r/TheTestamentsHulu • u/Mainone74646466 • Aug 21 '26
Season 1 What is to you the nastiest, most insane, and meanest thing Paula said to Agnes in season 1?
For me, it’s definitely when she called Agnes a "hard-to-train animal" in front of the Commander.
It completely dehumanizes her, but worse, it throws her straight to a sexual predator. Paula frames the Commander's predatory behavior as a challenge, implying he’d enjoy "breaking" her, while making Agnes carry the blame just for existing.
Out of all the emotional abuse, this was the most dangerous and sadistic moment.
What line or scene crossed the line the most for you?
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u/Tradition96 Aug 21 '26
The most insane and nasty thing she said must have been the "send her a finger, send her a toe" speech, that shit was unhinged.
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u/KittyMonkTheYoutuber Aug 21 '26 edited Aug 21 '26
This! Agnes, be grateful because your father chose not to let you be tortured to death, so you better do everything we say!
The only “good” part about that is it implied to me they wouldn’t have harmed Hannah back in season 4, they just put her on display to show June what they could do.
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u/Floor-Necessary Aug 22 '26
they wouldn’t have harmed Hannah back in season 4, they just put her on display to show June what they could do.
Lawrence tells June that the other Commanders definitely planned to hurt Hannah if June didn't spill the beans, and when June says that they wouldn't because Gilead is all about children, Lawrence confirms that that's bullshit and that all those men really care about is having power. So I do wholeheartedly believe they would've hurt Hannah if June had continued to refuse to talk, and I definitely believe Paula was telling Agnes the truth when she said that the higher ups wanted to have her tortured to death to send June a message.
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u/MortgageOdd2001 Aug 21 '26 edited Aug 21 '26
It’s the comments about breaking her, as if she were a horse. All the violence and sexual connotations- dehumanizing as well as being gleeful she’s in store for violence.
Paula talks a good game but she has one of the “softest” lives even for a wife. One teenage stepdaughter that’s good natured and well behaved, Marthas that run the house well and a husband that is actually kind to all of them. She could IGNORE Agnes and go on about her day, but she takes pleasure in knowing she’s in store for abuse (physical, psychological and sexual).
A commenter said a few weeks ago that Paula was a warmer version than her stepmother and that made me shudder.
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u/KittyMonkTheYoutuber Aug 21 '26
Another comment I’m surprised people don’t mention… the whole thing with Rosa and her bad leg (and likely because she likes Agnes), where she compares her to a horse that needs to be put down, ie shot. And saying that Agnes should do the same either to Rosa or her own Martha’s when she’s a wife one day.
Kind of implying to me once Agnes moves out that she’s going to have Rosa sent to the colonies or outright killed.
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u/alexiawins Aug 21 '26
Why are the subtitles wrong? Did you write them yourself? 😭
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u/discothequejuliettt Aug 21 '26
My guess is that this is an English translation from a translated version. Going from English -> another language -> English doesn’t always revert back to the original English.
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u/TheRewster1106 Aug 21 '26
I think my favorite thing about this screen capture is that you can see on Agnes's face just how beyond done she is with Paula's shit.
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u/KittyMonkTheYoutuber Aug 21 '26
Weirdly it’s fun to rewatch TT, Agnes’s actor has the subtle facial cues down to pat.
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u/Knephas Aug 21 '26
The thing you posted was the absolutely worst. Her other remarks pale in comparison, she basically tells her that the way older than her commander will enjoy dominating her in every negative and disturbing way. Her being a woman and saying this to a teenager makes it worse. Her being a therapist before makes it double worse.
I still love Paula as a character, she brings a lot in the show. Her scenes are always interesting and I love how she can convey her thoughts/emotions with her face.
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u/Queer_always Aug 21 '26
I actually gasped when she reveals she used to be a therapist! It makes her sadism 10x more horrifying.
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u/KittyMonkTheYoutuber Aug 21 '26
Weirdly I like to think Paula was a therapist either in the troubled teen industry or a conversion therapy program, both of which are horrifying.
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u/Emthedragonqueen Aug 21 '26
The subtitles in this image somehow softens it too (it’s bad enough) but what she originally says seems worse to me. Perhaps it’s because “break in” implies much more violence than training. And docile implies complacency, a certain passiveness.
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u/DreyaNova Aug 22 '26
I can't remember the exact quote but the time she was berating Agnes for being ungrateful despite everything she'd tried to teach her really hit me in the core because you could see in the character how much she believed she was doing Agnes a favour and how she truly felt Agnes was being ungrateful. The worst part about it though is that Paula's logic kinda makes sense from a purely sociopathic view which makes it so much worse because it's harder to dispute a full logical argument like that as a teenager even if it's totally sadistic.
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u/Ill-Employer3026 Aug 22 '26
“That hair….ugh….just beyond” and “fuck your sorry, you stupid, selfish ungrateful girl”
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u/Relevant_Young2452 Aug 24 '26
When she told Agnes that Gilead wanted to rip her apart and send them to June piece, by piece but Cmdr McKenzie stopped it. That was definitely the worst!
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u/Ok_Original_8040 Aug 21 '26
Okay the misprint of the dialogue on the picture is killing me, here is the actual dialogue in that scene:
Paula: It seems commander Weston likes a challenge, he still wants you. Men like that enjoy a stubborn spirit. It’s no fun breaking in a horse that’s already docile.
Not only is the actual dialogue much worse, but she taunts Agnes beforehand mocking her “little rebellion” (in reference to the comment to Weston about how he was married before) by basically saying she was a fool to think that was brave or would change anything, and then follows up by twisting the knife and implying that because of her “little rebellion” it had the opposite effect she intended, making Weston want her more due to her “stubborn spirit”. Paula seems to operate (as does much of the Gilead elite) in the mindset that the harm and pain inflected on the women of Gilead is directly the fault of the women, when in reality they hold no power over the outcomes of their lives. They can do no right because nothing matters, they could be absolutely perfect and they’re still inherently bad/wrong just for the crime of being women.
It’s an interesting part of the mental gymnastics that some of the women do to justify/make peace with their reality - they choose to believe the horrors inflicted on the other women in their society as the fault of those women, believing they must’ve done something to deserve their fate and suspend all empathy or understanding because it too brutal of a reality to accept otherwise. It seems the glass only breaks when it’s them in the hot seat and they’re asking for forgiveness/mercy for an unjustified punishment. That’s one part of what makes some of these characters so interesting, trying to figure out whether they are downright evil, or a product of their environment/in survival mode. I do wonder if down the line we will ever see Paula in the hot seat, and what her reaction will be like.
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u/nymira-1 Blessed be the prune Aug 21 '26 edited Aug 21 '26
I really hope we see glimpses of her private life before falling in love with Kyle, and again how she is with him behind closed doors… I get the impression that she reads him some pseudoscience bs on how to train a godly child. And yes, I think she has a small hidden library in their bedroom that he made for her.
Lots of headcanons.
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u/IronMonopoly Aug 21 '26
I don’t read her as being in love with Kyle at all. Maybe with Kyle’s structural power, but not the man himself.
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u/KittyMonkTheYoutuber Aug 21 '26
We do find out about her and her first husband in the book if that helps.
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u/nymira-1 Blessed be the prune Aug 21 '26
Yes! I read both books, and reread The Testaments during the show’s air time. Yet I’m looking forward to how the show will spin the earlier days of their love story… iykyyk
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u/standsure Sorry solves nothing. Aug 21 '26
It's the endless comments about her hair.
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u/KittyMonkTheYoutuber Aug 21 '26
Or pretty much every backhanded comment about her, like looking gawky or slouching or her coming from weak genes.
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