Who Is The Real Father Of Angela's Baby On 'The Office'?

There are a few mysteries from The Office that might always remain unsolved, like the identity of the Scranton Strangler or how John Krasinski managed to pass this haircut off as "cool."

But there's one mystery that might have eluded the casual fan, which the show creators have actually already put to rest. That mystery is: How Dwight can be the father of Angela's baby, Phillip? See, in the penultimate episode of The Office, Angela reveals that Dwight is Phillip's father. Dwight is overjoyed to hear this news ... but he should be confused because in season 8 (episode 24) Dwight already conducted a paternity test on Phillip and learned (cue Maury) he was not the father! 

Paternity tests are almost 100% accurate, so are we to believe that Angela was telling Dwight an empty lie just to make him happy? Or maybeDwight's exposure to beets so intense that his DNA has been to that of something unrecognizable by even modern paternity tests? The answer is neither. David Rogers, an editor on The Office, clears up this conundrum:

In 'Free Family Portrait Studio,' Dwight pulled a diaper out of the bathroom and had the lab run a DNA test from that. But between Jim and Pam's kids, and other babies and children from the building complex being there, it's safe to say that there were other diapers in the trash, and Dwight grabbed the wrong one. If Angela didn't think the baby was or at least could possibly be Dwights, she never would have went off and chased after him and the diaper in the first place.

So there we go. Dwight grabbed the wrong diaper, which, gross, but also, case close. Right? Well, yeah, Dwight is definitely the father, but I'm still left wondering how Angela could have known this with any certainty. It's implied that she and Dwight hooked up around the same time-frame as when she was hooking up with Senator Robert Lipton, Phillip's presumed father, and Angela's husband. Why wouldn't she assume the baby daddy is Robert?

So here's my theory: It's possible that because Robert is gay that he never had sex with her, or that if he did, he never did so to his completion. However, maybe Robert still wanted to have a baby because he felt like it could benefit his political career and asked Angela to get a sperm donor. Angela told Robert she did, but in reality, she was just sneaking off to make hay babies with Dwight. That's why Angela can tell Dwight with 100% certainty that Phillip is his baby. There might not have been anyone else who could have impregnated her.

Of course, this theory has some flaws. For example, Angela seemed to be deeply in denial that Robert was gay, and Robert would probably have had to be upfront with her about it for this theory to work. But maybe he was, and maybe her denial was just a public face or her suffering through her own cognitive dissonance due to her religious upbringing. 

Remember, Angela can be very sexually withholding (just ask Andy), and she was so desperate to have Dwight's baby that she even sued him over a breach of a sex contract.

So yes, Angela marrying the senator, never sleeping with him, and then telling him she's arranging for some type of in-vitro fertilization is an extremely awkward situation. Still, as we can see above, Angela has done things much, much stranger. 

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Top Image: NBC