That Kiss Between Agnes and Becka in ‘The Testaments’ Finale Is More Complicated Than It Looks

The season finale of ‘The Testaments’ delivered a wave of devastating moments, but none sparked more conversation than a quiet, stolen kiss between best friends Agnes and Becka just moments before Becka walked down the aisle. For viewers who had been following the build-up all season, the moment felt both inevitable and heartbreaking, arriving at the worst possible time in the worst possible place.

‘The Testaments’ is set five years after the events of ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ and follows privileged girls in Gilead on the cusp of adulthood, trained by Aunt Lydia at an elite preparatory school where obedience is instilled and marriage is the ultimate destination. Within that suffocating framework, the bond between Agnes and Becka has quietly carried the emotional weight of the entire season, and the finale brought it crashing to the surface.

Becka’s Feelings for Agnes Had Been Building Since Episode One

In episode five of ‘The Testaments,’ after a Commander plies her with drinks at a debutante-style ball, a drunk Becka makes a devastating confession to Daisy, revealing that she is in love with her best friend Agnes, a revelation that had been implied since the very first episode. It was a rare moment of emotional honesty in a world that punishes that kind of truth most severely.

Being queer, or as Gilead calls it a “gender traitor,” is cause for death in this authoritarian regime, making Becka’s admission to Daisy an enormous risk.

The fact that Daisy, a spy from Canada with no real allegiance to Gilead’s values, responded with a knowing nod rather than condemnation gave the scene a rare flicker of warmth in the otherwise bleak landscape of the show.

Actress Mattea Conforti, who plays Becka, told Swooon that Becka has always known about her feelings for Agnes, and that the looming threat of forced marriage made it increasingly impossible to deny those feelings to herself, even internally. That pressure cooker of repression and dread made the finale kiss all the more loaded when it finally happened.

The Agnes and Becka Kiss in the Finale, Unpacked

In the finale, Becka tearfully prepares for her wedding day with Agnes on hand to help, and when the two are left alone, Agnes reassures her that everything is going to be okay. Becka responds, “I know it will, because you’re here,” before the two share a romantic kiss. It is a moment that arrives simultaneously as an act of love, defiance, and grief.

According to Conforti, Agnes never actually realized that Becka had romantic feelings for her until that very moment.

Agnes always knew they shared a uniquely strong connection, but she believed it was the closeness of best friendship rather than anything more, and the kiss becomes an “aha moment” for her character. That detail reframes the entire scene, because the two characters are experiencing the kiss in entirely different emotional registers.

For Becka, there is clear romantic intent, rooted in feelings she has carried throughout the season. But the kiss is also about hope: Agnes being present gives her the strength to keep going, and the moment functions as a point of light amid the pitch-black darkness her life has become. It is simultaneously a love confession and a survival mechanism, which is exactly the kind of layered storytelling ‘The Testaments’ has been building toward.

What Showrunner Bruce Miller Says About the Kiss

Showrunner Bruce Miller told Collider that the kiss was designed to hold multiple meanings at once, and that the feelings between Becka and Agnes are not as far apart as viewers might assume. He described the intensity of teenage friendship in grounded, relatable terms before noting that Gilead would kill them both if it ever found out what had just happened between them.

Miller framed the gesture as one friend supporting another through an impossible moment, and expressed that he believed it genuinely helped Becka face what was waiting for her at the end of that aisle. That reading does not diminish the romantic dimension of the scene but rather adds to its complexity, suggesting that love, in all its forms, can be both deeply personal and fiercely protective at the same time.

Gender Traitor Rules and the Danger Hanging Over Both Characters

Should Becka reveal her feelings for Agnes openly in Gilead, she would face execution for being labeled a “gender traitor” under the regime’s laws. Despite that lethal risk, Becka chose to act on her trust in Agnes and kissed her in that private moment before walking to her wedding. The stakes cannot be overstated. What might read as a tender romantic scene is also an act of breathtaking courage in the context of Gilead.

Conforti noted in her conversation with TV Insider that the production team never definitively resolved the question of Becka’s full sexuality during filming of the first season. What is clear is that Agnes is the only person Becka has ever loved romantically, at least as far as her story has taken viewers so far. That ambiguity feels intentional, leaving room for the character to grow and discover herself in season two without closing any doors.

What the Kiss Means for Agnes, Becka, and Season Two

Because of where both Agnes and Becka currently sit within Gilead’s social structure, both characters are likely at least partly aware that their relationship can never fully become what it might be in another world. The knowledge that the love and support exists between them may, for now, be enough to push them forward. That bittersweet truth is one of the most quietly devastating things the show has done.

After the wedding, Agnes confides in Daisy that she feels like she has ruined her life, even while acknowledging the sacrifice was worth it. In the same conversation, Daisy drops the bombshell that she believes Agnes to be June’s daughter Hannah, a revelation Agnes immediately rejects, calling June a terrorist before Daisy reveals she has met her mother once. The kiss, then, is not just a climactic moment in itself. It is the emotional fulcrum around which the entire finale and the setup for season two pivots.

The stakes for both Becka and Agnes going forward are undeniably high, given how Gilead treats anyone who steps outside the narrow definitions of acceptable love and loyalty.

Whether ‘The Testaments’ allows their bond to deepen into something that can survive Gilead’s walls is the question that is going to keep viewers coming back, so what do you think the show should do with Agnes and Becka in season two: honor the full weight of what was shown in that kiss, or pull back into ambiguity?