As a steadfast fan of The Handmaid’s Tale and now The Testaments, I have allowed myself to absorb the prickly, volatile nature of the world placed in front of me. Constant unfortunate encounters in the world of Gilead bring painful visuals of sexual slavery, authority, domination, ridicule, and the bastardization of Christianity. Though, to only acknowledge these factors removes us from the sovereignty and sisterhood beneath the surface.
To look at the world of Gilead only through the lens of sexual deviation and control is to miss a vital essence of the story—an essence that The Eyes do not want us to see. It is to misunderstand how the story has balanced the ability to be salacious and unsettling. The true power of The Testaments is not only in the innocence of girlhood but in the way the girls refuse to stay locked in the prison of their own minds. One by one, they are starting to crack. The chasm leaves behind the effervescent belief that the power of self-sovereignty and liberation can, and should, be up to their own discretion. In doing so, it overturns the idea that to be a girl, a woman, feminine, and a wife, we must trap ourselves in the box labeled Innocent, Fragile, Doting, and, as episode eight is titled, Broken.