A relentlessly brutal episode of The Handmaid’s Tale season 2, set at the former offices of The Boston Globe, stressed me out so much that I had to walk away, open a window, and breathe fresh air to calm down. Eight very strange years later, I’m shook and shocked to report that the The Testaments, set in the same dystopia and fighting the same battles, has me glued to my screen.
The Testaments is about the generation of “plum girls” raised in Gilead’s oppressive society. These very young women have been desensitized to violence and groomed to want nothing more than serving a husband and raising children. The girls are taught embroidery, flower arrangement, music, and that while rape is a sin punishable by death, they are at fault for tempting otherwise godly men to sin.
