Why is The Testaments holding back a game-changing The Handmaid's Tale secret?

Warning: This article contains spoilers for The Testaments book and its TV adaptation.

Secrets are currency in the dystopian regime of Gilead. The right ones can bring untold power. But let one slip in the wrong place at the wrong time, and you'll lose more than just your tongue.

So it goes in The Handmaid's Tale and now The Testaments, a sequel that's also based on the writing of Margaret Atwood. And now there's a new secret in the latter that fans of the books will be chomping at the bit to uncover.

While the first book followed the story of June Osborne, a handmaid enslaved by her Commander, the second revolves around three different women who are embedded in Gildead's society.

The most recognisable of them is Aunt Lydia, who also played a pivotal role in The Handmaid's Tale, while the other two are Agnes, a Commander's prospective wife, and Daisy, a girl who infiltrates Gilead from the outside.

All three are connected, not just to each other, but to June's story as well. Secrets bind the latter pair to June especially, which becomes more and more apparent as The Testaments book unfolds. By the end, it seems clear that these two girls are in fact June's children and the same could very well be true for the TV adaptation of The Testaments too.

Except, things are never that simple in Gilead, especially when you consider just how much these shows expand the world created in those books.

While The Handmaid's Tale novel ended with Offred potentially pregnant with Nick's baby, the series kept going to the point where this baby became a reality. By the end of the flagship series, Nichole Osborne was smuggled out to Canada where she could be kept safe from the eyes of Gilead.

But what of June's other daughter?

After six seasons of fighting, June still failed to rescue Hannah, who ended up being raised as a daughter of Gilead.

Following the final episode of The Handmaid's Tale, showrunner Eric Tuchman described this turn of events as "heartbreaking": "Knowing we couldn't reunite them, it was heartbreaking," said Tuchman. "Because we're certainly aware of how much the audience was longing for that. It seemed to be what was driving June over the course of the whole series."

The reason for delaying what felt like a natural endpoint for the show was because The Testaments had already been greenlit as a series. In that book, June appears at the very end when she is reunited with her two daughters at last. And, yep, the daughters in question are Agnes and Daisy, aka, Hannah and Nichole.

Atwood kept this connection vague during an interview at the time, pointing out that the book only suggests their relationship as such, never explicitly confirming it either way. "We are pretty sure," Atwood told Time. "But we don’t really know." Still, the timings match up, and we do learn that both girls share a mother who was once a handmaid.

Atwood seems less coy now that The Testaments show is a reality. Showrunner Bruce Miller told Time that she was the one who suggested baby Nicole be called as such on screen, seemingly confirming that familial link at last.

But what about the show itself? Is it confirmed on screen that June gave birth to Agnes and Daisy?

Hints are scattered throughout the first three episodes made available on launch. Chief among them is the (not-so) surprise return of Elisabeth Moss as June Osborne. She arrives via flashback, appearing to Daisy after her adoptive parents are killed and it's revealed they were working for Mayday.

That first moment we see June return is accompanied by the central narration where Agnes says, "I didn't know who my mum was yet. My real mum. That would come soon."

Clues to this then recede, however, as the main narrative takes front and centre. June doesn't appear in relation to Agnes at all from that point on, although she does feature again in Daisy's flashbacks.

Viewers unfamiliar with the books might suspect Agnes belongs to June given how prominent Hannah's storyline was in the flagship show. However, June's link to Daisy might be less apparent, especially at first when the show's focus is on the parents she just lost.

However, June does reveal in episode three that Daisy was born in Gilead, and it seems as though she was also there when Daisy was smuggled out: "When you first got out of Gilead, you would not stop screaming. Just so little. Mayday took you in the middle of night to Neil and Melanie. They didn’t know you were coming."

June sure does know a lot about Daisy, huh.

If Agnes and Daisy are indeed June's children, why doesn't this version of the story just reveal that straight out the gate?

The obvious answer is that the writers want to surprise casual viewers with this twist. Not only would such a reveal shock fans who didn't pick up on those clues, it also adds a lot more depth to the connection that Daisy and Agnes forge over the course of this season. Social hierarchies don't matter so much when you realise that you share the same mother.

But given just how popular the original book is, there might be another reason why The Testaments has held back from revealing everything up front.

Perhaps the dramatic tension comes from changing this narrative entirely, surprising fans of the book by revealing that one or both of these girls is not June's daughter, like they'd assume.

In a recent chat with Radio Times, Miller and executive producer Warren Littlefield discussed the weight of audience expectation, suggesting that they "may not do exactly what [fans] are asking for in our narrative."

Could it be that they're planning to pull the rug out from under us and remove that connection entirely? Whether they keep it in or not, there's plenty of dramatic material to mine from this regardless. Because secrets hold power, and not just in Gilead.

The Testaments is available to stream on Disney+ from Wednesday 8 April 2026. Sign-up to Disney+ from £5.99 a month.

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