In Gilead, “commitment” is a word that carries extra significance, and the events of episode seven have brought it into even sharper focus.
“Commitment” fills in more of the blanks for Daisy (Lucy Holliday) and her emotionally difficult journey to becoming a mayday operative. As June (Elisabeth Moss) has previously revealed, Gilead ordered the murder of Daisy’s adoptive parents and would love to reclaim the teen who escaped its borders as a young child.
During the tumultuous days when Daisy learns this information, she is brought to a safe house: the home of Rita (Amanda Brugel). in the first season of maid storyWe meet Rita as “Martha” – the head cook and housekeeper – at the home of Commander Fred Waterford (Joseph Fiennes) and his wife, Serena Joy (Yvonne Strahovski), where June is serving as a maid.
We learn a little about his past. Rita had a teenage son who was killed in the Gilead coup. He has a sister, who appeared in the final season of maid story. Although she started out as a background presence, offering quiet words of support to Jun, she eventually emerged as a vital ally to the resistance.
He is a key operator in the season three program “Angels Flight”, in which dozens of Gilead children were evacuated to safety in Canada. This is when Rita herself leaves Gilead.
In season six, Rita arrives in “New Bethlehem”, a Serena Joy-backed settlement designed to be a less brutal version of Gilead. Her motivation is to help her sister escape, but that plan fails, and Rita uses her position to help Mayday.
When she is hired to make the cake for Serena Joy’s second wedding, Rita laces it with a strong sedative. Anyone who eats a piece dies, allowing May Day to kill dozens of powerful wedding guests. Then, Rita steps in to save June from some execution before heading back to Canada with the others. maid’s Letter.
Which leads us to “Commitment” and Rita’s surprise appearance Testament. Rita is still a mayday agent, doing what she can from Canada. maid story The audience has all these references to that, but of course, Daisy has No Clues about what Rita has endured so far.
As “Commitment” begins, we return to Daisy, still at the diner where June told her to wait at the end of episode three. After several hours, she realizes the waitress is her Mayday contact. They go to Rita’s house.
What follows is some relevant current Gilead business. Agnes (Chase Infinity) learns who her future husbands are, including Commander Westin (Reed Diamond). He’s not just too big—but too much No The Guardian she has a crush on, Garth (Brad Alexander) – He is the head of Gilead’s secret police, the Eyes. Cut to Westin and the Eyes, Aunt Lydia breaking into the school, intent on finding the Mayday Mole, who she suspects is located there.
Back in the day, in Rita’s Toronto apartment, the former Martha was in business first. She has a friend at immigration who is getting Daisy a new passport; Daisy needs to leave Canada as soon as possible. Daisy doesn’t think much of the plan that’s been set before her: take a cargo plane to Colombia and start a new life in South American exile.
Rita agrees that it is unfair that Daisy has to go through this but says that her options are limited. Rita also has some details to share about Daisy’s past: her birth parents kicked her out of Gilead because they wanted her to have a better life. Unfortunately, they—like his adoptive parents in Toronto—are no longer alive.
There’s a lot involved. “Fuck you, Gilead,” Daisy says, and Rita tells her, “I’m trying my best.”
In the next scene, the new passport arrives, but Daisy declares that she is not going to run away. She has nothing left to lose (except her life, as Rita reminds her), and she wants to be a part of Mayday and help fight back.
Rita doesn’t go for it at first; After all, she says, there is a difference between the two. Feeling brave and indeed Creature Brave. But she sees Daisy’s determination and thinks there might be a way. Apparently, June has a plan for everything, including smuggling a teenage girl into Gilead as an undercover operative. This is an extremely dangerous undertaking; We see from the show’s current timeline that anyone thinking about working with Mayday could be subjected to immediate public execution.
And we learn how extensive the process of getting into Gilead really is, especially if you want to blend into its strict society. Daisy gets a tattoo to help strengthen her cover story (later, as Pearl Girl, she is shown having it removed), and Rita arranges for a fake police record to make things even more convincing. She also gives some very important advice.
“You protect yourself by following their rules. And don’t trust anyone except your handler,” she says. No matter how lonely Daisy is in Gilead, Rita tells her, she can’t afford to make any friends. When Daisy jokes about how she wouldn’t want to be friends with the girls in Gilead, seeing as how they think “the Earth is flat and can’t even multiply,” Rita becomes extremely serious.
“Never underestimate them. Sometimes. They’ve spent their lives being cautious in a way you never have. So if you go there thinking that you are smarter than them, you will die. do you understand me?”
Oh, we understand. We see Rita interrogating Daisy in detail about her fake story, and “Commitment” shows us how important this is when we hear Westin, who is interrogating all the Pearl Girls, asking Daisy where she came from. Somehow, she maintains her composure, but in the past we’ve seen that she’s still not taking things seriously, joking that her Gilead antics would make a great essay for future college applications.
Rita – who sternly reminds Daisy that her main purpose is to be a “sponge” that soaks up information – tells Daisy that June has a daughter at Gilead who is around Daisy’s age. (Testament Still acting like there’s some big secret to her identity about to be revealed, so we won’t spoil it here, but… you know who it is, right?)
Rita is also giving Daisy the education of all the top commanders. There is a document full of photos and personal details. “Before Gilead, this guy worked in crypto, and now he’s a commander,” Daisy teases about one person in particular. “Oh, and he served some restraining orders for domestic violence.” Then we see who it is: our friend Commander Westin.
After separating from Rita, Daisy moves on to the next phase of her plan. She pretends to be a runaway, wandering the city streets until she attracts the attention of the Pearl Girl Recruitment Squad. The trick works perfectly.
However, a problem begins to emerge: once in Gilead, will Daisy be able to heed Rita’s warning about not trusting anyone or making any friends? Seeing Daisy’s distress after being interrogated by Westin, Agnes invites her over, and the girls are actually on the verge of hooking up. Then Daisy makes a mistake when they start talking about dating and romance. Sure, the heartbreak she experienced in her old life is sad, but it’s better than what’s on offer in Gilead.
“Your value has already been determined for you,” she tells Agnes. “You don’t even need a personality.” This is sad, not least because – after the initial shock of hearing such a harsh comment – Agnes realizes that Daisy is probably right. The moment of shared closeness, which both girls desperately need, passes quickly.
We then get a montage of the girls meeting their suitors. Agnes is clearly still thinking about what Daisy said, in addition to mentioning her forbidden feelings for Garth. We learn that Westin’s first wife died in childbirth, and he was more grief-stricken by the loss of his child than his spouse. It’s unclear whether this is the same woman involved in the domestic violence allegations that Daisy saw in her file. Either way, it doesn’t bode well for Agnes’s future.
The final scenes of “Commitment” see Daisy recalling her journey across the border. Pearl Girl’s recruiters release her and go back to the sinful streets of Toronto to continue their mission. There, Daisy meets Garth – who we already knew as her May Day contact – and thus begins her secret journey.
Will she follow Rita’s advice? It’s too early to tell, but it’s beginning to feel like it’s no longer okay for Daisy to just be a “sponge” gathering information. It’s very passive for how angry she is – and now that she’s fully involved in Gilead and has seen firsthand how things work here, she’s ready to take matters into her own hands.
“There comes a time when we have to act,” she says in voiceover. “You have to choose your own destiny. We were teenage girls, so fuck off. That time was now.”
new episodes of Testament Arrives Wednesdays on Hulu and Disney+.
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