The Testaments season 1 ending explained: Mattea Conforti weighs in on how the ‘powerful’ teenage girls of Gilead are poised for rebellion

Warning: Major spoilers ahead for The Testaments and the season finale.

After 10 incredible episodes, The Testaments season 1 has reached its conclusion - and the final moments were enough to send shivers down the spines of everyone who tuned in, leaving the line, "Nothing can be more powerful than a teenage girl" echoing through viewer's minds for ever more.

After six pitch-perfect seasons of The Handmaid's Tale, it was always going to be a difficult feat to bring Margaret Atwood's follow-up novel to life to the same compelling levels.

Latest Videos From

But the talented cast and crew have absolutely nailed the tone of The Testaments, just as their predecessors did with the original novel. Gilead might look lighter and brighter in its new era, but the same totalitarian brutality is bubbling beneath the surface, the girls who have grown up there are just more conditioned to it.

There's so much to break down in the series finale, and we were lucky enough to do it with Mattea Conforti, who plays Agnes' best friend in the series. Mattea weighs in on that kiss, and just how the tables are finally turning and why the teenage girls of Gilead are set for rebellion.

The Testaments season 1 ending explained

The Testaments season 1 finale opens with Agnes (Chase Infiniti) still reeling from Becka's (Mattea Conforti) admission that she'd killed her father, Dr Grove (Randal Edwards), after finding out he'd been abusing some of the Plums visiting him for dentistry.

Agnes reveals she later reads the autopsy report which details the lengths Becka went to when ending her father's life, including multiple stab wounds to his liver, arteries and genitalia.

Becka was last seen being forcibly removed from the McKenzie home, screaming for her best friend as she was bundled into a van by masked guards.

This is a huge departure from the original novel, that saw Dr Grove instead executed by Particicution - ripped apart by Handmaids as part of Gilead's punishment laws. In the book, this happens after Aunt Lydia (Anne Dowd) finds out about his crimes and frames him for the attempted rape of Aunt Elizabeth.

Mattea Conforti tells us she wasn't involved in this decision to make such a change from the source material, and was "so shocked" when she read the script.

The rest of the cast read the script before she did, and she says, "People started texting me asking, 'Have you read [episode] 9, have you read it yet? Please read it!'"

She continues, "As an actor, I was very excited to take on that challenge. Becka found out her father committed a crime that is not acceptable, and is punishable by death. Becka believes what she does is the right act of justice and is protecting the love of her life, Agnes."

"There's a lot of protection, Becka is thinking, "This is what the Aunts would tell me to do, this is what god would tell me to do.' She thinks she's doing the right thing."

The next time we see Becka, she's restrained in a cell, traumatised and singing Rise and Shine to herself.

As she's visited by Aunt Lydia, viewers are treated to the absolute cameo of the season - yes, your eyes weren't deceiving you - the prison guard who lets Lydia in, is the one and only Margaret Atwood.

The entire season has been littered with cameos, Elisabeth Moss's being one of the best kept secrets in TV history, but the appearance of Margaret Atwood is incredibly special.

Speaking about Margaret, Mattea says, "She is an intelligent and incredibly strong woman, you just feel that aura around her, you can feel that presence when you step into a room that she is in."

Aunt Lydia, genuinely devastated at the state she finds Becka in, promises to sort the situation out for her. She first tries to get Becka released by talking to the awful Commander Judd (Charlie Carrick), but gets absolutely nowhere.

Meanwhile, Agnes is on her own mission to get her friend exonerated, pleading with everyone from Garth (Brad Alexander) to Aunt Vidala (Mabel Li), to the Commander she's betrothed to, Commander Weston (Reed Diamond) to do anything to help.

During her plea to her future husband, Agnes also reveals herself to be one of Dr Grove's victims, and Coomander Weston promises he'll do whatever he can within his power to help Becka.

Daisy (Lucy Halliday) also gets involved in the mission to free Becka, urging Garth that Mayday has to get her out of prison. "You are the man with the gun, and you can't do anything?" she asks when Garth says it's far too dangerous to get Mayday on board.

Garth snitches to June about Daisy's constant efforts to go rogue while helping her friends, and how she's getting increasingly disillusioned with Mayday's efforts. He later gets a coded message from her to "get the loose canon out" of Gilead - June is done with Daisy.

Eventually, Commander Weston keeps his word and gets Becka some temporary leave from her cell, to go home and spend time with her mother (Kate Hewlett) until she's questioned again. However, he later calls off his betrothal to Agnes after pulling this favour, possibly because he sees her as damaged or unholy after revealing to him she'd been abused.

As Becka is delivered home, Daisy, believing she's on a secret mission to help her friend, is delivered to June and told its game over for her and she's out of Gilead because she's a "liability."

June explains that sometimes, you have to let "people you love become collateral damage" for the bigger picture, especially girls who haven't yet "realised they need saving." Refusing to take this advice on board, Daisy reveals there's no way she's letting this happen.

Daisy pulls an accidental trump card when she lists all the reasons every girl she's met in Gilead deserves a chance to be saved - when she mentions she's met Agnes, she finds out for the first time that Agnes is June's daughter.

We see some of the old June in this moment, and the hurt and devastation she masks while thinking about her daughter. Tears fall from her eyes as she hears what Agnes, or Hannah, is like as a teenager, and that's enough to get Daisy back in the game and returned to Gilead to continue her mission to help take it down.

Back with Becka, while visiting her mother, she's talked into changing her story about how her father died by Aunt Lydia and Aunt Vidala.

They persuade her to say it was her mother who commited the murder. Becka really doesn't want to go through with this, but is eventually convinced by everyone and her mother is later hanged for the crime to save her daughter.

While Becka is left in this terrible situation, Agnes is left fearful for her future after finding out Commander Weston no longer wants to be paired with her. Paula, her stepmother, takes the news in her typical self-centred, Agnes-loathing fashion, only concerned with the repercussions this news has on her own status.

Agnes proves she still has her friend's backs above all else, by making another impassioned plea to Garth, despite everything going on in her own life and her own failed pairing.

This time, instead of asking him to help free her best friend, she's pleading with him to still marry Becka and not let her be a fallen woman. This is incredibly difficult for her to do, being utterly and completely in love with Garth herself.

As an orphaned and devastated Becka is about to be married to Garth, Agnes is there to comfort her. Against soft lighting and in one of the most tender moments of the season, the pair share a kiss.

At first, it appeared Becka could have been imagining this scene - she's clearly traumatised and her mind potentially desperate to take her anywhere that isn't where she is right now.

However, Mattea Conforti tells us the kiss is definitely real. "That was a very real moment," she says, adding, "For Becka, this is a last ditch effort to communicate her feelings - what is there left to lose?"

"Her father is dead, her mother is dead, everything she has known and loved is gone - except for Agnes."

"Agnes is understanding Becka in this moment finally, and that kiss is a moment of acceptance and of love and friendship."

"They initiate it in the same capacity, Agnes allows Becka to, but Becka pulls away from the kiss as a way of saying thank you for accepting her. It was a really beautiful scene and I was so lucky to have that moment, especially with Chase."

After Becka's wedding, Daisy decides the time is right to tell a horrified Agnes who her real mother is - "The terrorist?" Agnes asks, having grown up listening to stories of the fabled assassin June Osborne.

"You mother wasn't just a Handmaid, she was the Handmaid," Daisy shares, as it finally dawns on Agnes that she and her friends really could be in need of saving, just as June needed them to realise.

In the final moments of the season, June is seen reading a long note from Daisy, telling her how much she's changed and why Gilead has changed her. Promising to create an army with what Gilead created, she writes, "Because nothing can be more powerful than a teenage girl.

The final slow motion sequence sees the teenage girls unite, as Daisy, Agnes and Shunnamite (Rowan Blanchard) hold hands and walk the corridor of their Wife school, determined faces now ready for the rebellion that's coming.

"One of my favourite moments from the season is that slow motion walk," Mattea tells us, continuing, "That is such a powerful scene and such a powerful message. It leaves the show in this sense of hope and sense of empowerment."

She concludes, "We leave thinking 'Oh my gosh, are they finally coming together, what's going to happen next?' These women are still able to find each other, and still find strength within themselves. The series shows how the power of friendship can result in the power of resilience."

Bring on season 2.

The Testaments is now streaming on Disney+.