to anybody. And that is equally chilling.

[00:19:02]And you can read it in Vidala's reaction. She tries to defer to Lydia and he asks her, "Are you going to deny me entry?" And you can see her look at the gun. And I had never been trying to read Vidala as anything other than a Gilead supporter from the start of the show. But after that last episode, I'm just seeing her as a chronically traumatized woman just trying to survive. And it feels like Weston was looking for any opportunity to use force to gain entry. And so it was smart of her to fold. He was getting up there with or without her permission. And she knew that. And then he gives Agnes a very knowing smirk as he goes by and they're just casually wondering if class is going to be cancelled and talking about if there's going to be a hanging and and Daisy having to listen to this knowing that at any second she can be caught is debilitatingly terrifying to me. Again, the situation she's in feels very high stakes and she is a young girl trying her best to figure this out and not die. And that is crazy to me of how did we get here? And then we get a flashback of how we got here. And this is the scene that's really hanging me up because I read it wrong this first time.

[00:20:05]I think I was just in happy Rita land where I just couldn't believe she was on my screen and she's doing so well and I'm so focused on Rita and all the things she's doing and how great she looks. And I am missing the fact that she's coercing this child in the strangest way possible. It's weird. It's crazy the way she's like info dumping on her. And I'm like with Linda on this one, is this legal? But from the second Rita pops onto the screen, she doesn't waste any time letting us or Daisy react to her presence. She just starts info dumping on her. The girl has been sleeping for 14 hours straight and she's got a camera in her face 30 seconds after waking up. And she's told that she's going to get a new passport and be on a freight into Colombia to be rehomed and start a new life. But the more I watch the scene, the more I feel like they are nudging this girl who has fallen into their grip into a decision that's not really a decision. It's feeling a little ingilead as elsewhere.

[00:20:56]Daisy doesn't have a whole lot of options here. She has basically zero agency. They wipe away her identity. She went from a Canadian citizen to an orphaned refugee overnight. And then in a rush of teenage bravado and trauma, she volunteers to infiltrate a dangerous country to gather information for their enemy. And she doesn't want to be shipped to Colombia and be rehomed and start over. The way that Rita is info dumping has got to be very overwhelming to her traumatized and exhausted brain.

[00:21:24]It makes me wonder if that was a tactic to get her to volunteer and quickly because she does volunteer quickly after this conversation. At one point in the scene, I really thought that Rita was trying to gauge Daisy and like kind of sizing her up as she looked at her at the corner of her eyes. And then I realized that she was actually just gauging her reaction to the soup. And she does say that she's in culinary school, which I love. But I was getting all distracted by these like happy details of Rita and I'm missing the fact that she's coercing this child into volunteering to go into Gilead because right after she like looks at her kind of funny and she's like gauging her reaction but I guess it's probably to the soup maybe. She then tells her that her parents are dead. They wanted her out of Gilead and she's trying her best to [ __ ] Gilead. And you can see the seeds of inspiration in Daisy's mind.

[00:22:10]But those seeds were planted by Rita and Mayday because then when Linda arrives with Daisy's new passport, she says she's not running. She wants to join Mayday. And just a fun little tangent, Daisy is reading The Woman in White when she declares that she's not going to go.

[00:22:24]And I was not familiar with this book.

[00:22:26]So I went to Wikipedia to find out what it was about. And the themes and inspiration for this book are really cool. It was published in 1860, and it really focuses on the unequal treatment of married women within the law. It was written by Wilky Collins who was inspired by the real life case of Louisa Nadage who was abducted and imprisoned for the monetary convenience of her family. And it was written in a time when a woman could be legally imprisoned by her father or her husband if he viewed her behavior as problematic in any way. So Daisy says she wants to stop running and she wants to join Mayday.

[00:22:57]And I hope she gets to finish this book before she gets to Gilead because it does sound like a good primer into the power that these commanders have over these girls. And I did love the interaction between Rita and Daisy where Rita tells her it's easy to feel brave given everything you've been through.

[00:23:12]And Daisy says, "What's wrong with being brave?" And Rita has to tell her that there's a difference between feeling brave and being brave. But Rita is acknowledging here that there's a lot at play in terms of her mental state and agreeing to do this and her age and everything she's been through. But here we are with her and Gilead. So, it's been approved that she's going to do this. And that's still crazy to me. But while Linda and Rita are debating this with Daisy and giving her some push back to her initial declaration, she demands to speak to their supervisor and she walks through both of them. There's no way that Rita didn't see the similarities to June here. She had been conditioned to let June do what she wants. And it feels like she falls into the same place here with Daisy when she realizes how headstrong she is. Then she says, "If you don't let me join, I'll find some other way to fight. Let me talk to June." But this is where it gets so suspicious to me because as soon as Daisy makes her declaration, suddenly not only does Rita have an idea, but June has a whole plan that's just waiting for the right girl to arrive.

[00:24:10]This feels coerced to me. And I really love Linda's response as she scoffs. Of course, June has a plan. But I'm with Linda here. Daisy is emotional. She just lost her parents and she doesn't understand what she's getting herself into. And I do like that Daisy told them to stop talking about her like she isn't there because that would be really annoying. But the weirdest thing to me of all in this scene was the way in which Rita asked if she was fruitful.

[00:24:33]It's a very Gilead immersed way to ask if she's fertile or got her period. I genuinely can't figure out why she used that word. Unless she's spending a lot of time with people who had spent a lot of time in Gilead and she is part of this Mayday network, so that's possible.

[00:24:48]But Daisy hasn't spent a lot of time in Gilead. And I was thinking it could be a test because she asks her that right after Daisy says, "I know about Mday and I know about Gilead. I learned about the American War in school." And Rita says, "Are you fruitful?" And Daisy doesn't know what she's talking about. So that's the case. She would have failed the test of do you actually know about Gilead?

[00:25:09]Nope. She doesn't even know this word.

[00:25:11]So she doesn't understand Gilead. She's only read about it in a textbook and it's not the same thing. But if it was a test and she failed, apparently they sent her anyway. So, I don't know. It was just a very strange way for Rita to ask her if she's gotten her period yet.

[00:25:25]But it was also a very telling answer.

[00:25:27]She only knows one girl that's gotten her period. So, it's possible that she's just at an age in which girls are getting their period later in these teenage years. But wait a second. Wasn't her wasn't Melanie asking her about birth control? So maybe they just go on birth control as a preventative measure just in case you can still get pregnant even though you haven't got your period yet. I don't know. Either way, she didn't know what fruitful meant and I don't know why Rita asked her if she was fruitful. It was weird. But then we cut back to the Pearl Girls and Vidala and she's pulling out which ones are going to get interrogated and she calls Daisy. But before we get any further in the interrogation, we cut back to more of Daisy's journey into Gilead. And we do finally get to see a little bit of how they're preparing her for her role as a Pearl Girl. So, we get a little more context of the tattoo and how she's getting it just so that she can look the part and get brought in by the Pearl Girls. and Rita warns her that they're gonna laser that off as soon as she gets to Gilead, which is comforting to know that like so far as we see these flashbacks and then we see these interrogations and we see like the current situation that the in throughout this episode. So, as much as it's like shocking me that they're sending this girl in to this situation given what we know, um, at the same time, there's also these clues that they're more in control of the situation with Daisy than she knows at this moment, but there is control happening because everything that Rita's preparing her for is exactly what she ends up needing.

[00:27:06]Later on in the scene when they're going over the packets of these commanders and their information and their faces, Rita tells her, "You're going to get interrogated by these men multiple times." So to see that she is getting interrogated by them is a little more comforting to know that like at least they knew when they sent her in that this was going to happen. And so hopefully there are some larger safety nets for this girl in place that we're not seeing. Lydia being the biggest one that I'm assuming is largely protecting her here. But even if that's true, it's a little ominous because we haven't seen Lydia through this episode. We only see Vidala. We also learn that Daisy is the nickname for Margarite. And it really makes me laugh to add another name to the list of names for this character.

[00:27:44]Got Daisy, Holly, Jade, Nicole, and now Margarite. But Margarite is French for Daisy, and it also means Pearl. So, it is fitting. But just as quickly as we learn that this is her name, Rita tells her to forget it. She's just Daisy now.

[00:27:56]And that feels a little bit like a book nod to the character. This character is just Daisy now. Forget the rest of those names. She's not Holly, Jade, Nicole.

[00:28:05]And her hair is blue, not Jade when she goes in, right? Wasn't it Jade? Jade's green. Her hair was pretty blue in this episode. So, forget all those. She's no longer those just Daisy. And I do love what Rita says about Daisies can grow just about anywhere. And as soon as Daisy tries to write off these Gilead girls as stupid and unrelatable. Rita is really quick to tell her, "These girls have been brought up in a world that has given them survival skills that she lacks." And she tells her, "If you underestimate them, you will die." And then she hits her with the do you understand me? And I can't not see Serena when I hear that line. But we're reminded exactly how high these stakes are for Daisy as we cut back to the interrogation. So Daisy enters the interrogation room and her contraband radio is sitting on the desk. And that shook me to my core. I would not have been as collected as Daisy through this conversation. And I hate the way that he says her name. It just makes my teeth itch. Every time I watch the scene, it bothers me more. He tries to play good cop with her and get her to be comfortable. And it almost sounds like he's commending her when he tells her that he heard that she was really good under pressure during the Mayday attack.

[00:29:10]But you can tell that it's tinged with skepticism because why are you so good under pressure, little girl? But that does have to be playing into her cover a bit is the fact that she is a young girl. And why would Mayday send a young girl to commit espionage?

[00:29:25]So that's got to help her fly under the radar a little bit. So, she starts to recite her story and we flash back to her learning her story with Rita. And it was stressing me out because we know that this is going to be very important that she learned this information and then we see how nonchalant she is while she's learning it. But that's so indicative of the age. My kid is a senior in high school and it's just what they are at that age. But that's what's so crazy for me watching the show because every step of the way I'm seeing these girls acting exactly how one would at that age but in these highly unique circumstances and it just blows my mind every time. But then Rita tells her about June and her daughter as Daisy is reading the intel on Weston. He used to be in cryptocurrency and he has restraining orders because of domestic violence charges. And Rita tells her not to worry about the information, just the faces, because it'll be easier to not know this information. And that's got to be foreshadowing for when Daisy's going to have to decide how much information she tells Agnes about her future husband.

[00:30:27]And Daisy gets up to leave this training session. And Rita tells her she needs to continue. And as we cut back to the current interrogation, Daisy continues her story. And she says that the Pearl Girl saved her life. And he tells her that's not true. and then follows it up with, "God saved your life." And you can see the relief wash over her and she has the nicest smile as she says, "Yes, praise be his mercy." And he lets her leave. And they do a really cool thing with the sound of her footsteps as they cut to the next scene. As she's leaving, her footsteps are very controlled and measured as she tries to exit the room as calm and collected as a Pearl Girl should be. And you can just hear her footsteps kind of methodically exiting the room. And then they cut to her in the hallway just exited the room. And you can hear the footsteps quickening as she's looking for a place where she can safely break down. And she gets just a moment of privacy before Agnes comes in and she's got to push down all of her feelings. And Agnes asks her what's wrong. And she tries to push it all down and say everything's fine. But Agnes just stares at her because obviously everything is not fine. And she starts to explain to her like, "Look, I just got interrogated by the eyes." And Agnes really brushes it off like that's okay.

[00:31:38]They're just here to protect us. Agnes can see that she's crashing out for something that seemingly is a very normal Gilead situation. And she says, "Look, I haven't been doing a good job of being your shepherdist. Why don't you come over my house today?" And Daisy is quick to say, "I don't want you to do this just because aunt Lydia said you need to feel bad for me." And Agnes says, "I don't feel bad for you. I admire you. If the roles were reversed and I was in a terrible situation like you were, would I have the strength to do what you did?" I don't think I would.

[00:32:04]And I think Daisy really needed to hear that she is brave in this situation. She needed a little reassurance and Agnes was perfectly primed to give it to her because Agnes can see the similarities in their situations because Agnes is looking for that same inspiration and that same bravery that she thinks Daisy had in order to leave her situation.

[00:32:23]Because in Agnes' world, survival is doing what you're told. And this is the first time that she's finding it almost impossible to do what she's being told to do. And it's really cool to see the little ways in which her rebellion starts to sprout through this episode.

[00:32:38]And then we cut to Daisy beginning to infiltrate the Pearl Girls. And she's told that she has to not be too eager.

[00:32:45]And I am really quite impressed with how quickly Daisy could put on a role here.

[00:32:49]U I thought she did a really good job being this double agent or taking on a different persona. So that was promising. And I can also see how these Pearl Girls are really convincing. If you were a girl on the street as a panhandler looking for clean clothes and a warm bed and some hot food, they're offering up all of your answers. They paint Gilead as this utopia where you can have all of these things and the propaganda is actually the world you're living in. And are you happy and are you taken care of? No. Come with us then.

[00:33:21]And that's how we get the Pearl Girls.

[00:33:23]They sell a really convincing story to desperate ears. And it's easy to see how Talia could have been swept up in all of this, but it's all a lie because do you think that Talia felt treated like gold as she's dragged away by the Guardians?

[00:33:35]And I really love Daisy's voice over, how she's comparing the optical illusion of the old lady and the young lady. And how once you see an image in two ways, you can't ever unsee it. And this is the first time that she is seeing these Gilead girls in a different light. and everything that they were saying to her were things that she needed to hear. And even as she's going in under this guise of pretending to be somebody else, they still touched her. They still touched her in that moment as they all circled around her and prayed for her. And now she's seen both images, the beauty that could be in Gilead and the horrors that are. But then we cut to Daisy and Agnes in Agnes' bedroom, and Daisy is impressed. She's talking about this extravagant dollhouse and this really extravagant bedroom. She goes, "This is the bedroom of every little girl's dreams." But then she brings up that the Pearl Girl's dormatory got searched. And then Daisy does something really interesting, and I'm not sure if I'm reading too much into it, but when Agnes says that she's had her house searched before when she was in Colorado, Daisy reacts really interestingly.

[00:34:43]It's like a little bit of a gasp. It's right after Agnes says, "They searched my house in Colorado. They even took things, but nothing came of it. And all of a sudden, she kind of gasps. And I'm wondering if they told her more information about June's daughter, but it's not until this point that she realizes that this might actually be Hannah.

[00:35:04]They would have known her name was Agnes.

[00:35:07]And so now she's got Agnes who used to live in Colorado.

[00:35:10]And maybe that's the the gasp there. Um, I do also think it's really interesting that Agnes says that because I think there's more to that statement, too. um when they searched her house in Colorado and they took things. I want to know what they took. We know that she wrote like we're going to see later in the scene that she's got this collection of things. And so I'm guessing she's been collecting things. We know she at one point wrote her name. And I'm wonder Hannah. She wrote Hannah. And I'm wondering if there's any June contraband that was in her house, like that red string or anything else that would tie her to June that they removed or anything that would tie her to Hannah that they removed. I want to know what things they removed because I feel like that's going to come back and we're going to see what she removed. Or maybe Daisy has already seen that because they said, "This is what we know about Agnes.

[00:35:58]These are these things. During a raid of her house, we were able to get our hands on this stuff that was removed because we know people that were eyes. Oh, because we do know that Nick always had eyes on her with the eyes. Literally had eyes on her. So, it's possible that when the eyes raided her house in Colorado, it was to get information for June, which June then has. And Daisy's putting that all together. Whatever her reaction is, she kind of stifles it. And then Agnes asks her what her bedroom was like. And I love that she goes, "I don't know, kind of normal. A bed, a desk, which is a line from The Handmaid's Tale and Margaret Atwood, both the book and the show." But then Daisy goes and starts talking about the posters that are in her room and the bands that she likes and the music that she likes. And she starts talking about the songs and the different lyrics that they have and what they're about and which one she likes and whether they're about being single and a badass and she liked working out to those. But Agnes really latches on to the fact that being in love sounds really awful and it sounds really painful. But Daisy says, "Well, yeah, but when you find the right person, it all is worth it, and at least we had a choice." And Agnes gives her back what she's always been taught, that it's a lot less confusing here without choices.

[00:37:09]But then Daisy tells her, "Your worth has already been decided for you. You don't even need a personality." And that really stings Agnes. And Daisy tries to walk it back as soon as she sees how much she hurts her. But Agnes is making a beline for her secret little treasures that she keeps in a drawer by this window that is so reminiscent of June.

[00:37:29]And it very much reminds me of the music box that Serena had given June. And anytime she got any little snippet of Hannah, she put it in this box. And here she has Hannah finding any little connection to this pre-gill world and any con and therefore any connection she has to June. even if she doesn't know that that's the connection, she's latching on to and collecting all of these little pieces of her past life.

[00:37:54]And I thought that was so sweet. And it does kind of tie into what Talia was doing with not seeing her mom since 8, but still tattooing her name on her that she was still looking for that connection. And I feel like it's the same thing that June was doing, but hanging on to every little piece of Hannah that she could get. And this feels like Hannah hanging on to every little piece of June she can get. and Gilead in all three cases ripping it away every chance they get. But the music is so beautiful and the lighting is so beautiful as she's pulling out this bag with all of these treasures.

[00:38:24]And I can't help but hearing part of your world. It's a little Ariel with her little collection of a different world.

[00:38:29]There's definitely a disco ball which made me think of that bowling scene and uh that young guardian Jaden kind of getting his own glimpse into this like pregillad life. A bunch of pens which we know June's relationship with writing words. And so to see her daughter latching on to these pens, but also that it's so foreign and so taboo and prohibited because it was a big deal when June and Serena got to pick up a pen in season 2. And then there's a fridge magnet letter that's just such a ubiquitous childhood toy. And to think that she doesn't even recognize what that would be, a letter. There's a peace sign and there's dice and there's a car.

[00:39:08]And it's just so crazy to see in one little pile all of these things that have become so foreign to her. And the look on her face as she's showing Daisy her collection and her treasures is so childlike and so different than the persona she puts on when she's going to the ball or presenting herself anywhere within Gilead. She has this buttoned up adultlike demeanor that she has to take on. And to see her be so childlike here, it's just such a juxtaposition to how we're seeing her and such a good reminder of what this age is. Again, I have a child this age. They do this where they come off as these almost on the brink of adulthood human beings and then in the blink of an eye, they can revert to so childlike. And Daisy does it in this episode too earlier, I forgot to mention it. When she's talking with Rita, she's got a lot of this teenage bravado of I'm tough and I'm strong and I can make my own decisions and you can't tell me what to do. And then she kind of flips and she goes, "They killed my parents." And she's so childlike in the way she says that. And that's teenagers. That's what we're dealing with in the show. They're on the brink of adulthood, but they're still children. And in Gilead, there is no transition time for that change. Then Agnes shows her the little token of love flower. And Daisy has to decide if she wants to tell her what it's really for or shield her from that and let her keep her innocence a little bit longer. and she chooses to shield her from it. And Agnes can tell that she's being shielded from something. Once again, this is all she's had her whole life is people shielding her from the reality of the situation. And she's about to have the blinders pulled off. And all she wants is a little preparation and a little bit of honesty and transparency. And when Daisy doesn't give it to her, she shuts down so quickly. And she says, "I guess I should just try that on." And she goes to put on the dress that she had pulled out in the beginning of the scene. It's her dress that she's going to wear as she meets their matches. Every time I rewatch the episode, I get to this scene and I get excited to watch it. It's a really well done way to show all these different matches and all these different reactions and the different dynamics with each setting. It was so fun to see the first glimpse we have of Becca's house and Ha's house compared to Agnes' house. And Holdas was like yellow and quirky and very Holdike and her parents seemed nice. I just I want to know more about Hol's family. They have no idea what's happening in her household um to produce this child. But we have a little more context into Becca's house. And it was interesting because I couldn't really tell just from like the quick glimpses that we saw that it was any lesser of a house in terms of prestige.

[00:41:46]Seemed nice to me. And Halda's first match is relatively young and seems like a relatively good match for Holda based on absolutely nothing but the looks of the two of them. In terms of most of these matches, HA's first contender.

[00:42:01]He's probably the best suited for any of these girls. I mean, obviously Gart's a good match, but not for Becca. But this guy seems young enough, looks nice enough. We also know that in Gilead, that means absolutely nothing. Then we cut to Becca's dad describing her as pious and meek and obedient, and we know those are exactly the qualities he wants in his young girl patience as well. So gross. And Becca looks truly truly miserable. Hold looks excited, of course. And Agnes looks slightly petulant, but not miserable the way Becca looks. And then Commander Maddox, the one that got Becca drunk, goes, "And pleasing to the eye as well." And that's really gross and really weird to say, even within this context, it's just really odd. It's really telling and it's really gross. But then Halda's match says clearly she's a very well-b bred girl and it's a good reminder that these girls are just livestock. And speaking of well-b bred girls, Agnes's first match, the economics guy then says that Agnes is such a godly girl in spite of her conception. So it's like where Hold's match was praising the fact that she's probably conceived from them and this is their biological child and he knows that based on what information he's been given, I guess. And then on the flip side, Agnes' match is throwing shade in her face saying, "I can't believe that you have raised such a godly girl. considering she came from a handmmaid. It's crazy considering they put the handmade system in place. And I think that slight got under Mackenzie's skin because as soon as he exits, he says, "I don't care if that man's in charge of economic growth. He's insufferable." And it's got to be because he just insulted his daughter.

[00:43:38]And Agnes is beaming because that match has just been foiled. Her father doesn't like him and she didn't like him either.

[00:43:43]So, goodbye. Good riddens. And I think now she's gotten this playbook as how you can say something kind of shady and underhanded and we're gonna see her flip the tables and use it on the commander when she's talking with Weston. But then we get the next round of matches coming in and it's Becca with Gar and she starts out looking equally as miserable and as unhappy as we've seen Becca through this montage. Then Gar says that he's been approved for a house nearby so she'll be close to her family and her friends and you see her perk up for the first time in the scene. All she's looking for is a chance to be near Agnes. And then he even gets a smile out of Becca when he says that he's going to do everything in his power to ensure her happiness. And that is not something we've heard be considered throughout any of this process through seven episodes.

[00:44:32]At no point has anyone said, "We care about your happiness, young brides."

[00:44:37]It's such a foreign concept here. And then we flip over to Weston getting acquainted with the McKenzie's and Paula is getting him a scotch and she tries to like talk up McKenzie and his work and he puts a stop to it really quick and he says I don't want to talk shop here and I'm curious if he doesn't want to talk work in front of the commander of the eyes. Like I'm pretty sure in this situation Weston is higher than McKenzie and I'm wondering if he just doesn't want to give away anything that would be incriminating potentially to this man who has so much more power than him. But I don't know if that's true that he actually has more power than him. But for some reason here McKenzie does not want to talk about work with this man.

[00:45:22]It could just be because he's implying that there's more important things as like potentially his daughter's happiness because we have seen McKenzie slightly kind of show that he wants to know if Agnes is truly happy. So I guess we have seen one other occurrence in which somebody asked if these girls are happy although not happy with their matches because he still doesn't seem to be I don't know McKenzie just doesn't really he doesn't have an opinion in the situation. We know how Paula feels about this. And we hear that McKenzie might kind of care about whether or not Agnes is happy, at least when he's talking to Daisy. I don't think he's asked Agnes if she's happy. He could do that, but he doesn't. But I don't know. He doesn't.

[00:46:03]It seems like he wouldn't want Agnes married to this man. But nothing about this interaction shows that he doesn't want Agnes married to this man other than he doesn't want to talk about work, which doesn't really prove much. But Weston starts out by praising Agnes but not to her to her parents and then also praising Aunt Lydia. So it's the first clue that there is some kind of connection between these two because he does weirdly name drop Aunt Lydia here then makes a point of referencing her unyielding discipline. And then Paula doesn't miss a beat by saying yes it preserves the innocence of these girls.

[00:46:36]It could very much just be a show for this is the commander of the eyes and therefore you don't ever want to come off as a problematic household that needs to be investigated. But either way, nothing about what Weston's saying is comforting if you're about to marry this man. And McKenzie is still weirdly quiet and Agnes is still understandably quiet because she's expected to just be quiet. But then Weston tells Paula she's such a great mother and he turns to Agnes and he says, "You're very lucky."

[00:47:06]And Agnes agrees, but she puts an emphasis on which mother she's talking about. But then Weston does ask Agnes if there's anything that she would like to say. And Paula tries to shut it down really quick because I think Paula might have understood the dig that Agnes had just made, even if Weston didn't get it.

[00:47:22]But Agnes o but Agnes takes the opportunity to speak and she starts off with a Paula approved line of I only hope that I can measure up to your expectations of a wife and Paula's in the background nodding approvingly and then she follows it up with especially given you've been married before and the temperature in the room just drops.

[00:47:44]Agnes looks at Paula. Paula looks at McKenzie. McKenzie says can I get you some more scotch? And Weston says I'm out of here. and Agnes just put a quick end to that conversation. And then McKenzie stays back in his study while Agnes and Paula escort Weston to the door. And he thanks Paula for her hospitality. And then he turns to Agnes and he tells her, "My wife died in childbirth. It was the worst day of my life." And if he had just ended it there, it would have really put Agnes in her place. But he doesn't end it there.

[00:48:14]He continues, "The day I lost my child," essentially saying, "I don't give a [ __ ] about my wife." And then he says under his eye and he exits. And knowing by the end of the episode that he's going to double down on wanting to be married to her when he just told her he does not care about his wife, they are expendable. If they die, I'll get a new one. Why would you want to be married to that? That is very, very subtly threatening. And there's no time for Agnes to even react to that threat because as soon as that door is closed, Paula tells her, "Get out of my face before I hit you." And she is really, really pissed here. like more pissed than I feel like is necessary given the circumstances.

[00:48:54]Like I couldn't understand why she turned really scary here because Agnes tries to apologize and she says [ __ ] yours because we know that Paula doesn't always stick to the Gilead approved topics of conversation but we've never heard her say [ __ ] before. This has angered Paula worse than anything we've seen so far. The only reason I can think that she's so shook by this is that now Agnes is made an enemy of the commander of the eyes. And if he wants to retaliate against their family for feeling slighted, then they can all be on the wall because of this petulent teenager who doesn't get to marry the guy she wants. So, I'm thinking that's why Paul is so angry about it because she's angry. Like, can't look at her.

[00:49:40]Get out of my face angry. and she has other matches and they're all allegedly good. So Agnes does the very sensible thing and gets the hell away from her.

[00:49:49]And she goes outside and she sees G finishing smoking a cigarette and he puts it out on the ground and he walks away. And so she kind of follows him.

[00:49:57]And I love the lighting and the cinematography here because those sun glares hitting her is so reminiscent of all of the memories that June was trying to hang on to. Every time we'd see a memory in a flashback of Hannah, it was almost always outside with the sun hitting in this lighting the exact same way. And so to see Hannah in present time and it's in this moment where she's going to have like this first teenage act of rebellion against the brainwashing that she's been put in since she's been ripped apart from her mother. And we watch her pick up the cigarette and put it to her lips. And I don't know if it is because she wants to rebel and try to smoke. I mean, obviously it's not lit. He just put it out. I don't know if she's just trying to go through that motion and like cuz symbolically it does very much look like a teenager's first act of rebellion. But I also think she just wanted to put her mouth where Gar's mouth was. And either way, it's just such a teenage teenage thing to do in this moment. And it's beautiful as the sun is hitting her. But then G doubles back and she's caught and he says, "Hey, you know smoking's not allowed, right?" And she kind of gets startled and she puts it away. But she takes this opportunity to ask him if she has a personality. And she's just being so transparent here about what's bothering her. And that comment from Daisy really bothered her when she implied any appeal that she has to a man is going to be because of who she was born to or the family that she's brought up in. She wants some validation from G.

[00:51:31]and he does try to give it to her. He tells her that she does have a personality and I believe him when he says it, but Agnes is still upset. And she flips around and she says, "Did you have a nice visit with Becca?" And he hits her with that Nick line of, "You should go back inside." And we are reminded that Agnes has no agency in the situation or in this world. There's nothing here in her control. And that's got to be infuriating as she's on the brink of adulthood and would like any kind of control in her life. That's all teenagers are trying to do is be able to control their life. and she has zero agency whatsoever in the future that she's going to follow. And then we cut to the Pearl Girls all lined up again.

[00:52:06]And this time, Vadala is saying that they need to pray for the soul of one of their own, for she has been deceiving us. And this has got to be terrifying for all of them. We see that one of the girls pees their pants. And honestly, at this point, I'm surprised that Daisy did not pee her pants because this would be terrifying. And then they drag out Talia. And I'm really surprised that she didn't put up more of a fight verbally.

[00:52:32]Like she didn't say she was innocent.

[00:52:34]And I'm wondering if she'll tried to clear her name as she's interrogated, if she's going to get a chance to get be interrogated. I know in the books they really do like to interrogate these terrorists. They don't like to just kill them. They want to find out as much information as possible. And we know that she at least saw Daisy doing something. I'm pretty sure she saw her with the radio. The radio's on the table. I don't know what they were asking the rest of these girls, but I don't know why they went off of just the location of the radio. In which case, it was smart for Daisy to put it not on her own bed. I think she could have been a lot smarter about when she was using this radio, but but if she's acting as a Mayday agent in Gilead, you wouldn't want to hide it in your own space. So, unfortunately for Talia, it's in her space. I just don't know if we'll ever see any more of what's happening with Talia. I know it's not going to be good, but I'm just curious as to why she didn't proclaim her innocence a little bit harder and point the finger right at Daisy or literally anyone else and be like, "That's not mine, and I didn't have anything to do with it, and I didn't do anything." She just keeps saying, "No, Afidala. No, Afidala." And obviously, Ampadala can't do anything in this situation. And then they're all just told to go to bed as if their lives will just move on. And we cut to Paula coming back from her walk, ready to finally address Agnes' indiscretion. And Rosa tries to express to Paula that maybe Weston's just not the right choice. And Paula shuts it down immediately and says, "You don't need to have an opinion in this." And she's walking away before Rosa even has a chance to apologize. And then we get some more insight into Paula. She says, "That was quite the little rebellion you staged. I suppose you think that was brave." And Agnes tries to apologize as she has to in this situation. Paula says, "When I was a therapist, I dealt with a lot of girls just like you." And we had a clue that Paula was a therapist, but this was jarring to me.

[00:54:29]And I am really curious as to what kind of therapist she was. Feels like it could have been one of those like Christian wilderness camps or somewhere where they have a lot of therapists that are used to get these girls to submit. I don't feel like she was helping these girls in her pregilead life. All I know is in no point so far with Paula have we seen her helping Agnes and her mental health. I can definitely see a nefarious element to her therapy background. And then it's clear that the only reason she's even conversing with Agnes at this point is because she's found out that Commander Weston quote unquote likes a challenge and still is interested in marrying Agnes. And then she hits her with a threat. And Paulo loves to threaten people by comparing them to horses. She says men like that enjoy a stubborn spirit. It's no fun breaking in a horse that's already docel. And so it's clear that whatever prestige she's gonna gain from Agnes getting married to this man, she has no issues with putting Agnes in what's obviously harm's way.

[00:55:28]This is a threat. There's no veiled language here. She's saying, "He's going to break you in. He's going to beat you down. You think you have a spirit? Good luck with him." But then we cut back to Daisy trying to sleep next to an empty bed and she's reverted back to that prayer that the Pearl girls had used around her. Oh dear God, please protect this precious child of yours. And so it's really interesting that in this time of extreme duress where she needs some kind of comfort. She goes right back to what she learned from the Pearl Girls. We already know that Daisy had a list of reasons she wanted to go into Gilead initially. First, her parents are murdered. Then she finds out they weren't her parents and that Gilead is after her. And then she finds out that Gilead murdered her biological parents, or at least that they're dead. That's when she says, "I want to join Mayday. I want to fight. I'm not going to run anymore." And now that she's in there and she's seeing the horrors and the realities, Talia is the first time that she's going to see blood on her hands because of Gilead. And I think in the end, that will renew her resolve to keep fighting. And then we get the scene of Daisy leaving Canada and crossing over into the Gilead border. And she's talking about all the things that you miss when you're in Gilead and the billboards and how they're just blacked out. as we watch her say goodbye to the last few familiar things that she's going to see before she enters into an entirely foreign territory. And we know what weight this border carries in this world and what it means to cross it. And it's so intense to watch her choosing to go in, especially knowing what kind of choice did she have here? What is the choice and what information does she have? Because we haven't seen G yet. G is a big question mark. He's very different from the books. And I have a couple thoughts on him. I think it's in this scene here as they're interacting for the first time that we're seeing in this timeline. And it seems like I don't know if Daisy knows that this is her Mayday contact at this point when she's meeting him at the border. Um it does seem like it's very convenient that the Pearl girls have this like alternate border access to essentially human traffic this girl into Gilead. But as they're getting into the car, you know, Gar takes her radio and he says, "This is contraband."

[00:57:34]And then kind of changes his tone and says, "You're not going to need it." And they get into the car. Um, it's the first time that I realized that Daisy and Gar look the same. And I don't really want to get too hung up on actors looking the same because obviously they're not biologically related. And obviously Daisy looks a whole lot like June and she's not related. So, don't want to rabbit hole too far into the fact that Daisy and G appeared similar like siblings to me, but I do think that it would be a really interesting change because they are changing G. And we do know that Holly, Daisy, Jade, Nicole has changed. And so, we're losing that element of a sister in Gilead and a sister in Canada coming together to take down this regime. But we know that G, it seems like G has been raised in Gilead, but that he's in Mayday. He had an important father.

[00:58:30]So, what if Daisy got smuggled out by the important father because she was a daughter and their parents knew that they couldn't keep this daughter here in this world. So, they find a way to smuggle their daughter, who's a small baby, out and they raise G to be the next generation of Mayday fighters. And the way in which Gar can climb the ranks because of his father being important, because we've heard McKenzie reference his father. So, if Gar had an important father in Gilead, it would make sense that they would be looking for Daisy, if they knew that she had gotten out and maybe she's got the baby Nicole storyline, but with someone that's more credible than Fred, because no one really cared that Fred's kid was gone and no one really cares about Fred at all at this point.

[00:59:20]So, like the fact that they'd be searching for Daisy Nicole, Holly Jade would only be because June is important and they want to get back at June. But they've also seemed to kind of move on from that because otherwise they'd be using Agnes more as a pawn than just shuffling her into the mass of Gilead citizens never to be heard from again.

[00:59:39]So it would be kind of cool if G and Daisy were siblings and their family had one child that stayed in Gilead and one child that they were able to get out to Canada and it's those two children that are going to come together to bring down this regime. But that's going off of nothing other than in this scene I thought Daisy and Gar did look like siblings. And Daisy's voiceover ends with there comes a time when you have to take over and choose your own destiny.

[01:00:04]And that's what we're seeing in this episode is the lack of choices that these girls are having the way in which they're just going to have to seize whatever opportunity they have. And she says, "We were teenage girls, so [ __ ] it. That time was now."

[01:00:18]And I really do appreciate that sentiment because as much as I keep watching this going, "Oh my god, these are teenage girls in this high pressure situation." I do appreciate that they're acknowledging that the world in general undercuts teenage girls and expects so little of them and says they are so highly emotional and their prefrontal cortex hasn't been developed and they don't know what they want and they need to be told what they want. And this is and here we have Daisy saying, "No, we actually have the ability and the agency to make our own decisions, and now is a good time to start doing that." And I do really hope that by the end of the show, that's kind of the thesis. Teenage girls can do hard things, too. And the last shot we get of this episode is Agnes putting that cigarette into her little bag of treasures. And that is going to smell so terrible. And I don't really know where we're going with that other than this is just one more piece to a puzzle of a world that she's so desperately trying to reconnect with.

[01:01:14]And it feels like we're getting set up to watch her find the bravery to make the hard choice that she has to make.

[01:01:21]And that's to go against the brainwashing of everything she's been taught as to what her life is supposed to be and what she's supposed to want at this point. And I think we're about to watch her say no. And I'm very excited to watch Agnes kind of come into her own power and find her own agency through this journey because we're seeing all the ways in which Gilead has really erased that from her and she's just holding on to these little threads of rebellion that are still stemming up inside of her and she's June's daughter and I think those parallels are intentional but that is the end of commitment. We got more from Daisy. We got to see Rita. We heard Tela and we met Jud finally. I really think that really think we hadn't met Jud until right now. Weston is just if you have made it to the end of this video, please comment Scarlet and Roxy because I was editing last episode, I was really really kicking myself because I missed the opportunity through an episode where it was really heavily leaning into how important friends are. I really wish what I had said instead of little Lydia last week was how much I miss my friends. If you've been here since the beginning, and I know a lot of people watching have been, comment Scarlet Roxy. But even though they're not talking about the show with me here, their presence is still very much felt and I do talk about the show off camera.

[01:02:32]So, I'm sorry that you don't get to see our conversations. I do my best to channel it into the show, but they're missed. I don't touch the music the way that Roxy would, and I'm sitting on like 10 texts from Scarlet about historical context to things that I need to look at. So, those will all be amendments in future videos. Um, but their presence is always here, and this YouTube channel would not exist without them. So, comment Scarlet and Roxy and we will be back next week for episode 8. We are getting to the end of the season and it's starting to feel like we know where it's going. But until next week, thank you so much for watching and stay