‘The Testaments’ Actor Brad Alexander on Garth’s ‘Restrained Affection’ for Agnes, What His ‘Riskier Position’ Means for Her After the Ball

SPOILER ALERT: This story contains spoilers for Episode 5 of “The Testaments,” titled “Ball,” now streaming on Hulu.

While the girls in Gilead don’t get a prom, they get as close as possible to the quintessential teen experience on this week’s episode of “The Testaments.”

In the new installment of “The Handmaid’s Tale” sequel series, aptly titled “Ball,” Agnes (Chase Infiniti) and her other “Green” friends who are now eligible for marriage attend a ball to be paraded in front of all the Commanders who are looking for a young wife. Agnes is particularly interested in one bachelor who has just become suitable for marriage: her guardian, Garth (played by Brad Alexander), who is being promoted to Commander in the coming weeks.

Her hopes to marry for love intensify when Agnes has the chance to dance with Garth at the ball. A Commander suitor of Agnes’ asks Garth to cut in for him so that the Commander can attend to some business, and he and Agnes take full advantage of the rare moment of normal adolescence.

“I think think he’s sort of swept up in it as well,” Alexander tells Variety. “You can tell Gilead is such a strict place, and they have this one night where it’s a bit looser. Like he says in the episode, I think tonight some of the rules kind of fall by the wayside. And he’s there observing and watching this dancing, this drinking, this partnership, and this romantic air. And I think, he’s frustrated, to be honest, that as a guardian, he can’t really get involved until he’s placed in it.”

Though Agnes’ feelings for Garth are quite obvious to viewers — and her pearl-girl friend Daisy (Lucy Halliday ), who also happens to have Garth as her Mayday handler — what Garth thinks about Agnes is much less clear. Alexander says that’s because Garth himself, having grown up in Gilead and now serving as a double agent for the rebels in Canada, doesn’t have the words for it.

“I think, at least in this season, it’s sort of a restrained affection,” Alexander says. “He definitely thinks that she is vivid and alive, and has a real personality beyond the Gileadian sort of dress. But I think he’s in this position where his goals are clear, and it’s to take down Gilead as part of Mayday.”

He adds: “His conception of romantic love is nil. He doesn’t really understand what it even is, so all of these feelings he’s confronting for the first time, and I think he has no idea what’s happening within his own body.”

While the odds might still be against Agnes in her desire to marry Garth, he is now at least in the running as a potential husband thanks to his soon-to-be Commander status. But this promotion comes with strings that tie him more deeply to Gilead.

“I think Garth is really excited by this change, which is perhaps a little bit naive,” Alexander says. “He’s being made a Commander, and to him, that means he can advance Mayday’s goals more aggressively. But what I think he doesn’t realize is that it puts him in actually a riskier position: He’s gaining more intel and more information, insider information. But that in itself is a vulnerability to him. He’s happy about the change, but maybe he shouldn’t be.”

And Garth has certainly not expected this position could lead to romance.

“I think he’s always conceived that he would marry, but just not in the sense that we would understand it,” Alexander says. “His conception of marriage is dynastic. He thinks that marriage is a way to equalize houses and privilege and money and economics. It’s not a romantic thing for him, so he doesn’t have that conception in his mind. I think he idealized marriage, as you do in Gilead, but it’s not something that’s related to love or affection.”

As for how and why Garth became involved in Mayday in the first place, Alexander says “the mechanics of it are still something of a mystery,” but reveals there were “two really big influences” on Garth’s choice.

“One is just the simple moral realization of the truth,” Alexander says. “He’s having these experiences with these girls for the first time. And he’s seeing firsthand how their personalities are being diminished, just so they can fit into this patriarchal world. So I think he has had a sincere moral realization about how wrong Gilead is.”

Garth is also driven by something that the audience will learn later in the season, according to Alexander: that his father “was a very well-renowned Commander and a fighter of Gilead, up until the Boston moment.”

Alexander reveals that Garth’s father was injured in the event, which viewers saw at the end of “The Handmaid’s Tale.” As a result, Garth is also “angry at the system that raised him,” he says.