The HBO series “The Baby” is a grisly British horror-comedy that is created by Lucy Gaymer and Sian Robins-Grace. It focuses on the intriguing changes that are brought about in a woman who gives birth to a child. The concept of motherhood is so unique that it often becomes an uncharted territory for those women who have never experienced it. All of a sudden, the priorities of your life change, and everything becomes about the baby. You lose out on your freedom quite willingly and take up the responsibility wholeheartedly. But for Natasha, that was not the case. She does not see herself becoming a mother. In fact, she is frustrated by the behavior and changing priorities of her friends, Mags and Rita. They are not the same people anymore. They don’t have time for her, and the sanctity of their sacred poker nights is violated, for which Natasha was really possessive and particular.
Episode 1 has been directed by Nicole Kassell and written by Sian Robins-Grace. So let’s witness the unusual happenings that take place in Natasha’s life and try to decipher the hidden meaning behind them.
The Unprecedented Series Of Events
Episode 1 opens with a shot of a girl running in a forest while holding onto something. She is being chased by two police officers, but we don’t know the reason behind it. She stops when she reaches the edge of a cliff. She looks harried and traumatized. The police officers have no clue what is going on inside her mind, but they are scared that she will jump off the cliff. They tell her to stay calm and put whatever she is holding on the ground. A baby peeps out of the bag she was holding. Before they could say anything else, the girl jumped off the cliff. The baby followed her. The police officers scampered to get a hold of the baby before it fell, but all they could get their hands on was its socks. Shocked beyond their wits, they looked down the cliff in horror, still trying to process what they had witnessed.
After the disturbing set of events, we cut to a rather joyous setting where three friends are having a girls’ night out and enjoying a poker night. Mags, Rita, and Natasha used to do this often. It was their sacred space where they gossiped, drank, smoked, played cards, and had a blast of a time. But things have changed. Mags had a baby. She was supposed to leave the baby with Jamie (supposedly Mags’ partner), but as he had to work late, she took it to Natasha’s house. Natasha gets agitated as Mags loses track of the conversation and doesn’t pay any attention to what Natasha is saying. She is too engrossed in handling the baby. Natasha loses her self-control and ends up telling Mags that the night was supposed to be about them and not the baby. Mags feels offended and decides to leave the scene. Rita also decides to leave with Mags, and while going, she tells Natasha that she was also pregnant. Natasha pulls a joke, telling Rita that it had only been three months since her pregnancy and that she still had time to rethink about the decision. Rita is taken aback by the harsh and brusque statement made by Natasha. Rita leaves the scene, telling Natasha that she feels bad for her because she was not able to take this change in a positive manner.
Natasha has a lot to think about. She decides to take a break to clear her mind and get her priorities right. She goes to this remote cottage on the beachside, on the foot of a cliff. The cottage had the bare minimum resources, and there was an eerie quality to the whole setting. Natasha goes outside for a smoke when she hears a thud, which startles her. She sees the dead body of a girl who had fallen from the cliff. Natasha’s cottage was on the foot of the same cliff from which the girl had jumped at the beginning of the episode. She sees a baby also swaying in the air and coming towards her. She catches the baby.
The two trembling police officers also come down in their vehicle. All three of them are still trying to process exactly what happened. Natasha, without any delay, hands them the baby as she wants to get rid of it and call it a night, which had already been a nightmare. Just as the police officers left with the baby, Natasha heard a crashing noise. She went outside and couldn’t believe the peculiarity and the uncanniness of what she saw.
Episode 1: Ending Explained – Did Natasha Get Rid Of The Baby?
Natasha went outside after hearing the sound of a crash. She found that a boulder had fallen from that same cliff onto the police car. The policeman inside had died, and the baby was in the back seat, gleefully smiling. She picked up the baby and decided to leave the forsaken cottage and go to the nearest police station. She stopped at a petrol pump and went inside to use the washroom. Just then, it struck her that she could leave the baby there with the shopkeeper and quietly escape from the scene. She made an exit through the washroom window and crawled inside her car. Once again, she heard the noise of things falling from inside the superstore. She went inside to find that the products from the shelves had somehow fallen on the shopkeeper and he lay dead on the floor. Natasha is awestruck. She cannot comprehend what exactly is happening with her. She picks up the baby and immediately goes to the police station.
Natasha had to make the officers believe that weird and unnatural events had happened in reality and she was not fabricating the whole story. Obviously, the police officers suspect her of being involved in some kind of foul play. But the evidence proved otherwise. Natasha is allowed to go to her home. She is relieved that she finally got rid of the baby. She goes back to her place and starts doing her daily household chores. Just then, the doorbell rings. She goes to open the door. She hears the same babble and, to her horror, finds the same baby kept on her doorstep.
Episode 1 ends on a cliffhanger. Was the baby cursed or had some supernatural element attached to it, is something that the subsequent seasons will explore. But one thing was sure that there was something eerie and mysterious about it.
Who was the baby? Where did it come from? What was the relationship that the girl, who jumped from the cliff, shared with the baby? Was the baby following Natasha? All these questions will probably be answered in the upcoming episodes, which will shed more light on the direction that Natasha’s life and the narrative are going to take.
See More: ‘The Baby’ Episode 2: Recap And Ending, Explained – Who Was Lydia Mcnaish Wilcoxes?
