As the third episode of The Time Traveler’s Wife begins, young Clare Abshire (Everleigh McDonell) hears something nearby leading her to believe it is her brother Mark. Once Henry (Theo James) reveals his identity, Clare runs inside to get him some clothes. She asks him about dinosaurs. An older Clare (Rose Leslie) admits she wanted to know everything about Henry. Young Clare learns that Henry doesn’t have kids in the future although he has a wife named Clare. Older Clare suggests absence comes into your life with someone so bright. Henry tells young Clare when he’ll see her again before he disappears. Once he is gone, she patiently waits for Henry to return and puts his clothes in a box that she hides under a rock. Each day, she removes a page from the calendar to count down her next meeting with Henry.

She gets a notebook from her brother before finally meeting with Henry again. Clare nearly falls asleep before 31-year-old Henry arrives and convinces her to go inside for food. While Henry eats, he gives her dates when they’re going to meet. Clare believes he looks younger this time. Older Clare says there seemed like there were a lot of Henrys a first. The older Henry with gray hair was like a father because he made her do her homework. At 10, Clare (Caitlin Shorey) asks Henry whether he believes in God, but he says definitely not. He doesn’t like his work. Clare says there is a sad Henry too. That Henry tells Clare how he is all mixed up while using a deck of cards to explain it. Clare suggests it didn’t matter since they were all the same Henry just shuffled.

When Clare is 12, she tells Henry he can come inside. He claims he isn’t allowed to meet her family until 2008. She figures out she’d be 20 in 2008. She questions whether it is funny for him for her to be called Clare and his wife to be named Clare. He admits it can be funny at times. Older Clare says there is never a game until you’ve shuffled the deck. Then, you can never know what is coming next. When Clare is 13, she wakes up in the middle of the night because Henry is screaming her name outside. She says she didn’t hear the gunshots and only heard Henry. She runs outside where Mark points a shotgun at her before asking what she is doing. Mark (Peter Graham) and Philip (Michael Park) remind her to never come out here when they’re hunting. They insist that nobody shouted her name.

Philip believes she was just dreaming. Clare begins running and screaming Henry’s name. She finds a pool of blood and suggests her father has shot someone, but Philip doesn’t see anyone. When she looks again, the blood is gone. Once she meets with Henry, he argues that she probably imagined it. She asks if he is even a bit worried, but Henry changes the subject to their chess game. Clare wonders if it was an older Henry out there dying in the field. Henry admits it could’ve been. Henry warns her that she doesn’t want to know what is coming because it is a brick wall. Clare asks if his wife worries about him like she does. He says she does worry about him. Clare has a stupid idea sometimes about who Henry is married to. She goes on to say she thinks he is married to her.

Older Clare admits she pities him now in that situation. She wonders what a decision man would say to the woman he loves. Henry tells her that he knows her family, but they’re not married in the future. He goes on to say he can’t tell her anything else. Clare stops him to say it is okay. It seems she begins crying. Older Clare thinks a decent man would lie. There are few things more harmful than the lies of a decent man. She didn’t think of that at the time. Once Henry returns, he finds that the box is empty so he doesn’t have any clothes to wear. She was living in a fairy tale and a witch must come in every fairy tale. A 16-year-old Clare approaches a naked Henry who tries to cover himself with the box. He has seen her at 16, but not look like that. Clare says the clothes belonged to her dad so she had to return them at some point.

She scattered the clothes around. Henry doesn’t want her to see him naked because there are rules. You can’t see someone naked when you start enjoying it. She offers to play checkers and give him a piece of clothing every time of takes a piece. Clare gets mad and says he has never played that well before. Henry has been taking it easy on her. He offers her another game. She has a different idea and begins moving closer to him for a kiss. Henry has other ideas and takes her for ice cream. While eating, Clare sees people she knows nearby. Later, Henry time travels again and finds a note from Clare saying she is at a party. At the party, Jason (Spencer House) compliments her dress which she says isn’t for his benefit. Henry tries the sandwich and throws it to the side while Clare looks at the pool of men with her female friends.

While the others stay and look at the men, Clare walks away and sits on the bed. The others don’t know she is being deviant. They ask her about the old guy she was having ice cream with. Clare tells the girls that Henry is just someone she knows and she isn’t seeing him. She hasn’t decided who she is seeing yet. Clare decides to go dip her toe in the pool while Henry brushes off the sandwich to give it another chance. After watching one of the boys near the pool, Clare runs back to Henry while screaming his name. Before she can reach him, he disappears. He returns later and learns that Clare wants to go for a drive since she passed her driving test. She seems distraught about something although she won’t tell Henry anything. While she speeds down the road, she tries to get Henry to tell her where the younger version of himself lives.

She demands to know why she can’t see a younger Henry. When he asks what is the matter with her, Clare stops the car abruptly and says it is about time he asked. After they stop and get out of the car, Clare notices that his hands are bleeding. He explains it was self-inflicted from his fingernails. He is a nervous passenger because he was in a car accident. Henry gets mad while telling her that she could’ve killed an entire family. He tells her to shut up and listen. Henry insists everything is still her decision and she isn’t running on tracks. He again tells her that they’re not together in the future. She says fine. Henry knows something happens so he asks whether she wants to talk about it. She asks if he has ever been arrested. Henry explains that he does get arrested since he shows up naked and steals things, but he usually disappears from the back of a police car.

She tells him about the boy from her school named Jason who she wants Henry to kill. Once Henry realizes she is serious, he asks why. Moments later, Isabelle (Shawna Hamic) gets a call for Henry at the library and calls him the new guy. Henry tells his younger self that he needs to have an alibi for eight and 10 tonight. 24-year-old Henry jokingly asks whether he is going to kill someone until he starts believing it is real. They curse one another before the call ends. Henry gets back in the car to ask Clare what Jason did, but she doesn’t want to talk about it. She just wants him to accept that Jason totally deserves this. Henry says okay. Older Clare wonders how you know it is him. Henry tells her that she shouldn’t come since she would need an alibi too. Older Clare believes you know when he is ready to kill for you. In the past, she tells Henry that she wants to watch.

She makes him retrieve her father’s gun from the glovebox. Clare still won’t say what he did although she calls him an a-hole. They arrive at his place and see no cars in the driveway. Clare checked so she knows he is home alone. Jason hears someone banging on the door. When he answers the door, Henry tells him he is going to get into the trunk of the car behind him before pointing the gun at his face. Jason begins urinating on himself as Henry complains that he is splashing him. He gets Jason in the trunk seconds later. Once they drive away, they notice that Jason is breathing funny. Clare asks if Henry got his inhaler since he is asthmatic, but Henry knew something about that. She makes him go back inside the house to Jason’s inhaler before they drive away again.

Once Clare stops, she says they’re not going to kill him. Instead, she wants Henry to hurt him while she watches. Henry begins laughing because they just got his inhaler and he is starting to believe they should give him a pillow back there. Clare asks if he thinks it is a joke and if he wants to know what Jason did. After Henry says he does, Clare gets out of the car, stands in front of the headlights, and takes off her shirt allowing Henry to see the bruises on her body and arms. She explains that Jason took her to a place people go in his car. He got angry while claiming it wasn’t fair for Clare to change her mind, but she never said she would. Clare shows him the cigarette burns Jason put on her breast. Henry wants her to go home, but she doesn’t want this to be about how angry Henry is. She is adamant that they’re only going to hurt Jason because he didn’t rape her.

An older Clare admits he raped her. She never told Henry the truth since that would make it more true and she didn’t want it to be. Henry goes to the store to buy a bunch of duct tape and other items. She says you don’t admit that a monster was inside of you when you’re talking to the man it should’ve been. Since Henry never knew the truth, Clare could make it not true when she was with him. He has been dead for such a long time now. Henry tapes Jason to a tree while Claire holds him at gunpoint. Then, they try to decide what they want to do to him. After punching him, Henry asks Jason how he could do that to Clare. Jason asks Clare whether she told him the truth and showed him her phone. Jason says they went out and had fun. She texted him the same night and the next morning.

He claims she thanked him for a great night. Clare admits she deleted the text. Jason didn’t and his phone is in his robe pocket. He urges Henry to read them to see how he feels after. Clare confesses she sent the text because she was frightened and didn’t want him to be angry at her. She wanted to make it normal in her head. Jason tries to tell Henry that she lied about the bruises and burns. Henry yells that he doesn’t like that and never has. He knows because he is her husband. Henry begins coughing so he realizes he is going to disappear. He quickly attacks Jason again, tells Clare he loves her, and gives her the market since he thinks she is going to need it. He tells Clare he loves her before he disappears. Clare says she didn’t want Jason to die of an asthma attack while on her watch.

She didn’t want to be alone with him either so she called her friends. She called every girl she knew and asked them to come over. 32-year-old Henry sees the market in his current house. 24-year-old Clare joins him to ask where he went. He always wondered why she kept the pen and asks what she did with it. She only had one rule that you had to be hurt by a boy. While she waited for them to come, she wrote the whole story of what had happened with Jason that night on Jason and invited all the girls to add stories of their own. They were there for a long time with Jason becoming Clare’s first sculpture. That night, she learned that night is sometimes revenge. She only saw Henry one more time in their clearing when she was 18, but that is another story. Two years after that, she met him for the first time in the library. She admits he was an a-hole.

 

The Time Traveler’s Wife Review

This was another competent episode of The Time Traveler’s Wife with several memorable scenes. Once you’ve gotten over the weirdness of Henry meeting his wife at a very young age and a few other questionable things, the show can indeed be thoroughly enjoyable. The second episode was sadder, but the third episode had emotional moments of its own with Clare being abused.

Those last scenes with Clare telling Henry what happened will likely hit home for many. Henry’s abrupt revelation that he is indeed married to Clare was surprisingly effective. My biggest complaint with this episode was the decision to use Rose Leslie to portray a 16-year-old Clare. Although she did fine, she just didn’t seem like an authentic 16-year-old to me. Using a younger actress would’ve been a good idea.

Regardless, The Time Traveler’s Wife is hitting its stride and developing into an emotional drama. I am interested in seeing how the show will pull on our heartstrings next. This episode scores a 7 out of 10. Recaps of The Time Traveler’s Wife can be found on Reel Mockery here. Learn how to support the Reel Mockery team at this link.