The Testaments Episode 9: Becka's Kill Scene Cost 14 Hours and One Voice
TL;DR: Mattea Conforti explains why Becka killing Dr. Grove in The Testaments episode 9 was an act of love, not violence — and why Agnes turning her in felt like betrayal even though Becka can't bring herself to blame her. The scene took 14 hours to film and left Conforti voiceless.
"She would never blame Agnes for anything. She has so much love for her. I think she does feel that immediate sense of betrayal."
That's Mattea Conforti, the actor behind Becka in The Testaments, speaking to Screen Rant about the most structurally devastating sequence in the Hulu/MGM+ series so far. Episode 9 delivers something rare in prestige TV: a character whose worst moment is also, from her own internal logic, her most righteous. The Analyst read here is simple but important — when a supporting performance generates this level of post-episode discourse, the streaming platform has a retention asset worth protecting. Becka isn't a subplot. She's become the emotional spine of this adaptation.
What Actually Happens in Episode 9 — and Why It Matters
The show: The Testaments, the Hulu and Channel 4 co-production based on Margaret Atwood's 2019 Booker Prize-winning sequel novel to The Handmaid's Tale. Episode 9 premiered on May 21, 2026. The series runs under showrunner Bruce Miller, who also shepherded the original Handmaid's Tale adaptation across its full run on Hulu.
The key episode-9 facts, for anyone catching up:
- Becka (Mattea Conforti) kills Dr. Grove (played by Randal Edwards) after Agnes confirms he abused her
- Agnes (Chase Infiniti) responds by turning Becka over to The Eyes — Gilead's secret police
- The arrest sequence took approximately 14 hours to shoot, according to Conforti
- Conforti lost her voice during filming and had to mouth screams silently for several takes
- The dinner-table scene preceding the killing is where Becka gets her confirmation of Grove's guilt — not from a direct admission, but from what he doesn't deny
The episode functions almost like a courtroom drama compressed into 60 minutes. Daisy's accusation, Agnes's revelation, Grove's calculated non-denial — Becka processes all of it and reaches a verdict that Gilead's own theology technically supports, even as the system then punishes her for acting on it. That contradiction is the whole show in miniature.
What Conforti Said About Becka's Motivation — and What She Didn't Say
The more revealing quote from Conforti's Screen Rant interview isn't the betrayal line. It's this: "Maybe this is why I've been feeling so hesitant and unwelcome here, because this is my moment. This is where I need to show that I belong here."
That's a character who commits violence not out of rage but out of a desperate bid for belonging. It reframes the entire kill as a psychological event. Conforti told Screen Rant's Liam Crowley that she'd had specific conversations with Bruce Miller about Becka's foundational sense of displacement — the idea that Becka, unlike the other girls raised in Gilead, never fully stopped questioning where she fit. The murder of Dr. Grove becomes, in Becka's mind, the moment that question gets answered.
What's striking is how precisely Conforti calibrates the romantic dimension. Becka's feelings for Agnes aren't subtext in episode 9 — they're the entire engine. "Someone who she loves platonically and romantically has been hurt by her father, and that's not okay for Becka," Conforti explained. The act is framed internally as protection. As love. Which is exactly what makes Agnes's response so shattering.
(Movie OTT has been tracking viewer sentiment across regions on The Testaments since its premiere, and the Agnes-Becka dynamic has consistently ranked as the series' most-discussed storyline in aggregated search data.)
The India Streaming Picture for The Testaments
For Indian audiences, The Testaments is available via Disney+ Hotstar, which holds Hulu content rights in the Indian market under the existing Disney distribution structure. Episodes are releasing weekly, with episode 9 available from May 22, 2026.
Current availability breakdown:
- India: Disney+ Hotstar (weekly episodes, English with Hindi subtitles available)
- United States: Hulu (primary broadcaster, weekly release)
- United Kingdom: Channel 4 streaming (co-production partner)
- Spain: Disney+ (under the Star content umbrella)
- Australia: Binge
Hindi dubbing hasn't been confirmed for The Testaments as of this writing, though The Handmaid's Tale did receive a Hindi audio track on Hotstar in later seasons — so a dub for this sequel series isn't out of the question if viewership numbers justify the localization investment. Hard to say if that happens before the season concludes.
The Indian market angle worth watching: for Indian viewers weighing whether to commit to this show, the more relevant comparison point isn't The Handmaid's Tale itself but Delhi Crime Season 2, which proved in 2022 that Indian streaming audiences will stay with a slow-burn series about institutional violence against women when the character work is specific enough. Delhi Crime S2 ranked in Hotstar's top five for three consecutive weeks in its window. The Testaments is playing to that same audience at a similar cadence, and the Becka storyline specifically, with its exploration of queer identity under religious authoritarianism, has generated significant social media commentary from Indian viewers on platforms like Instagram and X. Movie OTT's streaming tracker confirms Hotstar as the active platform for weekly episode drops in the region.
The Franchise Lineage and the Cast Building This Show
The Testaments doesn't exist without The Handmaid's Tale, which ran for six seasons on Hulu between 2017 and 2025 and accumulated 15 Primetime Emmy Awards across its run, per the Television Academy's official records. That's the franchise foundation Bruce Miller is working from.
Margaret Atwood published the source novel in 2019, winning the Booker Prize jointly with Bernardine Evaristo's Girl, Woman, Other. The adaptation shifts focus from Offred to three women whose stories converge: Becka, Agnes, and Daisy (the character known in the novel as Nicole).
Key cast:
- Mattea Conforti (Becka): A relatively young actor whose previous credits include The Gilded Age on HBO; this is her most prominent role to date
- Chase Infiniti (Agnes): Brings a controlled, almost forensic stillness to the role that contrasts sharply with Conforti's more externalized performance
- Randal Edwards (Dr. Grove): Limited screen time, but episode 9 makes his presence felt retroactively across the whole season
Bruce Miller previously told Deadline that adapting The Testaments required rethinking the visual grammar of Gilead, since the novel operates in a different register than the original book. The production is a Hulu/MGM Television co-production.
The Editorial Take Nobody Is Saying Loudly Enough
Most episode-9 coverage frames Becka's arrest as a betrayal story — Agnes turns her in, hearts break, credits roll. The more interesting read is what it reveals about Gilead's structural trap: the system taught Becka that men who abuse girls deserve death, then punished her for executing that exact judgment. Agnes's decision to turn her in isn't a failure of love. It's rational self-preservation inside a system that would have consumed both of them otherwise. Becka knows this, which is why she can't blame Agnes even while feeling betrayed. That's not cognitive dissonance. That's survival math.
Here's what the trade write-ups keep missing: this is the third time in the combined Handmaid's/Testaments franchise that a character has committed violence explicitly sanctioned by Gilead's own doctrine and been destroyed for it (the Particicution in Season 2, Emily's attack on Aunt Lydia in Season 2's finale, now Becka). The pattern isn't incidental. Miller is building a cumulative case across 70-plus hours of television that theocratic systems don't fail by accident — they're designed to produce exactly this kind of double bind. That argument lands harder in The Testaments because Becka isn't a veteran survivor like June. She's a true believer. She did everything right by Gilead's rules and still ended up in custody.
What Comes Next for Becka — and for the Series
The Testaments hasn't confirmed its episode count publicly, though the source novel's structure suggests the season is approaching its convergence point, where all three women's storylines intersect. Becka in the custody of The Eyes sets up a reckoning that the novel handles with significant brutality.
From a platform-performance standpoint, Hulu hasn't released viewership numbers for The Testaments in the style of Netflix's weekly transparency reports — but the social conversation volume around episode 9 suggests the show is performing well enough that a second-season conversation is likely already happening internally at MGM Television. The Becka storyline, in particular, has the kind of character-driven emotional payoff that streaming platforms use as renewal justification.
For the full streaming availability picture across India, the US, the UK, and Spain, Movie OTT has current platform data updated weekly.
Closing Update: Where The Testaments Goes From Episode 9
As of May 22, 2026, The Testaments episode 9 is live on Hulu in the US and Disney+ Hotstar in India. Becka is in the custody of The Eyes. Agnes's next move is the central dramatic question. Conforti's performance in the arrest sequence — 14 hours, a lost voice, takes filmed in near-silence — has become one of the more-discussed production stories of the 2026 prestige TV season. Whether the show converts that performance into an awards campaign is a question for later in the year. Right now, the question is simpler: should you be watching The Testaments? Yes. Especially if The Handmaid's Tale held your attention past season two. This is the show that series was building toward.
