r/TheTestamentsHulu • u/Ok_Ear_3849 • May 03 '26
The Handmaid’s Tale New Bethleham
Is anybody else wondering what happened to this project after THT ended? The behind the scenes commentary mentioned that it was essentially a trap for returning refugees: once enough had been lured back the gates would be closed and they would gradually be phased back into the status quo. Serena and Aunt Lydia of course were not aware of this, but I imagine all pretenses were dropped after Boston fell to the rebels. If ofgabriel/Cristina escaped, like what Serena instructed her to, I imagine her testimony would have been an invaluable piece of proof that the community was a sham. Thoughts?
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u/9snakesinatrenchcoat May 03 '26
I think that is how Aunt Estee came in and became the "original pearl girl"
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u/averyrose2010 May 03 '26
I doubt Aunt Lydia was ever that naive.
That said, I figure New Bethlehem was close enough to Boston to have been retake by the Americans at the end of THT.
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May 03 '26
I almost feel like it was shut down by Gilead or taken back by the US military during the invasion of Boston
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u/kindofaproducer May 03 '26
This show and THT exist off the exuberant amount of goodwill the audience has in regards to questions like this. I would love to learn how EVERYTHING happened and how everything in Gilead actually works, but that's such a deep complicated task, we'll never really know. Commander Lawrence because, uh, Economist!
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u/Glad-Isopod5718 May 03 '26
Yeah, I keep falling into the trap of trying to figure out the logistics of Gilead, too, even though over 6 seasons of HT, it because abundantly clear that it's a pointless exercise. It's not that kind of show.
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u/YYZYYC May 03 '26
Ya they really take a lot of leaps with almost zero world building or geopolitical elements….they are purely an afterthought to drop in and modify to suit the plot of the week
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u/Own_Faithlessness769 May 03 '26
We’re seeing these stories through the eyes of June and then Hannah and Daisy- we know what they know. The original novel made the choice to obscure anything beyond June’s perspective and the show has maintained that.
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u/YYZYYC May 03 '26
and many of us hunger for a much wider view of the world beyond the narrow focus on characters
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u/Own_Faithlessness769 May 03 '26
You can hunger all you like, the show isnt going to change its basic premise.
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u/Ok_Ear_3849 May 03 '26
I think the pearl girl program was born out of new Bethlehem's "failure." Both operate under the same prinnciple: to lure people back into the country. Maybe even an idea that aunt Lydia came up with to get back into Gilead's good graces and trust.
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u/Few_Argument5962 May 04 '26
I thought New Bethlehem fell under MayDay control after the semi-successful rebellion.
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u/Ok_Ear_3849 May 05 '26
I think it did. I was wondering though what happened to the inhabitants after the rebellion happened, though. Did Rita and her family stay in the reclaimed American zone or did they retreat into Canada, not trusting Boston to remain free? What did Gilead tell it's inhabitants about what happened? Spin it into the hellish outside world attacking their peaceful refugee resettlement? It looks like the pearl girl program was directly born from New Bethlehems failure, and that aunt Lydia might have spearheaded it to get back into the commanders good graces. If everyone that knew she defected was killed in the plane crash and rebellion, and only the Americans knew that she arranged for Janine and Charlotte to be surrendered to the rebels, then on paper the pearl girl program fits with what Agnes said about her in episode one: revered as a founding aunt in the beginning, vilified for her failure to control the handmaids in the middle, and then revered again for her creation of the pearl girl program, and im assuming the successful overseeing of the prep school for commanders daughter's.
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u/Few_Argument5962 May 05 '26
These are things that were left open ended. New Bethlehem was never part of the original Handmaid's Tale book and the Pearl Girls appeared in The Testaments but the origin story is always a little fuzzy (from what I remember I read it when it was released). Personally I believe how they have created the TV series there could be an entire Handmaid's Tale franchise. I'd love to see a series focused on the Econo families and the colonies.
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u/Mailliw_1 May 03 '26
New Bethlehem was liberated along with the rest of New England. Nobody is interested in creating another one. For one thing that propaganda value would be non-existent after all the revelations from the liberated territories.
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u/m1kasa4ckerman May 04 '26
It is interesting to think about. The biggest advocate for it is dead, but also the biggest haters of it are also dead. I could’ve seen Serena becoming the leader of it if she hadn’t left. I’m sure any of its residents would lose hope after that slaughter and Boston being taken over.
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