Non-verbal communication

Ben and Emma

Upon my initial, silent viewing of Baby Daddy, I derived that the show had a similar plot to the 1987 movie “Three Men and a Baby”; three single young men living in a midtown apartment suddenly find themselves responsible for a 3 month old infant. When a young female entered the scene I made the assumption that she was someone’s girlfriend who had been called in panic to come and care for the baby: yes, she was the “resident expert” by simple virtue of gender; no, she was simply a childhood friend of Ben (main character/baby’s daddy) and his brother, Dan. It was clear by the interactions that Dan and Riley had a long standing relationship marked by bantering and submission inducing pinches (by Riley upon Dan) but there were no “public displays of affection”.  In fact, it became somewhat apparent that Dan is smitten by Riley at one point in the episode, but after listening to the dialogue I learned that Riley is, and always has been, attracted to Ben.

Uncle Dan's first encounter with Emma.

While the guys displayed the typical gamut of emotions upon Emma’s arrival from confusion, denial, fear, apprehension, and frustration they all gave way fairly immediately to adoration and eventually love, the big twist came when the dialogue exposed the possibility of Ben’s signing over his paternity rights to put Emma up for adoption and even his mother agreeing that that would probably be best for this beautiful “bundle of Love” as she called her. What I surmised as Ben talking to Emma’s mother on the phone was actually him calling the adoption agency and agreeing to relinquish Emma the next morning. This resulted in a touching, yet silently non-descript conversation between Dan and Riley in which they discuss that Ben is only doing this because everyone is telling him to and that he needs to make the decision for himself. Not surprisingly, after being “forced” to spend the night alone caring for his daughter, Ben falls in love with her and decides to forgo the adoption and keep the child.

I suppose my assumptions that he would keep the child stemmed from both the experiential knowledge of the ‘80s film along with the fact that this was the pilot to a series and thus the baby was essential to the ongoing plot (duh)! But the message of why he kept her changed significantly as verbal communication was employed to clarify the non-verbal; without sound, it appeared that his mother was so taken with her new granddaughter that she not only expected him to raise Emma but that she would be a large part of the picture. As it turned out that was not the case at all. I find it interesting, that I transferred so much expectation to this show from the schema of the movie, never considering that Ben would be provided a “way out” and chosen not to take it. I also wonder what conclusions I would have made had I simply selected an episode other than the pilot that would not have provided the same foundational information.