{"id":761884,"date":"2026-04-29T18:06:19","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T18:06:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/761884\/"},"modified":"2026-04-29T18:06:19","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T18:06:19","slug":"the-testaments-reveals-more-of-aunt-lydias-harrowing-backstory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/761884\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018The Testaments\u2019 Reveals More of Aunt Lydia\u2019s Harrowing Backstory"},"content":{"rendered":"

In The Handmaid\u2019s Tale, Aunt Lydia\u2014played to Emmy-winning perfection by Ann Dowd<\/a>\u2014was one of the show\u2019s most complicated and infuriating characters<\/a>. We first met her<\/a> as the cruel director of the Red Center, where freshly detained Handmaids learned the grim details of what their lives in Gilead would entail.<\/p>\n

But over the course of The Handmaid\u2019s Tale, Lydia gained more complexity\u2014a flashback episode in season three gave some insight into her particular thought process\u2014and, as the show neared its finale, she also gained something resembling a conscience.<\/p>\n

When sequel series The Testaments<\/a> kicked off, we saw that Aunt Lydia had somehow moved past all the Handmaid\u2019s Tale chaos and her own near-death encounter and is now seemingly more powerful than ever: she\u2019s running the Aunt Lydia Premarital Preparatory Academy, where upper-class Gilead girls learn how to be pious, tractable wives.<\/p>\n

Of course, \u201cpower\u201d has a different meaning for women in Gilead. Aunt Lydia and the other Aunts, including her second-in-command, the fierce Aunt Vidala (Mabel Li), do enjoy a certain amount of elevated privilege. They\u2019re allowed to read and write, something even the wives of top Commanders are barred from doing. They\u2019re allowed to teach and \u201ccorrect\u201d (punish, usually painfully) their students as they see fit.<\/p>\n

They also arrange all the nuptials. As soon as a group of girls get their periods\u2014still a relative novelty in fertility-starved Gilead\u2014the Aunts step in, and the teens are married off as quickly as possible.<\/p>\n

\"AnnThe Aunts decide who\u2019s marriage material in Gilead. \u00a9 Russ Martin\/Disney <\/p>\n

But for all their importance, the Aunts must ultimately bow to the men in charge. Most often, they deal with Commander Judd (Charlie Carrick), who\u2019s married to a very young woman who recently \u201cgraduated\u201d from Aunt Lydia\u2019s school.<\/p>\n

In recent weeks, we\u2019ve seen Commander Judd begin to tire of Aunt Lydia. They clashed after last week\u2019s matchmaking ball, when Lydia complained that several Commanders tried to get the girls drunk, and Judd acted like it was Aunt Lydia\u2019s fault. She should have instructed them better, he said. But as she pointed out, they\u2019ve specifically been taught to be obedient above everything else, especially when it\u2019s a Commander giving the orders.<\/p>\n

Last week, Judd told Aunt Vidala that he\u2019d like to see her take over for Aunt Lydia sooner than later\u2014though her reaction to this dangled \u201cpromotion\u201d was sort of unclear.<\/p>\n

This week, things came much sharper into focus. Episode six, \u201cStadium,\u201d revisits Aunt Lydia\u2019s history, taking us to a specific point in time that gives us a better understanding of Lydia\u2019s sometimes confusing, sometimes apparently contradictory approach to life in Gilead.<\/p>\n

It also lifts the lid on her current state of mind. And it\u2019s a genuinely harrowing thing to experience.<\/p>\n

\"Io9<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

While some of \u201cStadium\u201d takes place in The Testaments\u2019 present day, as Aunt Lydia, Aunt Vidala, and the others sift through files of suitors and prospective brides, we know immediately that this episode will be different. After alternating between voice-overs for Agnes (Chase Infiniti) and Daisy (Lucy Halliday), we\u2019re finally getting Lydia\u2019s point of view.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn my own present day, I am an object of curiosity,\u201d Lydia tells us, and throughout \u201cStadium\u201d we\u2019re reminded again and again that she\u2019s way more self-aware than we realized. She knows, for instance, how ironic it is that the Aunts, all unmarried women, are in charge of picking husbands for the girls. Part of it\u2019s based on the girls\u2019 performance at the tea party, as we saw in \u201cGreen Tea,\u201d<\/a> and part of it\u2019s based on genealogical research. Gilead has such a small population that inbreeding is a potential concern.<\/p>\n

Though Aunt Lydia is fiercely protective of \u201cher girls,\u201d that line of defense is subject to being shoved aside if a man in power wants his way. It\u2019s something she\u2019s had to acquiesce to many times.<\/p>\n

\"AnnAunt Lydia and her statue\/shrine at the school. \u00a9 Russ Martin\/Disney <\/p>\n

We learned during The Handmaid\u2019s Tale that before she became Aunt Lydia, she was a lonely, middle-aged woman with a not especially remarkable life. At some point she shifted from a career in family law to teaching, and later lashed out against a woman she viewed as a neglectful parent after suffering a personal humiliation.<\/p>\n

The Testaments takes us to Lydia\u2019s life right as the United States government is being overthrown and Gilead is starting to take shape. She\u2019s at her teaching job when it happens, along with (surprise!) Aunt Vidala, who went by \u201cVivian\u201d in the before times. They\u2019re colleagues who don\u2019t especially like each other, but they\u2019re thrown together as all the women in their community are rounded up and herded into a large stadium. There, they\u2019re held captive at gunpoint and forced to witness repeated mass executions on the tennis court below.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s dreadful. Nobody really knows what\u2019s happening except for the vicious armed men in tactical gear; Lydia correctly figures there\u2019s been a coup of some kind. The prisoners\u2019 numbers start to dwindle as, day by day, more and more are yanked out of their seats, either bound for execution or fates unknown. Having seen what happened to June (Elisabeth Moss) at the start of The Handmaid\u2019s Tale, we have a pretty good idea of what happens to any woman who appears potentially fertile. When Vivian vanishes, Lydia isn\u2019t sure what to think.<\/p>\n

We get a running commentary thanks to her narration, though, as she looks back on some of the lessons she\u2019s learned. One of them is that having friends in Gilead is \u201ca liability,\u201d though the girls of The Testaments are certainly proving that wrong in their own storylines.<\/p>\n

Before long, it\u2019s Lydia\u2019s turn to meet the man overseeing the ongoing atrocities. It turns out to be\u2026 our pal Commander Judd. \u201cMisogynists who openly disdain women\u2014one needn\u2019t fear them,\u201d Lydia tells us. \u201cBut the men who understand the power of women, who want to control it instead of deny it\u2014there is no one more terrifying.\u201d<\/p>\n

Commander Judd, we learn, has been put in charge of the \u201cwomen\u2019s sphere\u201d in Gilead. He flips through Lydia\u2019s file: she\u2019s 58, never married (a slight retcon; in Handmaid\u2019s she had an ex-husband), and once had an abortion. The latter is a crime that\u2019s now punishable by the death penalty, retroactively, thanks to one of Gilead\u2019s more ghastly laws.<\/p>\n

Judd is dismissive and glib as he tells her this. He knows that being in charge of Gilead\u2019s women is not the coolest job one could score through the Sons of Jacob, but he\u2019s power-tripping anyway. And Lydia is onto him: \u201cSurviving these men requires patience and allies, wherever you can find them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Commanderjudd\"Charlie Carrick as Commander Judd. \u00a9 Russ Martin\/Disney <\/p>\n

She suggests that if Gilead wants truly separate spheres for men and women, a woman should be installed to \u201cteach the girls to be women and the women to be better women, women of God.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s here that the idea of Gilead\u2019s Aunts begins to form. Amazingly, the Aunts were Lydia\u2019s idea all along. But while he likes her suggestion, Judd isn\u2019t as thick as we maybe think he is. He still needs Lydia to prove her loyalty, and he tests her in the most agonizing way imaginable: by handing her a gun and making her march into the stadium with the other executioners. Lydia\u2019s target, who has her blindfold pulled off so she can see her assailant, is Vivian.<\/p>\n

Desperate, Vivian begs for her life as Lydia takes aim\u2014and, yes, pulls the trigger. Though we already knew that Vivian, aka Vidala, survives through the years into The Testaments, we still gasp in relief along with both women as the gun turns out to be unloaded.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s here, Lydia confesses, that she has \u201clost track of the plotline of my resolve\u201d and is now following \u201cthe plotline of my survival.\u201d<\/p>\n

A little while later, she muses, \u201cWas I a phoenix rising from the ashes? Or was I a cockroach? I wasn\u2019t sure anymore.\u201d But she\u2019s alive, and we soon see her being summoned by Judd to help choose the fabric that will be used for the Aunts\u2019 drab uniforms.<\/p>\n

She chooses the scratchiest, most uncomfortable fabric. It fits with her biggest \u201cgripe with the old world,\u201d which was that people became too comfortable. They relied too much on convenience and had \u201call become entitled little brats.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a leap from that sort of low-level ennui to \u201cwould shoot a friend to save my own skin,\u201d but that\u2019s part of the enigma of Lydia. To know her does not mean you will ever truly understand her. At any rate, the experience in the stadium explains a lot about the dynamic between Lydia and Vidala. Even though they weren\u2019t together at the Red Center, they\u2019ve somehow reunited at the school that bears Lydia\u2019s name. Understandably, certain resentments and uncomfortable feelings still linger.<\/p>\n

It also explains the peculiar bond between Commander Judd and Aunt Lydia. Maybe \u201cbond\u201d isn\u2019t the right word, but there\u2019s a long history there that\u2019s seemingly just starting to fray. She\u2019s come to rely on his trust; what will happen if he turns to Aunt Vidala instead?<\/p>\n

And it gives us a clearer window into Lydia\u2019s thinking. As we learned in The Handmaid\u2019s Tale, she\u2019s not an evil person, despite her willingness to do evil things. She\u2019s there to self-preserve because \u201cenduring is the only way through,\u201d and there\u2019s seemingly no limit to the measures she\u2019ll take to make sure that happens.<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s a bright light at the end of the episode, just when you\u2019re starting to think Aunt Lydia might not have learned anything at all from June and the events of The Handmaid\u2019s Tale\u2018s final season.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter what happened to my girls at Jezebel\u2019s,\u201d she says\u2014referencing the brothel frequented by Commanders, and staffed by ex-Handmaids, many of whom were massacred\u2014\u201dafter Boston fell, after the sting of the noose around my neck began to wear off,\u201d she explains, she vowed to document everything.<\/p>\n

Aunts are allowed to read and write, she reminds us. That said, they\u2019re certainly not allowed to pen a record of all the crimes they witness in a secret diary. Lydia doesn\u2019t care; she knows the importance of keeping receipts.<\/p>\n

\"Auntvidala\"Aunt Vidala (Mabel Li) makes a match. \u00a9 Russ Martin\/Disney <\/p>\n

So there\u2019s that delightful detail to keep in mind as The Testaments continues: Aunt Lydia isn\u2019t as complicit as she appears, at least not anymore. And it\u2019s very clear at last where her loyalties lie, though she\u2019s still moving with caution: \u201cMay God protect these girls,\u201d she worries, \u201cBecause I\u2019m not sure I can.\u201d<\/p>\n

New episodes of The Testaments arrive Wednesdays on Hulu and Disney+.<\/p>\n

\n

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel<\/a>, Star Wars<\/a>, and Star Trek<\/a> releases, what\u2019s next for the DC Universe on film and TV<\/a>, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In The Handmaid\u2019s Tale, Aunt Lydia\u2014played to Emmy-winning perfection by Ann Dowd\u2014was one of the show\u2019s most complicated…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":761885,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[30],"tags":[313174,171,313175,217913,173,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-761884","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-ann-dowd","tag-entertainment","tag-the-handmaids-tale","tag-the-testaments","tag-tv","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116489329646769139","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/761884","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=761884"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/761884\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/761885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=761884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=761884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=761884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}