With just two weeks until The Handmaid’s Tale delivers its series finale, the show is already putting the pieces in place for the upcoming sequel series The Testaments. We don’t know much about what to expect from the new show, but we do know that at least one character will cross over from one series to the other. Aunt Lydia (Ann Dowd) started the show as a hateful and abusive character, but now she is starting to realize that she is only a cog in a much, much bigger engine. During a panel with the SAG-AFTRA Foundation, series executive producer Warren Littlefield (The Old Man) talked about Aunt Lydia and where her head is at this point in the series.

Over the course of the series’ six seasons, Aunt Lydia has seen many atrocities committed at Gilead, and she herself was at the front of several of them. But a couple of weeks ago, something changed. The character witnessed the despair of Janine (Madeline Brewer) when she saw a slate of handmaids get mercilessly killed, and finally something clicked in Aunt Lydia’s mind. Littlefield stated:

“Lydia has absolutely lost her way. We’ve [previously] seen her learn that Gilead is an imperfect place, but she’s never rejected it.”

The producer called the Jezebels massacre “an awakening” for aunt Lydia, and teased how this new perspective will shape the character into a new form in The Testaments:

“The Lydia we’re left with says things that we never would have heard from — you’ll see in the final two episodes — words that Lydia never would have spoken. That’s incredibly powerful, and it’s part of how we end our journey.”

The End Is Near for ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’

Image via Hulu

Image via Hulu

Image via Hulu

Image via Hulu

Image via Hulu

Image via Hulu

Will Aunt Lydia become an ally in The Testaments? Or will she just realize what’s wrong with Gilead and keep quiet because she knows that being vocal means death? It has certainly happened before in the series. One thing is sure: The Handmaid’s Tale has been hinting for some weeks that several of its characters will be completely transformed by the end of the series — or at least the ones who make it that far. Aunt Lydia is certainly one of them.

Just like The Handmaid’s Tale, The Testaments is based on a novel by author Margaret Atwood. The novel takes place 15 years after the events of the original story, and it makes Aunt Lydia a prominent character. It also adds two different POVs to the story: Gilead’s, through the eyes of Agnes (Chase Infiniti) and Canada’s through Daisy’s (Lucy Halliday), a young woman living north of Gilead.