What Really Happened to Agnes at the Dentist in ‘The Testaments,’ Explained

One of the most haunting storylines unfolding across Hulu’s ‘The Testaments’ centers on a question many viewers have been asking since the season’s early episodes: did the dentist touch Agnes? The answer, as the show eventually makes horrifyingly clear, is yes.

‘The Testaments’ is the sequel series to ‘The Handmaid’s Tale,’ based on Margaret Atwood’s 2019 novel and created by showrunner Bruce Miller. The series premiered on April 8 on Hulu in the US and Disney+ in the UK, with its ten episodes rolling out weekly on Wednesdays. What sets it apart from its predecessor is a more insidious, slow-burn approach to depicting Gilead’s horrors through the eyes of its youngest victims.

Agnes and the Dentist: What Happened in Episode 2

The first warning sign arrives early in the season. Dr. Grove was already inappropriate with Agnes in episode 2 when Paula brought her to the dentist, creepily commenting about her “tender breasts” and touching her there inappropriately in the guise of a medical exam. At that point, Agnes had no frame of reference for what had just been done to her, and the show leaves the moment deliberately unresolved, letting the dread settle.

While waiting at the dentist, Paula reprimands Agnes for her punishment, framing the changes going through her body as temptations toward impulsiveness. The scene captures exactly how Gilead weaponizes adult authority to keep girls silent, confused, and compliant. Agnes, raised to trust the system, has no language yet for what she experienced.

The Episode 4 Revelation That Changes Everything

The assault comes into full, devastating focus in episode 4, titled “Green Tea.” Agnes bites into a porcelain figure during the tea party, snapping her tooth in half, and Paula arranges for her to visit Dr. Grove, Becka’s father, to fix it quietly. The timing feels almost designed to isolate Agnes at her most vulnerable.

At the appointment, Dr. Grove places Agnes under light anesthesia. Once she is unconscious, he removes his coat. Later, at home, Agnes notices something is wrong: the undergarment she had carefully tied earlier is now undone in several places. The implication is chilling, suggesting that Agnes was sexually assaulted while she was unconscious, a realization that marks a devastating turning point in her understanding of Gilead’s dangers.

It is harrowing to watch as Agnes realizes something happened to her while at the dentist and breaks down, even if she does not know exactly what. This also represents a shift in her arc.

The early episodes established that Agnes was slowly aware of some of Gilead’s issues but still bought into much of it. She was mostly happy and wanted the married life with children that was sold as the perfect future for the Plums. The dentist brings the horrors of Gilead crashing into her reality and becomes part of the catalyst that leads her toward rebellion.

Dr. Grove’s Pattern of Abuse Across the Season

Dr. Grove worked as a dentist in Gilead and was a serial abuser. The dentist even exploited his own daughter Becka and her friends, including Agnes. The show takes its time building the scope of his crimes, connecting them to a broader system that protects powerful men while leaving girls with no recourse or language for what was done to them.

The horror of being sexually assaulted is only underscored in episode 4. What makes it even more disturbing is the lingering question of whether Agnes’s stepmother Paula, who was insistent that Agnes go to the dentist and arranged both appointments, was aware of what Dr. Grove was doing. The show, as of that episode, does not offer a clean answer.

Showrunner Bruce Miller has spoken about how ‘The Testaments’ takes a bunch of teenage girls and tells them what they are going to be, removing their adolescence from their lives, contrasting that approach with the way ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ depicted oppression through the lens of adult women. The dentist storyline is perhaps the sharpest expression of that idea: a girl who has been taught to trust Gilead’s institutions discovers those very institutions enabled her assault.

Daisy Takes Justice Into Her Own Hands in Episode 9

By episode 9, titled “Marat Sade,” the dentist storyline explodes into one of the most dramatic sequences of the entire season. Daisy declares the start of her period, which means she is leaving life as a Pearl Girl behind and becoming a Plum, with all the rituals that classification brings. Part of her new role means she must take a trip to see Dr. Grove, which Agnes has already explained to be something far more sinister than it sounds.

Dr. Grove does not do anything untoward while Daisy is alone with him during her exam. So Daisy decides to take the initiative. She starts breathing heavily and ripping her clothes open while the dentist looks on, highly confused. Then she runs into the waiting room, screaming, and starts to pray frantically. When Aunt Lydia is brought into the mix, she hints that she knows Daisy is lying, but is mostly glad that someone has shone a light on Dr. Grove’s sin.

Agnes then reveals her own truth at the dinner table, which was described as heartbreaking to film, with the actors genuinely getting emotional during the scene. When Dr. Grove is asked at the dinner table whether he ever touched the Pearl Girl, he says he never laid a finger on her. He never says anything about Agnes, and in that silence Becka finds her confirmation of what her father has been doing. Becka then kills Dr. Grove in what becomes the episode’s most shocking and emotionally shattering moment.

As Lucy Halliday, who plays Daisy, explained to Collider, Daisy made the choice to expose Dr. Grove because she was watching all of this horror and wrongdoing being done to the girls around her, while not one adult was advocating or standing up or doing the right thing. Daisy has an innate desire to protect those girls because no one else is.

The Dr. Grove arc stands as ‘The Testaments’ at its most fearless, using a single recurring character to expose how Gilead’s entire structure was built to protect abusers and silence the girls they harmed. If you have watched Agnes piece together what was done to her across these episodes, what moment hit you the hardest, and do you think Becka’s act of vengeance was the only justice Gilead would ever have allowed?