As the second episode of The Timer Traveler’s Wife begins, Clare (Rose Leslie) talks about how Henry can go anywhere in time. Although he usually travels in his lifetime, he sometimes travels outside of it. Henry DeTamble (Theo James) says he can’t help it or control it because time traveling just happens to him. It is fine sometimes and dangerous other times. The danger isn’t the worst. Instead, Henry says Christmas is the worst. We jump back in time to when Henry (Jason David) is eight. His mother, Annette (Kate Siegel), puts his coat on while reminding him that they have to pick daddy up from the airport for Christmas. Clare reveals that Henry continues returning to the same days although he can’t help it. She always knows when he comes back from that Christmas day.

Henry at several ages is shown while Annette drives young Henry to the airport. An older Henry describes it as being like gravity. Several of them watch as the car is rear-ended. Once the car is forced into the trunk in front of it, a piece of metal comes through the windshield and kills Annette. Young Henry travels back in time and watches it happen from nearby. Older Henry comes over to cover him up and comfort him. Older Henry urges him not to look when he goes back, but he does anyway. Later, Henry plays checkers with a young Clare (Everleigh McDonell) who asks whether he has a mom and dad. He says they’re great. His mom was a singer while his dad plays the violin. When she asks why his mom stopped, Henry corrects himself by saying his mom is a singer.

Clare wonders why he is sad now. Henry claims happy people are all the same while sad people are all different. If you want to know someone, you should find out why they’re sad. He promises to tell her why he is sad when a green man gives her banana coffee on the shores of Lake Como. Once he beats her at checkers, she calls him an a-hole. A 20-year-old Clare calls a 28-year-old Henry an a-hole on the train too. They argue whether Clare is his girlfriend or not, but Henry doesn’t trust his older self who has been hanging around with a young Clare in the woods. He thinks they should go for lunch before they get drunk and have sex again.

He claims you can’t change the future. Clare asks whether he has tried to fight it by going his own way. He has tried. Clare wants to get off the train because she doesn’t go where she is told. After waiting for him since she was 6 years old, she found out that she doesn’t like him. They continue arguing as Clare claims she kissed a frog and it stayed a frog. He follows her off the train. She can’t understand why he doesn’t fight back, but Henry insists it is impossible. He says they were always going to get off at this stop anyway. That is how it works. Whatever she decides to do is what she was going to do anyway. She finds out where they’re supposed to have lunch before picking a different café because she wants to change the future. A man in green gives her a banana latte even though she didn’t order it.

She notices a Lake Como mural and says never mind. Henry asks why the man is green. He says he is a children’s entertainer and has a gig later today. Henry tells Clare she didn’t order a banana latte. She says it doesn’t matter because it is inevitable. They agree that she has been horrible to him. She asks if he is still there because time travel tells him so. Henry reveals that most of what it tells him is terrifying. Frightening stuff is coming. He knows he is going to be bleeding and won’t survive it one day. One unfrightening thing that time travel taught him is that he’ll be married to a phenomenal redhead who hates him. Clare does hate him although it is the good kind of hate.

She goes on to explain it is the kind where she wants to have him right on the table to shut his stupid mouth. Clare can’t help herself since her libido formed around him and she grew up fantasizing about him. He is the living personification of everything she wants and everything he personally conditioned her to want. The only problem is that he is not someone else. When Henry asks who she wants him to be, she thinks about an older Henry. He knows she wants the guy who hung around her childhood. He can’t be that guy because she is doing to turn him into that. It is just too complicated for him.

He suggests they go back to plan A of getting drunk and having sex. Clare wants to know what makes him sad. She needs to understand him so she asks why his mother stopped singing. Clare pleads with him to introduce her to his mother who was a singer. He reveals that her name was Annette Lyn Robinson. Clare knows her because her parents love her, but she also suspects she is dead. She knows that Annette was with her son when she was killed. Henry finishes her sentence by saying she was decapitated. Clare begins holding his hand. Henry reminds her that she died when he is eight although he is a time traveler. While there are plenty of crappy things about time travel, it allows him to see his dead mother. Clare asks whether his parents knew about the time traveling.

They knew something because he kept disappearing from school and leaving his clothes behind. His school reports were mostly about cutting classes and nudity. His dad found out what was going on when he was 16. Richard DeTabmble (Josh Stamberg) walks in on his son while he is pleasing his son. Henry says he isn’t gay, but he thinks anyone would do it. As for his mom, she never found out and he didn’t tell her because it was too complicated. Clare claims it isn’t that complicated if you start at the beginning. We see Annette and Richard after a performance while she is 30 and he is 33. 24-year-old Henry tells her that Richard is the new violinist. He says lust is someone knocking at the door to be born.

Richard proposes to her about a year later. 25-year-old Henry watches them celebrate after she says yes. Henry wants to take Clare for a walk. When Annette is 33 and Richard is 36, they walk with a 1-year-old Henry. Henry approaches them. Clare asks about knowing his parents. He explains that they started recognizing some guy who walked past them a bunch of times, but they didn’t know who it was. Although he thinks it is random, he sees the people who matter to him more often. He isn’t sure why. Henry bends down to say hello to little Henry. Annette and Richard notice the scar on his head so he says it happened due to a stupid accident. 8-year-old Henry has a bandage on his head at his mother’s funeral.

28-year-old Henry watches from a distance. Others are there as well and one shows up in the middle of the service. Henry and Clare get hotdogs while they discuss Henry talking to the others. Henry explains that you get used to having them around. He reminds her that another time traveler trained him, but he never said who it was. In a flashback, 8-year-old Henry helps 28-year-old Henry steal a man’s wallet. Clare learns he trained himself although Henry believes he led himself astray. Young Henry wants to talk about something personal, but 28-year-old Henry wants to take the wallets back to lost property and steal more. He wants to show young Henry how to steal money because he’ll be naked and penniless when he time travels.

Henry says he likes art because people look at it. While they’re doing that, he looks at people to find out where they’re keeping their wallets. While Henry teaches him, young Henry says his mother is dead. Older Henry keeps ignoring him and asking whether he is ready to try to steal a wallet. Young Henry asks whether all the other time travelers are a-holes like him. He tells young Henry that he knows everything he is going to say and none of it matters. However, he needs to listen to all of the things he is telling him. When 8-year-old Henry asks why he is being mean to him, older Henry says he is wrong about his mom being dead. Once they sit down, he tells young Henry that it is June of 1988 so his mother should still be alive.

Although he can’t save her, she isn’t dead yet. When you’re a time traveler, nobody is continuously dead. He explains that life and death will be on auto-shuffle from here on out. He knows young Henry wants to go try to save his mom by telling her something that might work, but it never works. He tells Clare that it never works. She asks nicely for him to tell her. She wants to know him. Henry insists you can’t change anything and can’t save anyone. He tells young Henry the same thing. He says he can prove it because he knows a little piece of his future. Young Henry will get out of his chair and run in that direction in a little under a minute. Although Young Henry doesn’t know why he’d do that, Henry says he will and it’ll be his choice.

They argue about it briefly before young Henry is told it isn’t his fault. Young Henry sometimes thinks his friend was there when his mother died since he remembers him putting a blanket around him. When Young Henry sees his mother nearby, he calls to her and immediately runs toward her. She gets mad when she sees him because he is supposed to be in school. Older Henry repeats young Henry as he tries to get his mother to listen to him, but she doesn’t. Henry tells Clare that she thought he was just skipping school. She didn’t realize he was trying to bring her back from the dead. Annette complains about her son skipping school since this is the 10th time and it could be very dangerous.

Henry tells his mom that he is going to tell her the truth so she really needs to believe him. When he tells her that he is a time traveler, she gets upset and screams at him. Henry tells her he hates her before he runs away. While hiding, he hears his mother calling his dad to tell him what happened. Older Henry approaches him. Outside of the museum, Annette gets a call learning Henry is in school. Older Henry believes she will give him crap about this later tonight, but he won’t know what she is talking about. Young Henry contemplates walking up to her to prove he is in two places at once. Henry tells him that something will stop him no matter what. In the present, Henry tells Clare they’re going to his workplace since it is closed on Sunday and they can sneak in.

He thought she might like to meet his mom because she keeps asking about her. In the past, Henry tells his younger self that today is the day to meet the other time travelers. While they go to meet with them, Clare and Henry arrive at the library. Henry often wonders whether a future version of himself got stuck in the past and ended up in any of the books. He shows her the box of memories of his mother that he has been hiding from himself. He can’t keep this stuff at home because he’ll end up fixating on the past and go back there. Clare suggests it isn’t all bad since he gets to see his mom again, but Henry admits it depends on what you see. Although his father is still around, they don’t talk much.

He gives her a tape so she can listen to his mother sing. In the past, Henry takes younger Henry to the bathroom to show him why he doesn’t like him. He keeps telling him he knows why as young Henry begins crying. While his mother sings, Henry shows young Henry the birthmark on his foot just like the one he has. Clare says it is beautiful. Henry reveals his mom was dead a week later. He says it is beautiful, but beauty isn’t comfort. Henry turns off the recording as his mom begins talking because he has never listened to it before. He explains that old keepsakes are bear traps. They get him thinking about his mom and he has to go there to see her die again. He is worried he is going to time travel now.

Henry promises he isn’t an a-hole. The opposite is caring and that opens a hole at his feet that he falls into. If he makes the mistake of loving someone, he doesn’t know how many times he’ll have to lose them. When his mom performed, she always did a Q&A with the audience. He wasn’t there that night and never heard the tape so it might be an opportunity for Clare to meet his mom. Clare isn’t sure meeting her and listening to her on a tape are the same. Henry questions what she would ask Annette if she could. Clare would ask how people ever get together.

When he presses the play button, his mom begins talking to Clare Abshire. She says a gentleman stopped her early and asked her a question from Clare. She agreed to answer it for him later. Annette repeats Clare’s question. Henry explains that he can hear her. He tells her how it happened before asking if she wants to hear his mom’s answer. Annette doesn’t know why he asked her although she just finished singing Madame Butterfly which is about doomed love. That got her thinking that all love is doomed. She goes on to say couples get together for a while. It is better to be happy for a brief while even if you know you’re going to lose it than to be okay your whole life. Clare and Henry begin crying.

 

The Time Traveler’s Wife Review

It has taken some time for The Time Traveler’s Wife to really develop and build a rapport with the main characters. The series seemed to hit a turning point once Henry and Clare reached the library and it took on an emotional tone. Whether there is any real chemistry between Henry and Clare remains to be seen since they’ve mostly been arguing so far. The humorous aspects of the show fall flat for me personally as I haven’t laughed once at any of the comedic dialogue.

There are still some creepy scenes especially seeing two 16-year-olds being involved in fellatio. That was unnecessary considering how much criticism the show has already received for potential links to grooming. Still, the episode got a lot better toward the end. Furthermore, the young actors and actresses including Jason David and Everleigh McDonell have been great so far. Surprisingly, the younger performers often seem more authentic and comfortable than their adult counterparts.

That might have something to do with having to fake the accents. The second episode scores a 6.5 out of 10. Recaps of The Time Traveler’s Wife can be found on Reel Mockery here. Find out how to support our work by clicking on this link.