A woman at a restaurant begins choking on her food. She scrambles across the room, desperate for help. Unfortunately she chokes on her food and dies, with the baby watching nonchalantly from his pram. ..
Tasha wakes up to find a baby staring at her. She’s armed with a knife, and backs away from him to answer the door. Rita has come over to help, suggesting she could take her baby out to go for a walk. Tasha clings to the word “her” as it appears the narrative around Tasha’s life is being rewritten before her eyes. Not only does Rita think this baby is hers, Mags does too during a phone call just after this.
Whatever is going on here, there’s definitely something spiritual involved and Tasha tells the baby – while he unnervingly sits on the sofa looking at her – that he’s not getting inside her head.
The pair head to the Crookies Cookies shop (the one we saw at the start of the episode) as Tasha tries to figure out how Lydia slots into all of this. However, there’s a problem. The baby needs his diaper changed.
Tasha is struggling to keep her head when it comes to her changing room situation. She sits on the toilet, head in hands, wondering what to do.
The manager of the store is happy to see a new baby, but his dog growls and clearly knows something is up. It’s around this point where the manager mentions the “crazy business involving Lydia.” This is, in essence, the events that took place at the start of the episode, as Lydia jumped off the cliff-edge. ..
Lydia wasn’t actually the baby’s mother and appears to have been a caregiver, just like Tasha is now. This also frames what happened at the cliff into view too. Unfortunately, the baby appears to control the manager’s dog’s fate too, as a ball rolls into the road and he gets run over. It’s a gnarly, shocking scene and likely to illicit strong feelings here. ..
Anyway, as we’re driving home from work, Tasha questions the baby and what’s happened, pointing out that this is “f*cked up.”
Tasha opens the USB drive to find dozens of pictures of herself and other women holding her baby over the years. She has no recollection of taking any of these photos, nor does she know who would have sent her this strange gift. ..
Tasha is seriously spooked and unsure what else to do when she finds herself alone and panicked. She drives off with the baby and leaves him in the middle of the cornfields. She runs, but can’t keep up. ..
Tasha panics when she can’t find her baby and rushes back to find him on the floor. She picks him up and cradles him, apologizing for leaving him. ..
Tasha is sitting in the backseat of her car with her husband and old woman friend when Mrs. says, “I think we need to talk.” Tasha gasps in shock, and her husband quickly agrees. ..
The Episode Review
The Baby is a beautiful and surprisingly deep allegory about motherhood. This idea that your whole world has changed and you now need to look after this other human being – one that has his/her own thoughts, feelings and dreams – is both terrifying and exhilarating. ..
You feel alone and scared. You don’t know how to tell anyone what’s going on, and you’re not sure if they’ll believe you. You feel like no one understands what you’re going through, and that’s why the show works so well. It’s a way of framing this show that uses the horror genre to its advantage.
It’s interesting to see Tasha slowly move into this idea of adopting the child of her own from how vehemently adamant she was that she’d give him up. Little details, like smelling his head after her chat in the café, or crying and panicking when she leaves the baby in a cornfield, reinforce this idea nicely.
That’s why we think it would be a great idea to come up with a system where people can easily and quickly change their nappies while out and about. This way, there won’t be any messes to clean up and everyone will feel comfortable and confident when out in public.
The mystery here is certainly gripping, but beyond that, the character growth and themes are what make this such an underrated gem. Roll on next week! ..
