The Testaments' [Spoiler] Is Secretly Working Against Gilead! Read Episode 6 Recap

How satisfying it is when a tool of the oppression turns on the oppressor. 

"The Testaments" Episode 6 reveals that one of "The Handmaids Tale"verse's most complicated characters isn't quite as true believer in Gilead as she might have appeared — OK, or actually been — in the past. And while this isn't news to anyone who watched Ann Dowd's character arc over the course of the original series, it's still incredibly satisfying to watch — and hear! — Aunt Lydia tell us exactly how she's helping to topple the patriarchy, page by page. 

And if you're tickled by the fact that Lydia is literally taking a page from June Osborne's book in how she goes about nolite te bastardes carborundorum-ing, I'm right there with you. Blessed be the spoilt fruit!

We also get another peek at Lydia's pre-Gilead life, including a harrowing scene that sets up exactly how she and Aunt Vidala knew each other in the beforetimes. Read on for the highlights of "Stadium."

Aunt Lydia's voiceover guides us through the episode, which takes place on the day that the aunts decide "contenders" for the next round of marriages. The process involves narrowing the field down to two or three suitors for each Plum. House visits follow, then weddings, "then prison for the rest of our lives," an always-upbeat Becka intones as the girls discuss the proceedings.

But before we can get to that, we need to get through a flashback to Lydia's life before Gilead took over. We saw some of her backstory in "The Handmaid's Tale," so we knew that she was a teacher. She's at the school when class is cancelled for the fourth time, thanks to the new world order coming to power, but the change is mostly just a source of irritation... until armed men arrive at the school and point-blank kill the male administrator who tries to stop them from taking away the female employees.

Lydia and her female co-workers are brought to a tennis stadium, along with hundreds (thousands?) of other women. "It quickly became clear there had been a coup," Lydia says. While most of the detainees are made to wait in the stands and watch the proceedings, others are blindfolded, bound, and marched onto the court, where they are declared "sinners" and shot in the head.

An important note: Aunt Vidala was one of Lydia's fellow teachers, and they both can't believe what they're seeing as they witness the horrors unfold.

Days pass. The women are fed water and slices of white bread, and that's it. Some are dragged away by armed men; when Lydia wakes one morning, slumped in her hard plastic seat, Vidala is no longer next to her. Lydia is later grabbed and taken inside the stadium, marched past the piles of personal belongings that have been taken away from the captive (or killed) females. She's brought before Commander Judd, who is in charge of "the women's sphere" and will determine where the survivors will be placed.

Commander Judd reads from a file on Lydia: She's 58, never married, and she had an abortion at one point in her life. Thanks to a new, retroactive (and heinous) law, that choice is now punishable by death. We know Lydia to be many things, but stupid is not one of them: She quickly realizes what she must do to survive, and she does it. She kisses up to Judd, complimenting his authority and suggesting that "surely, you have better things to do than concern yourself with the petty details of all of this." She plants the idea of his delegating the decision-making to someone less important.

He seems to like the idea: She's led to a locker room, where she's given new clothes, soup, and a roll. But her test is not over: After she changes, Judd says that if she's going to join their side, she's got to prove it. So he hands her a gun and demands that she choose: Is she with them, or against them?

As Lydia walks out on the court to find another line of blindfolded, sobbing women, she prays desperately for help. Then the armed men (OF COURSE) plot her in front of Vidala, who is unblindfolded and instantly begs for Lydia not to kill her. Lydia pulls the trigger and braces for the inevitable... but her gun has no bullets in it. Gilead's cruel final exam saved Vidala's life, but destroyed both of the women, psychologically and emotionally. Yeah, that tracks.

After, Lydia is rewarded: Judd has her choose the color of the aunts' uniforms. She picks the slightly rough, brown material we'll come to associate with the women who help subjugate their fellow women.

Let's leave Lydia there — don't worry, she's got a humdinger of an episode-closer that I'll address in a moment — to catch up with what's going on with the girls this week. Vidala certifies that Hulda did, indeed, reach menarche. In typical Gilead fashion, there's a humiliating special seat made just for the occasion. No sooner is Hulda's first period announced to the Plums (most, if not all, of whom already know, I'd assume) than Aunt Vidala decides that Hulda's first job as an adult will be to choose what happens to a girl who uses violence against another.

Vidala is talking about Shunammite, who you'll recall slapped Jehoseheba last episode when she said that Becka was going to get sent to the Colonies. So even though Hulda is vehemently against her good friend being bound and whipped for her transgression, Vidala makes her hold Shu's arms down while Shu is punished. It's terrible for everyone involved.

At lunch later, Shu — whose hands are bandaged — tells her friends that she heard Penny went into labor. But the blessed event is happening too soon in the pregnancy, which casts a(nother) pall over the day. Elsewhere in the school, Commander Judd shows up to let the aunts know that a few Commanders need to be taken out of the marital running, because they've been sent to the front. He's distracted, though, due to Penny's troubling labor. How Vidala and Lydia respond to his turmoil is telling: Vidala sucks up to him, but Lydia is a pro who reaffirms his superiority while giving the sense that everything will be OK.

By the end of the hour, Penny has miscarried. Aunt Lydia consoles Commander Judd, asking if he wants a handmaid. "That's not your domain anymore," he points out, but she reassures him that he can still count on her. Grateful, he says no to the handmaid — for now — and tells her that her price is "above rubies."

This is also important, so let's note it here: Agnes confides in Becka, saying that she's in love with Garth. And then Agnes finds Aunt Lydia and implores her to make Garth eligible for a marriage match that season.

That evening, all of the matches are made, and the aunts deliver the news to the families. When Lydia is alone in her office, she voiceovers that she made a promise to teach the girls to be women of God. BUT... "I also made another promise," she says. "After what happened to my girls at Jezebel's, after Boston fell, after the sting of the noose around my neck began to wear off, I vowed to document everything and everyone." To that end, she's been keeping a secret journal that she locks away in a hiding place behind a tapestry in her office.

She reminds us that Aunts are the only women in Gilead who are allowed to write. "But what was I writing? Recording the crimes of weak men and far too many women? That was not allowed," she says wryly, as we watch her do just that. "That was not allowed. That could bring down these men, chosen by God to lead us."

Later, she hopes that God will protect the girls within her care, "because I'm not sure I can."

Now it's your turn. Are you surprised to learn that Aunt Lydia is working against Gilead? Drop your thoughts in the comments!