Previously, in the 4th episode of the HBO limited series, “The Baby,” we had seen that Mrs. Eaves was getting flashbacks of a woman named Helen. There was some connection between this woman and the gory events happening in Natasha’s life. It felt like she held the key to unlock every mystery and give some clarity about who this baby was. Natasha was in a convoluted state of mind. She was already going through a lot, and meeting her mother had forced her to trudge through her disturbing past and revisit old wounds.
She had stopped processing what was happening around her because it was so absurd and it all seemed like a figment of an eerie imagination. Natasha was slowly losing her patience and desperately wanted Mrs. Eaves to give her some information about the baby.
Who Was Helen? How Was She Related To Mrs. Eaves?
Nothing good is ever created out of hatred and vengeance. It is like a self-consuming poison. The Baby was born from a mother who was denied freedom, was subjected to abuse, and who was encapsulating enormous hatred and despise. Episode 5, for the very first time, puts some light upon how the horrifying string of events were kick-started and who was the woman who gave birth to the evil baby.
Helen McGregor was married to Jack, who belonged to a well-to-do family. Jack’s father had been diagnosed with bowel cancer, and he told everybody that he had less than a year to live. At the dinner, when they were having this conversation, Helen took a call. The woman on the other side was telling her that she would pick her up at midnight that very day. Helen tells everybody that it was Heather who asked her to attend an event on Sunday. But in reality, it was Nour, Helen’s lover. Jack’s heart was shattered after getting to know about his father’s health, and he desperately wanted to have a baby. He wanted his father to find some happiness before he left them. He asked Helen, but she didn’t want to have one with him. She wanted to leave him and live with Nour. But this was a time when homosexual relationships were considered to be iniquitous, and the society was vehemently against them (not that the situation has changed much, but still, back then, it was worse relatively). Jack starts crying and begs her to give him a baby. He forced himself upon her, and Helen just felt paralyzed and couldn’t do anything about it.
In the middle of the night, Helen escapes with Nour, who was waiting for her round the corner. Helen is relieved to see her. She feels liberated. The couple go to the same cottage, beneath the cliff, where Natasha had come to live in Episode 1. Helen tells Nour that she had inherited the cottage from her maiden aunt, Miss Lizzie Eaves. Helen goes to Nour’s place to stay, but it wasn’t going to be as easy as they had imagined. Jack was an influential man, and he had informed the authorities that his wife was missing. Helen used to work in a library, and she really needed the job. But it was a “family library”, and Heather, who was in-charge of the library tells Helen that such a gross violation of ethics and values was not going to be entertained.
Back at Nour’s house, there was a party going on when they heard a loud bang on the door. The police officials had come looking for Helen. They were sent by her husband, Jack. He wanted to bring Helen back and take custody of the child. Nour’s family was able to help Helen evade the threat of being sent back to her home, but she knew that they wouldn’t be able to do it for long. Helen tells Nour that she is pregnant. Nour suggests that they lay low for a while and move to Liverpool.
Episode 5: Ending Explained – Is Helen Dead Or Alive?
Helen goes for a routine check-up at a hospital when the authorities inform her husband about her. She is drugged and taken back to her husband’s home. Helen is kept in captivity. She stops eating or speaking. Food is somehow stuffed in her mouth so that she stays alive and is able to give birth to the baby. The trauma of being separated from Nour sends her into a coma-like state, where she becomes totally unresponsive. She is kept under the influence of strong drugs so that she doesn’t create a ruckus. Helen gives birth to a baby boy. She feels repulsed by the very sight of the newborn. She doesn’t even once take the baby in her hands. For her, the baby is a reminder of a life that she desperately wanted to run away from. He reminded her of each and every moment when she was repudiated by society and abused by her husband.
Helen decides to take matters into her own hands. When Jack had gone to the funeral of his father, Helen asked the caretaker to let her make a call to her sister. She calls Nour instead and tells her that she would meet her at her aunt’s, Miss Lizzie Eaves’ cabin. The caretaker gets to know that she had called Nour and not her sister, but before she could do anything, Helen stabs and kills her. She encounters her husband on the staircase, who had come back to collect the paper on which he had written his eulogy. She pushes him down, and Jack tumbles to the ground and dies on the spot. For a moment, Helen stops, thinking about leaving the baby alone, but she had no attachment whatsoever to him. She goes to Miss Eaves’ cabin and meets Nour. She tells her that she killed her husband.
Helen wakes up all of a sudden to find the baby in her bedroom, in the cabin. She didn’t know how he came all the way there. She storms out of the house in disbelief. Nour wakes up too and sees the baby crying. She goes to find Helen, but she is a bit too late. Helen had jumped into the sea and, in all probability, ended her life. Nour comes back to the cabin and finds that the baby has vanished into thin air. The upcoming episodes would shed more light on what Natasha’s plan of action would be and whether she would survive the wrath of the evil baby or not.
