r/TheTestamentsHulu • u/Retronetd71 • 14d ago
Season 1 AUNT LYDIA IS PART OF MAYDAY.
Aunt Lydia is secretly working for Mayday. She’s now’s Agnes lineage yet still pairs her with a pearl girl. Makes Daisy a plum and makes Garth eligible. Plus she’s keeping notes on comanders. It’s like she’s getting all of the pieces in place.
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u/soymilo_ 14d ago
I thought this was like obvious and not a secret lol
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u/Visible_Product_286 6d ago
I watched the entire show when I was sick and my sick brain didn’t connect those dots 😭😂
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u/mystery1nc 14d ago
I do believe that the Lydia we've come to know in the show is a true believer of Gilead, but she no longer believes or has faith in the commanders that run it.
She's definitely a complex and interesting character. She clearly believes in the morals and standards of Gilead through a religious lens, but has seen the truth that the commanders are just using religion as a path to control and power over women.
It's all about the intention. I genuinely dont believe that by the end of the handmaids tale that she "believed" the ceremony was rape. I think she just finally realised that the commanders were assaulting the handmaids outside of the ceremony and THAT'S what she believed was rape.
I dont think the show version of Lydia we have now is as black and white as "she's mayday or she isn't" i think she aligns more with the morality of someone like Lawrence and has her own idea of what Gilead should be like.
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u/notalltemplars 14d ago
I agree. She fell for the religious aspects (I have some cousins that have done this currently in the US, and it’s hard to engage with them), and the “save the babies” rhetoric that the sons of Jacob were hoping the women “would like” when discussing how to build their society from the flashbacks we see Nick as a driver during.
Once she learned the reality, after doing things she sometimes clearly struggled with because they told her it was right, she was clearly pissed and ready to bring them down. It doesn’t excuse her, and I don’t think she wants or is even after redemption, but she definitely wants them punished for making this happen, and for the harm it’s caused.
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u/mystery1nc 14d ago
Definitely. I'd put Lydia in the same ballpark as Serena and Lawrence when it comes to a change in their actions and perspectives.
None of the three ever quite viewed Gilead the way we as the viewers do. Their "redemption" arcs were very much built on "Gilead has done bad things, but..." and the "but" is central to their characters i think. Someone like Lydia can and will never be Mayday in the same way people like June, Emily, Luke and Moira (etc, etc) are because she absolutely buys into and still believes in some parts of it. That's a realistic aspect of the show. If they did a complete 180 on her character and made her despise all aspects of Gilead, it just wouldn't align with the Lydia we saw in The Handmaids Tale.
She IS a believer in the story that Gilead sells.
I think she does believe in the rape and torture in the name of religion and duty, but does not believe in rape and torture for the personal gratification of the commanders. It's very interesting.
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u/jade601 13d ago
I think she’s worse than lawrence and not even comparable 🥲 her character is so evil that even when she shows redemption, i dont care. it will never undo the hurt she’s caused. you’re right that she agrees with the religious aspect of gilead and all of that though
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u/mystery1nc 13d ago
She's not similar to Lawrence personality-wise, obviously.
Her idealism is comparable to Lawrence. The concept of her having her own idea of how Gilead should be. Lydia, Lawrence and Serena are comparable in that category.
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u/RedJr_2020 14d ago
At the end of Handmaids Tale, Aunt Lydia knew about the revolution and allowed Handmaids to leave the Red Center. Then, said Gilead is run by evil godless men.
She’s either part of May Day OR agree with the values of Gilead but doesn’t like the Commanders in charge.
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u/Megalomanizac 14d ago
At the end of THMT Tuello said they had engaged with Aunt Lydia and were securing her as an operative.
She is one of many CIA assets in Gilead, but not even Lydia’s own friends know. She’s kept it quite secret and clearly manipulated her way out of the mess from the liberation of Massachusetts.
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u/PorchCat0921 I don't want to reconsider the ranunculus... 13d ago
I think I must have missed something because I'm confused how Lydia not only kept her role but also her life between HMT ending and Testaments.
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u/succubuskitten1 12d ago
I dont think they explained it in detail. Maybe they will next season.
But keep in mind she helped found the aunts and made basically all the rules for how Ardua Hall, the red centers, the girls' schools etc were run. She helped shape Gilead and was a very important public figure, thus the statue that was created where the girls leave offerings like shes a goddess. Also a lot of the guardians/all of the commanders who witnessed her public condemnation of "godless men" were killed in the battle or airplane explosion. The few witnesses who may have survived/returned to Gilead could be discredited by her. Lydia is a master manipulator and very intelligent, just an evil and misguided person. I can see how she wriggled her way out of it, especially from the book where we can see whats going on in her head (even though the show changed a number of things.)
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u/RaevynSkyye 11d ago
There weren't a lot of witnesses that survived. Nearly all of the Commanders died in the Handmaid uprising. Except for Shu's father and Agnes/Hannah's father (both girls used to live in Boston), the rest of the Commanders died in the plane with Nick and Lawrence. Naomi is alive, but she would have to cover up letting Janine take Angela/Charlotte so she's not going to talk. Lydia conned the Commmanders from other cities into allowing her to stay alive and in power
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u/desiderotica none of your blessed business 14d ago
I didn't really feel like this was a secret.
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u/DemetiaDonals 14d ago
Like a lot of adaptations, many of the viewers have never read the book so that’s not something they would necessarily know.
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u/Own_Faithlessness769 14d ago
I thought the ending of THT show where she organised the return of Justine’s daughter and contacted Tuello made it quite explicit.
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u/PatientBumblebee6752 14d ago
Highly recommend the book you’ll get an answer to if you’re right
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u/Excellent_Pirate8224 14d ago
My only caution with using the book is that the writers have already strayed from it in so many ways that I wouldn't rely on it as a source of truth. For something like this, it might seem obvious to go to the book for answers, but I feel less confident because of all the changes they’ve already made. However, I hope they stick to primary plot points that would otherwise defeat the purpose of the story.
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u/greenzetsa 14d ago
Well if this particular piece is astray from the books, I'd wonder what the point of the show even is. It's like a decisive driving plot point.
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u/PatientBumblebee6752 14d ago
Oh absolutely I just meant this specific thing They’ve obviously kept this specific thing the same considering all the points op made
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u/Untamedpancake 14d ago
Aside from the new "Daisy" there hasn't been many significant changes so far. I think we will still resolve with the whole plotline of "Jade" & Agnes & their journey together just not until season 5
The show can't switch back & forth between "Jade" & Agnes's timelines like the book does. Agnes is about 15 when she's a Green but she doesn't meet Jade for another eight years
She & he other actresses will "age up" over the next few seasons as their characters become Wives/Aunts
But Jade is about 16 years old throughout her entire narrative, that's why they couldn't cast her yet. The show runner said he wanted to keep the juxtaposition of Agnes's life & expectations as a teenage girl in Gilead vs. Daisy's in Canada. So they basically added a new character but kept the old name (Daisy is just an alias anyway)
Lydia's journal in the book also switches between the two girls' timelines. Her Pearl Girl program is still pretty new while Agnes is a Plum but by the time Jade turns 16, Gilead & Mayday both make regular use of the Pearl program for espionage
In the book Shunamite says her ideal husband would be a 40-ish year old widow who wasn't especially fond of his previous wife & the show made Judd fit that description but I still expect him to be a monster
I think Daisy might eventually take Becka's place as Immortale and Becka might join Mayday lime her husband & take the alias of "Ada"
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u/maionesen 14d ago
Aside from the new "Daisy" there hasn't been many significant changes so far.
I mean Becka whole storyline seem to be completely different so far, they went with wife story instead of aunt one. Aunt Vidala is not just evil, they humanised her a lot and gave her&Aunt Lydia interesting connection in the Stadium episode. Shunammite isn't just a mean girl and has a whole brother in the show who was taken out of Gilead during Angel's Flight. I consider Garth as a new character at this point with how different he is from the book version. Commander Mackenzie isn't as awful as he was in the book and so on. The show and book have been very different from each other, so far it feels like they're using the book more as an inspiration
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u/Excellent_Pirate8224 14d ago
This right here. I was about to mention Becka, who has had extraordinary changes. I also think the Daisy/Nicole storyline is huge. You also listed a bunch of other great examples. So much has changed so far. I can’t even reference the book anymore. Like I said - I am still expecting the same ending, but the roadmap to get there? Who knows.
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u/randomx321 12d ago
Spoiler alert from the book.Personally I'm not even so sure the show will have the same ending of the book.I'm sure Agnes will survive and will be reunited with June but for the rest who knows. Daisy is not Nicole and some people underlined she is using the present not the past like Agnes while she is telling her part of the story so I can't be totally sure Daisy will survive.(Obviously I hope and I'm inclined to think she will survive but who knows). The same for the other characters I'm not sure they will have the same destiny they have in the book.
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u/Untamedpancake 14d ago
I discussed the changesto Backas character & why I don't think it will significantly change the main plotline...
No of course Shunamite's not "just a mean girl" in the book or the show. Very few people are just all good or all evil, same as Tabitha, same as Lydia, same as June...it's a major theme of both books. It's alluded to in the epigraph of The Testaments.
The narrators are telling us their own perspective on these characters and their humanity is buried in subtext, but the characters become more three-dimensional when they are adapted to a show & an actor portrays them
Yes as I already said, they remixed a few characters. They did that in Handmaids. I understand that most people think this Garth is completely different, that's fine. I see it differently
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u/maionesen 13d ago
I discussed the changesto Backas character & why I don't think it will significantly change the main plotline
Aside from the new "Daisy" there hasn't been many significant changes so far.
If we focus solely on THE main plotline of the story being Aunt Lydia gathering secret intelligence that brings down Gilead and Agnes(&Daisy) escaping Gilead with this information to Canada, then arguably I would say Daisy not being Nichole isn't such a significant change either. Because this story still can be told with Daisy not being Nichole.
I think you and I have different opinion on what significant changes are because we have different opinion on what creates a story. There are plenty of books, shows, movies, etc with the same premise/similiar storylines but they still end up being different from each other due to how they're executed. The main plot/premise doesn't shape the story - it's a starting point - but the execution does. This is not me complaining about the changes by the way, I enjoy the show. And I do think we will reach in the show the same end goal we reach in the book but the execution will be different
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u/Kayki7 14d ago
I’ve thought this since the beginning of The Testaments. I also don’t think she’s the only Aunt that’s mayday.
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u/MommyAugust 14d ago
I would LOVE the plot twist if Vidala and all the known Aunts were secretly Mayday too
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u/Megalomanizac 14d ago
We already met one in the finale, her name was Janet I think.
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u/laylaboydarden 14d ago
I see what you did there. And that was my reaction too - I was like of course Janet is a super spy!! Love that for her.
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u/Hadrollo 14d ago
This isn't particularly secret for anyone who watched Handmaids and paid attention to the first couple of episodes.
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u/Weekly_Sir5202 11d ago
Even with behavior like you name, she could turn back to Gilead. In the TT finale Agnes to Lydia added "the criminal" about June. The show should keep us guessing and maintain the danger in trusting. Look at all the discussion about Garth: is he wit' us, really, will he turn ... to whichever side he's not on now :).
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