Gilead, both in The Handmaid’s Tale and The Testaments, positions itself as a veiled evil. You have to be inside the territory to understand how the system works – an insight Rita understood when speaking to Daisy. Commander Mackenzie (played by Nate Corddry as part of a recast) is the Gilead father of Agnes, and surprisingly, he offers an unnerving insight into the moral quandary that both the men and women have to face in this disturbing world.
Commander Mackenzie is subtly written into The Testaments. He is a Commander – and therefore assumed to be evil in a sense – but he offers moments that add a layer of depth to the storyline. In some ways, he is a reminder of Commander Joseph Lawrence, the man who engineered the inner workings of Gilead and ultimately regretted it when religious extremists took his atheist ideas and turned them into a place of horror and terror.
Commander Mackenzie is not on the same level as Lawrence, and certainly not as impactful (at least not yet). But he does offer a rare, sympathetic angle into Gilead from the enemy’s side, where the character’s humanity softens the harsh realities of his role.
He is Agnes’s father, and interestingly, Agnes has a warmer connection to the Commander than to her Gilead mother, Mrs. Mackenzie. The mother serves as a constant irritant to Agnes and a stark reminder of what June endured with Serena Joy Waterford. Commander Mackenzie is not just playing the obligatory role of “father”; he genuinely cares about Agnes as if she were his own. Throughout a few episodes, he has been deeply concerned about Agnes’s arranged marriage within the pool of available commanders.
This protectiveness is, of course, the natural course for a father in normal civilization, but it is odd to see it displayed so prominently in Gilead. The television series seems to be giving Mackenzie a more empathetic, nuanced depth than his book counterpart, which raises the stakes for his character arc
To be honest, up until Episode 7, I suspected I was being fooled by obligatory actions. However, Episode 8 confirmed my suspicions regarding Commander Mackenzie’s purpose in the story and his potential, impactful role in the future.
As we reach this juncture, Commander Weston – a very high-ranking official in Gilead – has been chosen from Aunt Lydia’s premarital preparatory academy to be engaged to Agnes. In the context of Gilead, Agnes has struck gold. The match guarantees status, wealth, and power, making some of the other girls jealous but also pleased for her. However, Agnes has developed a new feeling within her – a feeling of love for Garth Chapin, an Eye soon to be promoted to a Commander. Agnes is playing along with the system she has been conditioned to live in, but she is nonetheless struggling with these innate feelings.
With Agnes’s predicament becoming a reality, Episode 8 sees Commander Mackenzie in an almost trance-like state as he summarizes for Agnes the choice that has been made for her. He is almost staring into space; while he claims to be happy for his daughter, his face tells a completely different story.
As he talks to Agnes in this dissociative manner, he starts by stating how young she is. This implies he feels Agnes is far too young to be pushed into such a predicament; however, this is the very status quo he supports as a Commander. He doesn’t explicitly say she’s “too young” – instead, he offers it as a matter of fact, his brain struggling to come to terms with the reality that he is about to surrender his daughter to the systems of Gilead.
Commander Mackenzie follows this up by talking about the science of reproduction, noting how birth rates are low and that this is the only way. In a sense, Mackenzie is justifying his moral confusion by highlighting global struggles with a declining birth rate, convincing himself that Gilead’s methods are the only path forward. Mackenzie speaks as a father who knows the difference between right and wrong, yet he remains resigned to the power structures and systems he upholds. The recitation of “the science of the birth rates” is him trying to use Gilead’s propaganda to cope with his own powerlessness. He is realizing that his status as a Commander cannot protect his daughter from the very system he upholds.
This conflict is what we are witnessing in what feels like an insignificant scene in Episode 8, but it holds profound truths.
It is entirely possible that the moral quandary plaguing Commander Mackenzie’s mind will carry significant weight in future storylines. Commander Lawrence and Nick Blaine faced similar dilemmas during their time dealing with June and the rising Mayday resistance. It begs the question: what will Commander Mackenzie do when faced with a dangerous scenario that threatens both himself and Agnes? Unlike Lawrence, his conflict is purely emotional and paternal; he isn’t trying to fix the politics of Gilead. He may undergo a redemptive character turn, or he may succumb to the usual evils of Gilead and resort to authority to save face. Either way, this early in the series, it makes for an incredibly interesting theory.
