Summary
A light finale has a couple of decent payoffs but ultimately doesn’t feel like enough to leave a lasting impact.
This recap of He’s Expecting season 1, episode 8 contains spoilers, including for the He’s Expecting ending. You can check out spoiler-free season review by clicking these words.
It isn’t long into the finale of He’s Expecting that what should have been a fairly obvious problem emerges. Once a man has given birth, a show about male pregnancy just isn’t that interesting anymore, is it?
He’s Expecting season 1, episode 8 recap
The birth of Kentaro’s son, Ko, goes off without a hitch, really. He has a successful cesarean section, and Aki, along with his mother and father, are there in the hospital with him. There are some admittedly nice parallels with his own birth, back in the day, thanks to the presence of his father, but the episode doesn’t linger on those. After spending the entire series pregnant, Kentaro suddenly isn’t anymore.
And that’s the problem. Once Ko is born, Kentaro and Aki begin to adjust to his presence in the same manner as all new parents; who birthed him ceases to be relevant. She’s surprised by how fatherly he is, he pushes her to take the Singapore job. They enjoy a nice night out while Kentaro’s mother watches Ko, and it really does seem like they have everything pretty much figured out.
This is obviously the point. The idea is that these people have come through a trying situation and now, on the other side of it, have a greater understanding of themselves and the experiences of others. But it’s just a little tame for a finale. There’s nothing that happens here that couldn’t have been contained to a few lines of postscript or a quick montage.
He’s Expecting ending
He’s Expecting does, at least, return to a couple of earlier themes. For the first time since the first half of the season, a real point is made about how Kentaro’s experience isn’t unique, but simply a version of an experience that most women have at least once in their lives. He pushes for a workplace more inclusive for parents and gives himself a lot of credit for it, not realizing — until he’s called out on it — that he’s simply parroting things women have been saying for ages. That’s something that the back half of the season moved away from in favor of focusing more on the specific phenomenon of male pregnancy, so that side of the equation gets a payoff too when we see how the publicity of Kentaro’s pregnancy and birth has helped to normalize male childbirth. All’s well that ends well, I suppose.
You can stream He’s Expecting season 1, episode 8 exclusively on Netflix. Do you have any thoughts on the He’s Expecting ending? Let us know in the comments.
