HBO’s Disturbing 8-Episode Horror-Comedy Is Too Good To Stay Forgotten

Demonic children are nothing new to the world of horror. Whether they’re the actual spawn of the devil, like the titular baby from Rosemary’s Baby, just plain evil, like Orphan’s not-so-little Esther (Isabelle Fuhrman), or something in between, like the various children touched by the supernatural from The Ring, The Exorcist, and many, many other movies, this particular kind of enfant terrible has been making the rounds ever since the dawn of the genre. They appear in stories about the corruption of the innocent, the fear of evil hiding in plain sight, and, of course, the trials and tribulations of becoming a parent — particularly, a mother.

There is, after all, something inherently terrifying in bringing a whole new human being into the world and raising them without a blueprint, with no clear idea of what they’ll become. Thus, it isn’t rare to find horror stories that are, in the end, about nothing more than the strangeness of fostering another person into your own body or discovering that your sweet baby isn’t as sweet as you thought. All of these stories take a complex look at a part of many women’s lives that is usually romanticized, giving us a somewhat exaggerated glimpse of how hard becoming a mother can be. But no story accomplishes this goal quite like HBO’s horror-comedy miniseries The Baby.

What Is ‘The Baby’ About?

Created by Lucy Gaymer and Siân Robins-Grace, The Baby tells the story of 38-year-old Natasha (Michelle de Swarte), a carefree and child-free woman who is less than thrilled by the fact that all her friends are suddenly having babies. Unable to deal with the shift in her friends’ lifestyles, Natasha pushes them away with her callousness and even seems to judge them for being mothers. However, her life takes an unexpected turn when a small, adorable, and utterly diabolical baby comes into her life.

Brought to life by twins Albie and Arthur Hills and a team of skilled VFX professionals, the titular baby doesn’t enter Natasha’s life through any conventional way. There are no disturbing pregnancies or creepy orphanages in her path. The infant simply falls into Natasha’s arms as she is standing on an empty beach by a cliff where she was hoping to catch some rest from day-to-day stress. Right away, the baby imprints on Natasha, and there’s absolutely nothing she can do to get rid of him. No matter how much she tells people that this is not her baby, everyone reacts to seeing them together either by congratulating her for becoming a mother or by complaining that she didn’t tell them sooner. To add insult to injury, the baby simply kills or maims everyone who stands in their way using his seemingly endless energy and psychic abilities. And who’s to blame for the chaos that ensues but Natasha?

The True Villain of ‘The Baby’ Is, Unsurprisingly, the Patriarchy

Image via HBO

Right off the bat, it’s easy to see the most obvious way in which The Baby forces us to look at mothers under a different light. For being so judgy and unaccommodating towards her child-rearing friends, Natasha receives the visit of the demon baby equivalent of the Ghost of Christmas Present and learns that she needs to step up. Her friends are stressed, lonely, and in need of help, and it’s not their fault that their children have insomnia right in the middle of poker night. By the end of the series, Natasha learns her lesson and becomes someone on whom her mommy friends can rely on to feel more like full human beings instead of someone who just exists to look after a child. It’s all plain and simple, and yet, this PSA side of The Baby is the least interesting of the many ways in which the show casts a humanizing look on being a mother.

The show slowly reveals the baby’s origins through Mrs. Eaves (Amira Gahazalla), who has been tracking the child, and the revelation of what the baby represents is more nightmarish than the baby. He is, in Mrs. Eaves words, “a bottomless pit of need”. He attaches himself to women who don’t have and don’t want children and demands from them unconditional, undivided love and attention. When they fail to give it to him, he gets rid of them, usually in pretty gruesome ways.

Through flashbacks, we learn that back in the 60s, when Mrs. Eaves was just Nour (Seyan Sarvan), she fell in love with a woman named Helen (Tanya Reynolds). Her love was reciprocated, but there was a catch: Helen was married and pregnant with her first child. In much more homophobic times, Helen’s husband drags her away from Nour, claiming that his wife is being corrupted, and forces her to take the pregnancy to term under inhumane circumstances. Helen is treated as a living, breathing incubator. In such an environment, there is no room for motherly love to flourish.

Helen has an ideal of motherhood shoved down her throat — or into her arm, with a hypodermic needle — and the result is that it is impossible for her to have a healthy relationship with her child. Being forced to become a mother means that the ideal nuclear family she’s part of is less than ideal. Even after she escapes, Helen is trapped in the patriarchal mold that society has forced on her. This all leads her to kill herself, while the baby, on the other hand, lives on as a flesh-and-bone reminder of all the expectations and the strain that is put on mothers.

‘The Baby’ Makes Helen Into the Perfect Foil for Bobbi and Barbara

Helen’s story stands in sharp contrast to that of Natasha’s estranged sister, Bobbi (Amber Grappy). Energetic and great with children, Bobbi is desperate to adopt a baby of her own. Not only does she believe that a baby will help heal her relationship with Sam (Genesis Lynea), she also feels that she has so much love to give that a child could find no better home than with her. But it’s precisely her enthusiasm that makes the social worker put her on a one-year waiting period before she can go through the adoption process again. While Helen didn’t want a baby at all, Bobbi wants a baby too much. She isn’t attuned to the reality of being a mother, and her high expectations are far from realistic. The same societal pressures towards motherhood that were at play in Helen’s storyline are at play in Bobbi’s own life.

But the most intriguing parallel is between Helen’s story and that of Barbara (Sinéad Cusack), Natasha’s mother, whom she loathes for having abandoned her and Bobbi when they were kids. Now living in a commune, Barbara tries to win back Natasha’s trust and give her advice about the baby, not knowing the true danger he poses. Natasha is enraged by the fact that her absent mother is trying to give her parenting advice. Having grown up idolizing her father for taking care of her and Bobbi all by himself, Natasha can’t accept when her mother tells her that it was her father who asked her to leave. Barbara spent most of Natasha’s childhood lying in bed, too depressed to do anything. Natasha took care of her, and Barbara couldn’t help but feel guilty that she wasn’t able to love her daughter with the same intensity. That sadness and guilt were the reason why she left Natasha behind, but not before giving her a little sister whom she could shower that love on.

When this revelation hits, Natasha is forced to deal with two harsh realities at the same time. The first one is that she also failed as a mother figure. She failed to give Bobbi all the love that was expected of her. Then, she has to face the fact that her mother isn’t the bad person she believed her to be. She was simply a human being, a woman who was just as tired as Natasha is now. On the other hand, little Natasha was just as demanding as her demon baby, even if she didn’t have the same psychic abilities. Her mother left not because she hated her nor because she didn’t think things through before having a child. She left because she couldn’t take it anymore. It was either leaving or dying. After learning this truth, Natasha is given the insight she never would have gotten had a supernatural killer baby not dropped onto her lap. While the horror and comedy elements are equally entertaining, it’s this deeper aspect of The Baby that makes it a perfect watch — just maybe not for new mothers.