Spoiler alert: This story contains spoilers for episode 5, “Ball,” of “The Testes,” now available on Hulu.
The girls of Gilead don’t go to prom, but this week’s episode of “Testament” gets them as close to a typical teenage experience as possible.
In this new sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale, aptly titled The Ball, marriage-eligible Agnes (Chase Infinity) and her other “green” friends attend a ball where they are paraded in front of all the commanders looking for young wives. Agnes is particularly interested in single men who are suitable for marriage. Her guardian Garth (played by Brad Alexander) is scheduled to be promoted to commander in the coming weeks.
When Agnes has the opportunity to dance with Garth at a ball, her desire to marry for love is further strengthened. Agnes’ suitor, Commander Westin (Reed Diamond), asks Garth to step in while the Commander has business to attend to, and he and Agnes make the most of a rare moment of normal adolescence.
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“I feel like he’s caught up in it, too,” Alexander told Variety. “We find that Gilead is a very strict place, but some nights it’s a little bit more lax. I think tonight, as he says in the episode, some of the rules are falling aside. And he’s watching and watching this dancing, this drinking, this partnership, and this romantic atmosphere there. And I think, honestly, he’s frustrated that as a guardian, as a protector, he can’t really get involved until he’s placed there.”
While Agnes’ feelings for Garth are clear to viewers and to Pearl Girl’s friend Daisy (Lucy Halliday), who makes Garth her Mayday handler, it is less clear what Garth feels about Agnes. Alexander says that’s because Garth himself grew up in Gilead and now works as a double agent for the rebels in Canada, so there’s no word to describe it.
“I think it’s a kind of suppressed love, at least for this season,” Alexander says. “He definitely thinks she’s vibrant and alive and has a real personality beyond her Gileadian-like attire. But I think he’s in this position, his goal is clear and that’s to take down Gilead as part of Mayday.”
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“He has no concept of romantic love at all. He doesn’t even really understand what it is. So he’s facing all these emotions for the first time. And I don’t think he has any idea what’s going on inside his body.”
Agnes’ desire to marry Garth may still be in jeopardy, but thanks to his soon-to-be-commander position, he is now at least on the list as a potential husband. But this promotion comes with strings that tie him deeper to Gilead.
“I think Garth is really excited about this change, but maybe that’s a little naive,” Alexander says. “His appointment to command means to him that he can advance Mayday’s goals more aggressively. But what he doesn’t realize is that it actually puts him in a more dangerous position. He has more information, more information, insider information. But that in itself makes him vulnerable. He’s happy for the change, but maybe he shouldn’t be.”
And Garth never expected that this position would lead to romance.
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“I think he always thought about getting married, but not in the way we understood it,” Alexander says. “His view of marriage is dynastic. He sees marriage as a way to equalize homes and privileges and money and finances. Marriage is not a romantic thing for him, so he doesn’t have that concept in his head. I think he idealized it, as he does in Gilead, but it’s not about love or affection.”
As for how and why Garth became involved with Mayday in the first place, Alexander says that “the mechanics are still a mystery,” but reveals that there were “two really big influences” on Garth’s choices.
“One is simply a moral realization of truth,” Alexander says. “He’s having this experience with these girls for the first time, and he’s seeing how their personalities are damaged as they adapt to this patriarchal world. So I think he has an honest moral perception of how wrong Gilead is.”
According to Alexander, Garth is also driven by something audiences will learn later in the season, which is that his father “was a very famous commander and fighter for Gilead up until the Boston moment.”
Alexander reveals that Garth’s father was injured in the incident, which viewers saw at the end of “The Handmaid’s Tale.” As a result, Garth is “also angry at the system that raised him,” he says.
