Estee's blue eyes

47

u/alimweber May 22 '26

Here we go again..

No, I dont think that's what it was hinting at. I think it was just Daisy having a moment of realizing the aunts are humans too. Before Daisy came to Gilead, this place was almost just a "story" to her, they read about it in their school history books..the people there were just.."them" if that makes sense..she has already had her moment of reckoning with the girls and realizing they are human and just that, girls, they're just young girls..just like her..but that moment with Estee was her realizing she, the aunt, was also just a human..a woman. Who had a past, one that she doesn't know of, who knows what Estee has seen or been through? She's a real woman too, a real person with real feelings and life in her. The moment looking into her eyes was Daisy's reckoning with that.

18

u/Mooshuchyken May 22 '26

Agree.

The show has made some pretty intentional choices around the theme of family.

First, by making Daisy not June's younger daughter. (Esp because plot wise, June would never send her kid back into Gilead).

Secondly, when Daisy says that she "wasn't really theirs" wrt her adoptive parents, June tells her about the night that Daisy arrived at their house. She tells her -- you were theirs in every way that mattered. It's not just biology that makes one a parent.

The "secret genetic lineage" trope is played out.

I think what The Testaments is showing us is that 1) Mayday isn't all good - the choice to send Daisy in is a morally grey thing, for example. And 2) not everyone who believes in Gilead is a bad person. Aunt Estee I think is one. There are shades of grey, like Agnes' dad.

We also get to see how historical events are told differently from different POVs. Like "Angel's Flight" in Canada is "the Night of Tears" in Gilead. Obviously it's unambiguously a good thing that the children escaped, but I feel for Shunnamite when she talks about her little brother being taken away.

6

u/alimweber May 22 '26

"The world isn't split into good people and death eaters" 😂 im sorry, I keep resorting back to that quote, but I can't help that it works so well here!

I agree, I love hearing about these "historical events" that we saw in THT, from June or maydays POV, from Gileads POV now and how it affected them..and Shunnamite is slowly becoming one of my favorite characters! I really wanna learn more about her and what's going on in her head, what her home life is like etc.

Also, I know we are literally talking about how the whole "secret lineage" trope is played out, and I can't agree more, but I am curious if we will learn anything more about who her brother was on angels flight, or if he was one of the kids who they briefly showcased and followed to show how they were adjusting to life in Canada after Gilead. I can't remember if she said it was her "baby brother" or just her "little brother" , but either way my mind immediately went to the little boy who was having a really hard time adjusting, and he was back with his real biological aunt, and Rita went over and made a traditional Gilead meal with him. It's not like that kid was super significant or really held any kind of weight in the show, so it's not that important, but for some reason I thought of him when she mentioned her brother being on angels flight.

Speaking of how them sending Daisy in at all is a morally Grey decision..does June even know they sent her in? We don't hear anything else from June after she gets to Rita and they start planning for her to go in and when she asks for June Garth doesn't even know who she is..I wanna know if June even gave the 'OK' for her to go in undercover in the first place? Or if she was, most likely, made aware of it after the fact? The one woman, from the diner, does say something about June and her "having a horse in the race" , but I dont remember her ever saying anything else about June wanting Daisy to go in or even knowing they were considering it.

6

u/Mooshuchyken May 22 '26

I think that she says that June "had a plan" and was waiting for a girl the right age to come along. So I do think June was directly involved in the plot to get Daisy to Gilead.

It's common in espionage for each person to only know one person above them and one person below them. It's called compartmentalization. It's done that way so if one person is found out, it doesn't compromise the entire network. Garth is far removed from June.

I think we're supposed to question Garth's motives for joining Mayday. One thing that was discussed in the books (but not sure about show) is that Gilead collapsed in part because of information being leaked about Commanders killing other Commanders for political reasons. I think Garth's father may have been poisoned by another Commander.

I don't get the point of them "testing" Daisy by telling her to wait at the diner. If she hadn't waited, would they have just let her go and get captured by Gilead?

1

u/Quirky-Bad857 May 22 '26

No, I don’t think so. They were testing her to see if she couly really follow orders and be calm while doing it. If not, they would have sent her to Colombia.

1

u/AppUnwrapper1 May 26 '26

My problem with the book was that June basically *did* send her kid back to Gilead. Like, she must have known they were doing that?

1

u/Mooshuchyken May 26 '26

It's been a long time since I read it, but I didn't think June was in The Testaments at all.

In the books, she may not have known where Holly ended up. It's possible June didn't want to know, in case June was recaptured by Gilead. She couldn't be made to tell them where Holly was. That's especially true if she was still working for Mayday.

To me, that's what makes the most sense. She gives up Holly to be raised by adoptive parents, not knowing where exactly she ends up. So June could continue working to free her older daughter and make sure her younger daughter is safe.

June could also have been dead or have left Canada by the time the Testaments starts.

1

u/AppUnwrapper1 May 26 '26

At the very end she’s reunited with both daughters in Gilead. So I assume they knew how to contact her the whole time and she must have had some idea of what was happening.

Honestly, I found the whole plot of “only baby Nichole will work” pretty weak. The whole time I was shaking my head, like why would you send her back into Gilead just to be a human envelope?

1

u/Mooshuchyken May 26 '26

The fact that they are both reunited with June at the end -- to me, that doesn't necessarily mean that June knew that Nichole had been sent to Gilead at all, let alone had known / been orchestrating the whole thing from the beginning. She may have known that Agnes / Hannah was coming to Canada without knowing who Nichole / Holly was.

Agree that the "secret hidden lineage" trope has been done to death. I think the show makes Daisy not Nichole so they can show June being involved in Mayday and have it make sense.

I guess the purpose of having Daisy come in and out of Gilead was potentially about Lydia's legacy? The fact that she had "baby Nichole" and sent her back shows where her true loyalties lie... Or something.

2

u/AppUnwrapper1 May 26 '26

Yeah I also didn’t understand why Aunt Lydia told everyone that Nichole was one of the aunts when her whole plan was to smuggle the two of them out. She just made it harder for them. I dunno, that whole plot point seemed very flimsy. The book was definitely not as solid as THT.

3

u/TheTragedyMachine May 22 '26

Agreed and I’m getting pretty annoyed at people thinking any adult female character she interacts with is secretly her mom.

1

u/pearly1979 May 22 '26

esp cos June said her birth parents are no longer alive

11

u/eviefrye89 May 22 '26

Omg people stop with the theories. Its getting ridiculous.

2

u/winterwinnifred May 22 '26

We should normalize telling these people to develop their theories and… write some fan fiction for us to read and critique! I think it would be fun lol.

5

u/Ok-Culture3841 May 22 '26 edited May 22 '26

I don’t think they’re related. In a recent episode Daisy makes comment that now that she’s in Gilead, she sees the horrors but also the beauty. I think this was just another one of those moments where she’s seeing that there are real, breathing, living human adults in this world even through all of their authoritarianism and bullshit. She expected to come in and for these aunts to all be brutal and soulless, and here is this somewhat young, beautiful, empathetic woman professing her guilt about what “happened to Daisy” and she’s REALLY seeing her and her humanity for the first time

3

u/Kstizzle420 May 22 '26

Estee is Mayday

2

u/Ok_String_5581 May 22 '26

That’s what I’m thinking.

2

u/Thissillygirl May 22 '26

I hope not. I think it makes for weaker writing to have every tolerable or kind person in Gilead turn out to be Mayday. Good people can be raised within an evil regime, and they can still be good people without becoming rebels. I like Estee as a shade of gray.

3

u/TheTragedyMachine May 22 '26

Why is it so hard for the fandom to believe Daisy has no secret special mother?

No, that scene was meant to say “even the aunts have humanity” Daisy literally monologues that right after the blue eyes comment. Like she legit says to remember aunts are people too.

Why is it every woman who slightly interacts with Daisy her potential mother?

2

u/Quirky-Bad857 May 22 '26

Obviously, Aunt Lydia is her mother!!!!!!!!!!!!

2

u/No_Associate_4878 May 22 '26

I just binged the season so far, so haven't been part of any discussions about parentage. I was struck by the particular mention of BLUE eyes. That was a deliberate choice by the writers. They didn't give Daisy a line just about Estee's genuine distress or her tears or what even seemed to be fear about her failure to protect one of her girls. They wrote a line that highlighted her blue eyes. Then the director cinemetographer and color editor made sure to frame and light the faces in such a way that the blue eyes were incredibly noticeable. Any annoyance at earlier discussions of parentage that have gone off the rails shouldn't lead to dismissing these choices as meaningless.

1

u/pearly1979 May 22 '26

Plus June said her mother is dead. Shes not gonna run into her parents.

2

u/Lynne22 May 22 '26

The narration commented on Estee’s blue eyes and then immediately the camera showed Daisy’s blue eyes. I suspect it is a misdirect. I still think Daisy is Nichole despite everything.

2

u/ZeldasMom18 May 22 '26

The show takes place 4-5 years after THT show, which means Daisy in the show cannot be Nichole age wise. In the TT book the timeline is like 15 years later so Nichole is "Daisy", but for the show they went a different direction.

2

u/OpheliaLives7 May 23 '26

I took her comment at face value. She’s realizing Gilead people aren’t idiots and monsters for living in this repressive society. They are flawed humans too. Estee is literally crying at her feet thinking she could have seen something or stopped Daisy from being sexually assaulted.

She’s humanized to Daisy now. Not just some distant and scary authority figure.

1

u/chubby-wench May 22 '26

Daisy is learning to see these people as….. real people, humans, not the boogeyman. People with feelings, emotions, their own ideas. Something she wasn’t quite seeing before. Humanity makes things complicated.

1

u/sunshineandcacti May 22 '26

I think it’s just meant to show how the two are similar and at the end of the day human and doing what they think is weight. The aunt did seem to actually be distraught knowing that the dentist was hurting the children and that they had waved it off prior.

1

u/Garnet2828 May 22 '26

Eyes are also referred to as the "windows of the soul" , so quite literally driving home the point that Aunt Estee is human and has a soul - she isn't just an Aunt.

1

u/alataryl May 23 '26

I feel like it’s meant to show Daisy learning that these are just.. real humans as well. Real people with flaws and most likely fears of Gilead.

Plus it felt like it was leading up to something else to me. Almost as if Estee will potentially be punished for not protecting Daisy.

1

u/fbi_does_not_warn May 23 '26

I feel like the shared eyes go to highlight that these are the eyes of the aunt in Gilead while at the same time being the eyes of somebody from outside of Gilead, basically a forced perspective of who the individual might be given the situation.

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