While The Testaments has made it clear that Garth, the young Guardian in Gilead is also a well-planted Mayday resistance operative, and Daisy’s handler, the show hasn’t shed much light on his parentage. He is instrumental in making sure Daisy is safe and her cover isn’t blown, but Garth’s parentage, especially who his father is, plays a big role in why he is a resistance operative in the first place.
The Testaments Episode 8 finally reveals who Garth’s father is, allowing us to understand both Garth and his father.
Who is Garth’s dad in The Testaments?
The Testaments Episode 8 reveals that Garth’s father is Commander Chapin, a high-ranking official who was instrumental in the defense of Boston. Commander Chapin was a widely respected and powerful figure within the Gilead hierarchy. He is described as a hero of the War of Massachusetts, having been the primary strategist who kept Boston under Gilead’s control long after it otherwise would have fallen.
However, his service came at a personal cost. As The Testaments revealed, during his time stationed in Boston, a city that eventually fell to Mayday and remains a hotspot for resistance, Commander Chapin was poisoned in a targeted assassination attempt. While he survived the attack, he was left with full-body paralysis. In the present, he is unable to move or speak, and Garth suggests that he may not even possess the cognitive ability to understand his surroundings anymore. Despite his decorated past, he now lives as a silent casualty of the regime’s endless wars.
While the former Commander Chapin is no longer fit enough to play a big role in the show, the way Gilead treated him is the primary reason as to why Garth takes the risk of becoming a resistance operative. Garth grew up in the shadow of a hero, his father, only to see how Gilead treated him as an expendable tool. Once the Commander was no longer useful to the state, he was effectively discarded and left to rot in his paralyzed state. This made Garth lose all his loyalty to the regime.
Garth’s work as a Mayday spy is thus fueled by a deep-seated anger toward the system that his father fought to build, but which then threw him away like he was no one. Garth views the training he and other young men receive as a path to becoming disposable assets for the state, just like his father was. Thus, while on the surface, Garth maintains the appearance of a rising star in Gilead, and even gets promoted to Commander himself, he is working against Gilead out of anger for what they did to his father. The contrast between his public status as the son of a war hero and his private reality as a grieving son thirsty for revenge makes him a complex and highly effective double agent.
Essentially, Garth’s father represents how broken the bones of Gilead really are, and how even those at the top are not safe from the regime’s cruelty and indifference. This betrayal is exactly what drove Garth to risk his life to bring the system down from within.
All released episodes of The Testaments are streaming on Hulu.
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Edited by Parishmita Baruah