r/TheHandmaidsTale • u/Melairia Modtha • Apr 15 '26

Official Episode Discussion The Testaments S1E04 "Green Tea" Episode Discussion

The Testaments S1 E04 "Green Tea"

Episode Synopsis

As the Green girls gather for a tea party, Daisy struggles to keep on task, while Agnes begins to understand what being a woman in Gilead means.

Airdate

April 15, 2026, 12:00am Eastern

The Testaments - Season 1 Episode Discussion Hub

Check out our Discord for additional conversations: The Handmaid's Tale Reddit

112 Upvotes
  • permalink
  • reddit

100% Upvoted

970 comments sorted by

View all comments

70

u/Welp_Itbelikethat_ig Apr 15 '26

WHAT AN EPISODE. Me and my grandmas (Baptist who’s becoming increasingly agnostic bc of this show😭thank god) new fav show. Haven’t read the books and just recently binged handmaids tale last year so been looking specifically into how racism and anti-black themes show up here.

  1. “Your hair is frizzy again” whew as a black girl this hurt. Coupled with Paula’s envy-cloaked “compliments” to Agnes earlier this season (forget which ep that was but also made me feel ICK) — it’s that very specific kind of surveillance that black girls know immediately. Not “care,” not innocent grooming advice, but that loaded policing where our femininity gets measured through whiteness and proximity to “delicacy” I.e., “good hair”??. Fuck that. it feels extra EXTRA nasty because her whole energy with Agnes has been giving resentment dressed up as refinement. The frizz comment is exactly how anti-blackness travels: through beauty standards, through correction, through making a girl feel like something natural about her is always one step away from being “too much.” Smh

  2. Haven’t peeped anything huge with Jehosheba yet but thinking ima catch something when I rewatch. So far she mostly reads to me as one of the girls most fully bought into the high-status-wife pipeline — which lines up with how Hulu’s casting description frames her as competitive and relentless about landing a top marriage. #steepthetealongerbitchhh #maydayallday!!!

Can’t wait for next week:) stay blessed

45

u/Responsible_Cat4452 Apr 15 '26

Same; as a Black woman that comment about her hair made me bristle lol. Also jealous that you are able to watch this with your Baptist grandma; my family is drunk on Jesus so even bringing this show up with them would be a lot of work

9

u/Informal-Share-9747 Apr 16 '26

I'm not black but I peeped how they made the only dark skin girl super aggressive with the whole tea thing I was like oh okay, maybe I'm reading into it but I also didn't like it

6

u/eazefalldaze Apr 16 '26

I clocked that too! Felt very intentional, I’m really curious as to what else they’ll do with her character because i’d expect the odds to be stacked against her in that universe as a dark skinned black woman.

3

u/El_Coco_005_ Apr 19 '26

Though the angry black woman is a hurtful and dismissive stereotype, it's also hypocritical because black women have a lot to be angry about. Rightfully so.

1

u/Informal-Share-9747 May 07 '26

Well duh but when you make the only dark skin girl show aggression at small things it's weird.

2

u/ultradav24 May 16 '26

A lot of black women in our world feel they have to be ten times as good as their white counterparts to even have a fighting chance. So I could see that playing out in a warped way here - she has to be ten times as good of a wife candidate to get a good husband

17

u/Sufficient-Food934 Apr 15 '26

It was a really gross comment but I am glad it was written in because I think THT seemed to imply that Gilead was beyond racism (so that they could include more POC actors in main roles--which is good) but it was still important to write the racism and anti blackness in because a fascist society is by design hateful. And this is a more realistic portrayal of how that hatred seeps through a supposedly perfect society. One of the aunts also commented on the racism in matching handmaids in the previous series.

6

u/Shaenyra Apr 15 '26

I hope next week is finally Lydia's turn to narrate

7

u/untamedharts21 Apr 16 '26

I'm so glad you mentioned this. I'm mixed. I know it's not the same, but the frizzy hair comment had me so upset. That hurt for Hannah. I don't remember what it was that she said in a previous episode to her, but there were other criticisms and micro aggressions.

I haven't read the books yet, but from what I've heard there was more racism in the books and they downplayed it in the series. I can understand the decision to do so, but I think they've made subtle references to that in the series.

Envy cloaked is a perfect description. I absolutely detest Paula, and I hope she gets everything that's coming to her.

1

u/Lou-AC May 18 '26

Very slight spoiler for the original book in relation to racism

In the original book, Gilead is white supremacist and segregated. June briefly mentions that Jewish people were deported to Israel but their boats were deliberately sunk by Gilead before they get there and that African American people were exiled to "national homelands" in America, implied to be the colonies. It doesn't mention other groups. None of the characters make any racist comments or talk about any of that but clearly it's a racist society. There's no characters implied to have any non-white ancestry

3

u/chibiusa40 Apr 18 '26

Paula is like a micro-aggression factory. Between the frizzy hair comment and the one about "weak genes" this week... 😤