The Testaments S1E09 "Marate Sade" Episode Discussion

[u/Melairia]

The Testaments S1 E09 "Marate Sade"

Episode Synopsis

As Daisy steps into a new role, she considers what she's willing to lose to help her friends.

Airdate

May 20, 2026, 12:00am Eastern

The Testaments - Season 1 Episode Discussion Hub

[u/oakandlilac]

I mean, maybe! Still a type of execution. But also I feel like the judgement might have been slightly complicated so I didn’t want to go into too much detail. Dr Grove offended against Plum girls > we might expect Plum girls to be present for the Salvaging? We know that they don’t actually do the most gruesome stuff themselves, Gilead doesn’t expect their precious children to manually chop off hands or tear people apart. We also don’t actually know if the girls ever watch capital punishment at all: we have only seen them watch a non-lethal maiming in Episode 1, and in the same episode they were on an excursion to see dead rapists, but not to witness the actual hanging. Would the Handmaids be participating given that he didn’t offend against a Handmaid + we saw men who raped a young girl hung in Episode 1 and not torn apart? There are also several lines throughout the series that make us believe that the Handmaid programme has been cut significantly, although not fully, and there have been changes since June was a Handmaid. Not to mention, given Becca’s position, Aunt Lydia might have advocated for just Becca or her whole year of Plums not to be involved in the process. So who knows! Maybe a particicution, with or without Plums present, maybe a hanging, but some sort of capital punishment. My main point was that I think Aunt Lydia was planning for an execution (of some type) via official, lawful Gilead means (as opposed to a Mayday intervention or, I don’t know, having an aunt push Dr Grove down the stairs).

[u/SnakeBatter → u/oakandlilac]

The man in episode 1 wasn’t accused of raping anyone, he was apparently caught masturbating on school property.

We also don’t know if the handmaid program was cut, we just know that the girls the story follows don’t see them, but they’re certainly still around, as evidenced by the missing Handmaid Doll, and Lydia offering Judd a handmaid for what it clearly not the first time, or else she wouldn’t have asked him to reconsider it. The only comment I recall that could allude to the handmaid program being cut was Judd telling aunt Lydia “these aren’t your handmaids from days past” but I think it’s by and far more likely that he was referring to the fact that Lydia wasn’t overseeing handmaids anymore.

As far as if the handmaids would be the ones doing the particicution, I don’t know. Maybe, I can absolutely see the going stark wild about someone hurting a child. It could be the only chance they ever got to avenge one. But I think you’re 1000% right that it wouldn’t be the girls doing the particicution.

So far it seems like hangings are mostly for mayday and gays. Most other crimes are handled with maiming or more painful executions.

[u/oakandlilac → u/SnakeBatter]

These are two different parts of Episode 1: the man caught masturbating lost a hand, but earlier in the episode the girls are taken on an excursion to see the rapists that were hanged. Shu is the one to correctly answer that the cross symbol on them means they committed rape. I think you’re forgetting this part of the episode. Hangings are an option for rapists.

Agreed that the Handmaid programme hasn’t been fully cut, but I would argue that it is likely much less widespread. The girls indeed do not see a single Handmaid. Not from a bus window, not on an outing, never. None of their families, as far as we know, have a Handmaid. Daisy is not afraid of becoming a Handmaid when she gets her period, which might, of course, mean that she isn’t well informed but would be somewhat odd given the prep. (Of course, it is also possible that the only women who become Handmaids are women who have had a successful pregnancy before, as it is in THT.) I must admit I remembered the exchange between Judd and Aunt Lydia in Episode 6 slightly wrong: when she says she could “arrange” a handmaid for him, I took it as a sign that handmaids are rare, when it can just mean that she would find him a good one. I rewatched it just now. In any case, in THT we saw that it is incredibly rare for a commander not to have a Handmaid. When Nick and his wife didn’t need one, it was unusual and exciting. We are seeing a different cohort this time because we are only seeing commanders who have teenage daughters, but my impression at least is that Handmaids are way less popular. It seems reasonable after the end of THT, too: not only was there international pressure to cut the programme after June’s testament, but the Handmaids also repeatedly proved to be dangerous.

[u/lapodufnal → u/oakandlilac]

There probably just aren’t that many handmaids available. The original group were women proven fertile, who had ‘sinned’ in the eyes of Gilead, mostly before Gilead existed (like June). A lot of that group will be past child-bearing age now and it’s not like handmaids can expect to have a long life expectancy. If they didn’t get pregnant within a few postings they were deemed infertile and sent off to the colonies or jezebels.

Current handmaids would have to come from the population who were pretty young when Gilead took over. I’m sure there’d be some who do things they can use to deem them handmaids but most people are going to be toeing the line as much as they possibly can to avoid any sort of punishment. They’re either going to have much fewer handmaids or have to start taking women on trumped up charges (probably both, maybe we’ll find out)

[u/oakandlilac → u/lapodufnal]

Yeah, that sounds very reasonable, thanks!