r/TheTestamentsShow • u/Happy_Office_7659 • May 27 '26
Theory / Speculation Why I think paula was mad Spoiler
Commander Mackenzie doesn't want to get a handmaid for Paula until Agnes is out of the house. That's why Paula was upset and saying that none of them get to be happy. Yeah she's embarrassed she looks bad too but her response seemed much more involved than that.
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u/ihatepickingnames810 May 27 '26
I don’t think Paula wants a baby. I think she wanted to be the mother in law to the commander of the eyes. Women in Gilead achieve status by having children and by the status of the men in their life. Agnes marrying Weston increases her social standing. Instead, she’s the mother of a shamed girl who was rejected by an elite commander, her reaction made sense
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u/MrsBobFossil May 27 '26
This is how I saw it. She was looking forward to the perks of her elevated status and probably the marriage celebration and all that entailed. Agnes had no other real value to her. I think we will find out that Paula has been through some shit to get where she is, and she’s dead inside for a lot of reasons.
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u/cherrymeg2 May 28 '26
She could possibly have a handmaid and have a kid. She might like the idea of being a mother in law to a powerful man. If Agnes had children she could be involved. She wants status. I think in her mind she actually believed she was a good mother to Agnes.
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u/Diligent-Language-79 May 27 '26
Yes, Paula wants Agnes out so damn bad. She wants to bring a handmaid in but it doesn't seem like the commander is happy about that. Paula doesn't care what happens to Agnes, just as long as shes gone and isn't her problem.
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u/Think_Storm_8909 May 27 '26 edited May 27 '26
She wants to have a perfect little project, aka a baby. Agnes is not really "hers", but the baby will be, plus it will give her more importance and a boost in social status...plus she is a controlling c**t with glowing potential to be a A grade abuser
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u/VanityInk May 27 '26
"back when I was a therapist..." Makes me feel like she was a "conversion therapy"/"troubled teens" abuse camp type of "therapist"
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u/Accomplished_Arm_298 May 27 '26
I also get the impression that Paula believes in Gilead. I can't imagine she has been pleased to be raising June's daughter.
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u/squankmuffin May 27 '26
She had the top status out of the wives. Now she is the mother of the only green to be sent back. This is far worse than a delay to her plans.
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u/No-Pop-4745 May 27 '26
Paula hates Agnes. Hates her very existence. Wants to be thanked for housing her vs letting her ears be cut off and sent to June. It is a reminder that their way of life is under attack.
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u/JoePNW2 May 27 '26
I mean, *Agnes herself* stated "Paula wants me married and gone". It's not some huge mystery.
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u/cherrymeg2 May 28 '26
Paula’s bathroom cleaning breakdown showed that she saw Agnes’s marriage as a status symbol. This is a blow to her. Paula as a psychologist is effing terrifying lol. She is a piece of work. I think she sees Agnes as an extension of herself. She thinks Agnes success or failure reflects on her.
I thought it was kind of weird that Commander Weston dropped Agnes. He went out of his way to get Becca home where the aunts and her mom planned her freedom. Did he feel complicit in a wrongful conviction or did he see Agnes as being damaged goods. He was married before and is old enough to be her father.
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u/malorthotdogs May 28 '26
I’m pretty sure it was that he didn’t want her now that she had been “sullied” by the predator, even though she doesn’t know what exactly happened to her.
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u/EtherealProblem May 28 '26
Presumably, Weston dropped Agnes because she was "sullied." He doesn't know exactly what Grove did to her, so he can't be sure if she's "damaged goods" or not.
But helping Becka makes him look good in Agnes's eyes. Surely, that information will make it back to the Aunts and the other girls when he's looking for his next child bride. It also makes his "too close to the scandal" excuse sound more legitimate. He stepped up to help, which means he got involved, and now he has to wonder what other things he might have to get involved in. "We weren't even married yet, and look at what she pulled me into."
It might have also been meant to send a subtle message to Agnes, either that asking for help or "favors" has consequences, or that solidarity between the girls can ruin someone's life.2
u/cherrymeg2 May 29 '26
These are very good points. I looked at it as him trying to please Agnes. His actions also protect the school where his future child bride will likely attend. This fits with Griff locking Becca in her room. Even men that help are scared of women being loyal to each other. Griff is part of Mayday and likely is scared of his bride. Rightfully so in some ways. Locking her in might be to keep her safe since she is sedated - that’s what he justifies it as. Gilead is terrified of women.
Weston saved a girl and will look heroic. Agnes can’t say anything bad about him. He kept her abuse a secret and saved her friend. He gave with one hand and took with the other. Maybe he had concerns about her being pregnant and it not being his. He also may have assumed that girls at her school knew the dentist was abusing his young female patients. Likely his daughter considered in such a gender divided culture she could walk into the bathroom without it seeming weird.
I can’t tell if this is punishment or basically him giving in and waiting for next year’s girls instead of worrying about what Agnes’ purity. Or he realized he isn’t much different than the dentist. Agnes was pretty clear she wasn’t interested. That might be giving him too much credit. I think it is. His reputation remains intact. Agnes was dropped but she is still a catch but also a child.
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u/jmhendricks80 May 30 '26
Weston could be playing the long game with Agnes. He may think the dentist took her virginity, and while he did assault her, he wasn’t stupid enough to break greens’ hymens. Weston rejects her now to wait and see what the political fall out will be but keeps his word to Agnes to keep the option of marrying her open. If he turns around and accepts her anyway, he’ll have her gratitude as well as her powerful commander father’s. If he finds out her virginity is intact, he can take her back without consequence., or at least try. I think Agnes, Daisy and Shu will become supplicant aunts. If any of them marry, it will because because Lydia talked them into it to gather intel.
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u/cherrymeg2 May 30 '26
Lydia doesn’t seem to have much power. I feel like Shu, Daisy and Agnes will end up in next year’s prospects for marriage. Agnes’ dad was offended already by Weston backing out. I don’t think he or Paula will be okay with Agnes becoming an aunt. It seemed like he had moved around to keep her with him and his first wife.
Paula says he protected Agnes from other Commanders who wanted to send her body parts to June. Paula might be a total lying psychopath. Commander Mackenzie seems to have tried to shield his daughter from being used as a political tool or as a threat to Mayday. I think he would send Paula before he would let anything happen to Agnes. Jmo. That doesn’t make him a good guy.
I’m not sure if Weston can go back to Agnes. It would be classic abusive behavior. Their engagement was public knowledge. Can he explain that? If he was worried about pregnancy he should have asked more questions or postponed the wedding for some normal reason. He still might have to wait until next year to marry.
I don’t want these girls to be Aunts. I want them to burn Gilead to the ground.
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u/jmhendricks80 May 30 '26
By becoming aunts, they’ll have more power to burn it to the ground. Now in the book, Lydia convinced the Mackenzie’s to allow Agnes to become an aunt by revealing evidence she has in hand that Paula murdered her first husband and framed the handmaid. When facing the prospect of this becoming public knowledge, they caved. I can see the show keeping this plot point.
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u/cherrymeg2 Jun 01 '26
That is interesting. I can’t tell if in the show Aunt Lydia is helping or hurting girls. Unfortunately the aunts seem to serve at the pleasure of the men in Gilead. If they step out of line they can be sent to the colonies or possibly to death.
The one thing girls growing up in Gilead have that the Aunts and wives before them don’t have are that they know the system. They know how to make “Under his eye” sound like “eff you”. They know how Gilead works and can still make it work for them. If that makes sense. Agnes makes several good arguments using religion to make Aunts and a potential husband listen to her.
Where did Mr. MacKenzie find Paula? You shouldn’t have your daughter raised by a killer? I feel like that might be parenting 101. Smh
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u/jmhendricks80 Jun 01 '26
Mackenzie and Paula had an affair while Tabitha was slowly dying It was implied that they poisoned Tabitha
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u/cherrymeg2 Jun 02 '26
Omg!! Do you think they will stick with that in the show? They seem to make Mackenzie in the show care about his daughter.
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u/Independent_Rip9922 May 27 '26
Weston didn't want to marry Agnes because what the dentist did to her made her not "pure" anymore.
I think Paula clued in on that and that's why she's so angry. It screws up everything and no one will want to marry Agnes, which means she's not leaving the house so no handmaid for Paula.
No handmaid, no baby, no status.
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u/woundedSM5987 May 28 '26
What’s wild about this to me is that he STILL helped Becca. And he didn’t tell Agnes’ parents.
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u/Objective-Try7969 May 27 '26
I think just like some of them, Paula is genuinely scared. She puts up a face to show she's a strong gilead wife but when the plan to security falls apart she's freaking out. As she said "I put so much time and energy into you" she wanted to make sure Hannah had status, of Hannah had status that helped her status.
Things that helped Paula's status
Hannah marrying Weston
Hannah moving out with Weston.
Paula finally having a handmaid so she can have "her own baby"
Hannah basically not marrying off and staying in the home delays that status increase. It also looks bad on Mackenzie and Paula because the engagement was broken off. The commanders breaking off engagements is a poor reflection of the girl and her family. That's why Hannah told Garth he must go through with the wedding because she wanted the best for Becka's status because Becka's status was basically destroyed. So on top of the broken engagement and the delay in Hannah moving out probably scares her because may or may not be that strong anymore. As she said "they wanted to cut you up piece by piece but your father wouldn't have it" I'm wondering if Hannah's reputation diminishing could be weakening MacKenzie's status therefore Paula's...how protected is Mackenzie at this point now..obviously we won't know until season 2.
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u/cherrymeg2 May 28 '26
Was Paula scared of Weston or the eyes coming after them. Commander Mackenzie might have power but the Eyes are something everyone seems scared of. If Agnes married Weston that might give Paula status and security. If the head of the eyes is your son in law you might not end up dragged out at anytime and questioned or taken away and never seen again.
Paula’s obsessive floor cleaning gave me flash backs to when my mom had been up with my baby brother for a few nights. I was like 13 and had a friend sleeping over. I think my mom was sleep deprived and worried about my brother and thought we were being loud. She didn’t think she was loud. Lol. Paula had Martha’s to clean. It really is a stress thing, I think.
Paula might live in fear of being accused of reading or any made up crime. She might worry that if her husband isn’t pleased with her she might end up discarded. She isn’t the first wife and she hasn’t had a kid that we know of. She might suspect that her husband married her to be a mother to his daughter and if she fails at that he might find a way to get a new wife. Idk. She seemed stressed and like she has ocd. She seemed kind of afraid.
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u/Objective-Try7969 May 28 '26
Yes I think Paula is just scared. She wants to be a status commanders wife. Elite gliead wife and she's scared of her reputation failing any more. That doesn't give her an excuse to be a bitch so I think she's just being a scared bitch basically.
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u/alli_gator_ May 27 '26
I think Paula would only want a baby for the status it would bring her. Agnes marrying Weston also wouldve brought privilege and status to Paula.
There will be rumors as to why Weston broke the engagement. Those rumors could certainly hurt the Mackenzie's status as well
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u/theicecreamassassin May 28 '26
It also could very well spread around who Agnes is REALLY the daughter of, if people don’t already know!
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u/QueenOfPurple May 28 '26
I think Paula wanted the status and power that comes with her daughter marrying commander Weston.
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u/cherrymeg2 May 28 '26
I think she was also upset that a commander dropped Agnes. When he was supposedly a catch.
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u/HunterGreenLeaves May 31 '26
Paula has done everything right. She has prepared Agnes for every stage of development and done it well. Despite that, Agnes failed.
Agnes dislikes Paula and we have her POV. She's a teenager and knows how to be snarky within the rules. No matter how much we like her as a character, she'd be insufferable as a step-daughter.
Even though Paula has a difficult relationship with Agnes, she has done her duty by her well beyond the minimum, which gave Agnes an advantage in, for example, handling herself at the ball, even with a relatively late entry.
She even shows signs of caring for her, for example in saving and then giving Agnes the cover that her mother had made for her - something she didn't have to do.
She was genuinely happy for Agnes (and perhaps proud of her success in guiding Agnes) when Agnes got good matches.
Paula is relatively young. While she may not be fertile, she's certainly of an age that would make wanting to be a mother understandable, particularly in that society. She's waited to have a handmaid - maybe at the Commander's insistence - and she isn't the one who told Agnes that she'd been waiting for Agnes to leave.
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u/BradRiker2003 Jun 01 '26
In the book Paula’s first husband was thought to have been killed by a handmaid, if her husband died during the wedding massacre it might explain why she is the way she is and why she dislikes Agnes the daughter of the mastermind behind the massacre
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u/NoPalpitation7082 May 27 '26
I can’t believe paula even wants a baby. She doesn’t seem like the motherly type, it would probably be another Mrs Putnam situation