A summary and review of The Testaments Season 1 Episode 3
The third episode of The Testaments focuses on Daisy and shows how she ended up in Gilead. In Toronto, students learn about the quick fall of Gilead and think about how quickly society fell apart when extremist leaders who targeted women and LGBTQ+ people took power.
Daisy and her boyfriend Justin spend their time in Canada hanging out at a skate park and smoking weed. Neil and Melanie, her parents, seem to have a relaxed and supportive relationship with her. But everything changes when she comes home one night to find them dead.
Daisy goes to the coroner’s office to identify their bodies, where she meets Tim from Social Services. June shows up out of nowhere and stops her while she waits. June tells Daisy that she is in danger right away because Gilead agents, possibly including Tim, killed her parents and Daisy could be next.
June takes Daisy to a safe house and tells her that her parents were secretly working with the resistance group Mayday, using their vintage store as a front. Daisy has a hard time accepting the truth and gets angry when she can’t get in touch with Justin. She eventually sneaks out to see him, but when he doesn’t want to leave with her, she knows her old life is over.
At a diner, June tells even more: Gilead thinks Daisy is theirs. Neil and Melanie were her adoptive parents, and they saved her when she was a baby. For years, Mayday has been keeping her safe. June tells Daisy to stay strong and not let Gilead get to her.
In the present, Aunt Vidala is doubtful about the Pearl program and says that its results are bad and that it wastes resources. She tells Daisy to go with Agnes on a field trip.
The girls get more and more upset with each other during the trip, especially when Agnes yells at Daisy. Their trip takes a sudden turn when armed attackers surround their bus and start shooting. The girls hide in a building close by. After the attack is over, it’s clear that Aunt Vidala and a few other people have been hurt.
People started to say that Mayday was behind the нападeние. Daisy uses humor to ease the group’s stress as they heal, even making jokes about her time in Toronto.
The girls go back to their normal lives a week later and visit a young wife named Penny. She proudly shows them her house and hints that she might be pregnant. Commander Judd, her husband, shows up and quickly becomes interested in Daisy, asking her about her past. Daisy pushes his doubts aside, but the meeting is tense.
Outside, there is another twist: Garth, a character we met before, is shown to be working with Mayday. He says that the attack that happened before was meant to get someone out but didn’t work. Daisy gives him a map of the school and asks him to get in touch with June, but when other people come up, she has to act like nothing is going on.
Daisy is now deep in Gilead, alone and in danger.
Review of the Episode
So far, Episode 3 is the best one of the season. It not only brings June back in a meaningful way, but it also fully develops Daisy as a main character. Her relationship with June is especially interesting because it feels almost like a mother-daughter relationship.
There are still questions that need to be answered, especially about how Daisy’s parents really died. So far, all the viewers have heard is June’s side of the story.
The episode also makes some interesting points about how Gilead works without Handmaids. Earlier visual clues suggest that they may have been completely phased out, which would make sense given what happened in The Handmaid’s Tale.
There is still a lot of talk about who Daisy is. Some theories say she could be Nichole, but the timeline and comments from the show’s creators make that unlikely. There may be another reveal coming up.
There are still questions about what Mayday did. Even though time has passed, the group still seems to be loosely organized, and it’s not clear how it fits into the larger U.S. resistance.
In general, The Testaments is still gaining ground. This episode makes the characters more interesting and raises the stakes, setting the stage for what comes next.