The Time Traveler’s Wife – TV SHOW (2022)
Originally, I planned on taking some broad notes on the show for a comprehensive write-up. But no, I ended up having so much to say on every single episode, so… let’s break this down. We’ve got Steven Moffat as the writer and developer this time around, so wibbly-wobbly-timey-wimey stuff is to be expected.
Episode 1
“Time isn’t a problem for me.”
“Lucky you.”
As with all six episodes, numero uno begins in an interview format with Clare and Henry sitting in front of separate cameras. They both wax poetic about the nature of time travel and their romance, shifting into clips of Henry dropping out of the sky into random places, always naked. Instantly, I was interested in the high production value. The sci-fi elements of TTTW aren’t overly dramatic, but it’s nice to get a high-def look at them! And we also get consistent onscreen age notes of “Henry is X and Clare is X” or “Henry is X and X”, just like the book.
Every episode of this show begins with some version of Clare bringing clothes to the meadow and standing next to them, creating the book cover a la Twilight. It’s a nice touch that feels a little overdone by the sixth occurrence.
The show begins in earnest in the “present” day with Clare meeting Henry in the library for the first time (first time for him, 153rd time for her). At first I thought she went a little overboard on the details she proved she knew about him, but her cute excitement after finding him was nice. Then… she kept going.
In both the book and movie, Clare gives Henry a drastic overview of their relationship then pulls back and apologizes when she knows she’s overwhelming him. In the TV show, Clare pulls out all the big guns, declares herself as Henry’s wife, and acts possessively towards him despite the fact that, in this current year, he’s never seen her before.
The dialogue was good in this episode – as it is the whole show, really – but it’s still so weird to have scenes of adult Henry and young Clare. We have the shoe hitting him on the head (and a funny parallel of Henry getting hit by Clare’s shoe again fourteen years later) and Henry needing clothes, but at least this time the show is desperately trying to acknowledge the inherent weirdness and stamp it down where it stands. So that’s something, right?
Clare isn’t the only child this episode – we also get young Henry meeting old Henry for the first time in the museum. “Survivors are always the bad guys,” he warns his younger self, finishing up the conversation with “There are lots of time travelers.”
Entertainingly, the show uses its time-travelling well, making the episodes self-contained within themselves, such as Henry appearing in an alley before his date with Clare and stealing the flowers from the man whose clothes he also takes. When Clare asked if he was in a fight and Henry answered “Yeah, where do you think I got the flowers?” I laughed, not realizing he was serious!
While the TTTW movie focused on Henry pre-Clare being a bit sad and alone, the show tunes into the more honest book version: yeah, he’s sad and alone, but he’s also an asshole, as shown by him sleeping with Clare and not telling her he has a girlfriend!
Tensions rise here a lot more than they did in the book, and Clare is visited by an older Henry who tells her that current him is hurting more than he can vocalize and being his asshole self is how he tries to shield himself. He needs you to become me, Henry explains. I liked his line about how he’s formed himself around Clare just as much as Clare has formed herself around him, but then… then he has the delightful line “I get it. I’ve fucked him too,” to confirm we’re getting Henry time-traveling to sleep with himself! The convo between the two Henrys was lovely.
But none of this is the best part. In this episode, we’re introduced to a brand-new facet of Henry’s time-travelling that wasn’t in the book: “All of me time travels.” So his lost baby tooth appears in his apartment, his bathroom becomes covered in blood he hasn’t yet bled, and… oh man, that final scene! What a hell of a closing shot.
“There’s always gonna be days that you bleed,” Henry casually tells a worried Clare. But not today. Not yet.
Episode 2
“If I make the mistake of loving someone, I don’t know how many times I’m gonna have to lose them.”
Episode 2 opens with my favorite scene in the book: Henry time-travelling away from his mom’s death, only for his older self to put a coat around his own shoulders and warn him not to look. As the scene continues, Henry reappears dozens of times, always trapped in this same moment. The way the text on the screen overlaps, showing his many different ages… chills.
But then we have to ruin it with another scene of adult Henry and child Clare, and I’m trying to figure out if it’s better or worse to constantly intersperse these scenes with adult Henry and Clare having relationship arguments. Yeah, I KNOW it’s not grooming because Henry didn’t fall in love with a child… but Clare fell in love with an adult, you know? The show tries to lampshade this heavily, which is something, but the strangeness remains.
As with the previous episode, we have time-traveling elements that are self-contained within this one too, as well as discussions on the irreversibility of fate and how you can’t fight it no matter what. It’s a good thing Clare actually likes a version of Henry, because if she didn’t and the point of the book/movie/show was that it’ll happen anyway… wouldn’t like that as much.
But let’s get off of that point; we’re including another of my favorite scenes from the book – teenage Henry having sex with himself! It’s a hell of a way for his father to realize his son’s a time traveler, but I’m just happy this scene was included!
We also get more of current Henry training young Henry in the art of stealing and running away, skills he’ll need in his future travels. And… then we get a truly heartbreaking scene where young Henry sees his now-dead mom and runs to her. He frantically tries to tell her that something bad will happen, and current Henry saying the same words as his young self really hurts. I might’ve teared up a little.
The scene ends badly, with young Henry snapping at his mom and running off, and present Henry takes him to the bathroom to show him “all the time travelers” by looking in a mirror. This happens alongside present Henry showing his mom’s opera music to Clare, and the singing spreading out over every scene as the two Henry’s share their scars was gorgeous.
In the ending, Henry takes advantage of his time weirdness to give Clare the chance to ask his mom any question, resulting in a lovely scene where Henry gets something from it just as much as Clare. They’re starting to see each other for who they are, but will it last?
Episode 3
“Because I’m her fucking husband!”
Remember how I mentioned in my book review that Clare can be pretty passive in her own story? Nowhere is that more apparent than the beginning of this episode. We finally get a glimpse into her childhood, her family and Nell, and her first meeting with Henry from her POV. (Also a very heavy-handed title drop about how “This isn’t the story of the time traveler but the time traveler’s wife!”)
We have Clare doing nothing but waiting for Henry, centering her whole boring life around whenever he’ll next appear. Given that she’s six years old and obsessed with the naked adult man who appears only to her… gah, I really have to stop bringing this up, but the weirdness pervades every episode!
I knew the show would give more space to flesh out parts of the book, but I found it surprising and way too spoiler-y to show Clare hearing Henry calling for her, running out into the woods where her family is hunting, scream that they shot someone, and see blood on the snow with no one near it. Isn’t it a little much to make this scene so obviously the one where Henry will one day die?
But don’t worry, we’re quickly moving on from that point for… more gross age weirdness! When Clare is 16, she dresses up for 32-year-old Henry and hides his clothes from him, making him cover himself with the box (because this show will give us so much of Theo James’ butt and never a frontal shot). Did the showrunners think making Clare a creep would offset the childhood grossness?
Anyway, we’re back onto book scenes, with Clare not being interested in boys and getting noticed by her friends for it. Since Henry lied to young Clare and told her they wouldn’t get married, she decides to flirt with a boy her age… only for her to run through the woods in a torn dress, screaming for Henry right before he vanishes. Ouch.
I remembered this scene from the book; who doesn’t? 16-year-old Clare tells Henry that she wants him to kill someone for her and reveals bruises and cigarette burns on her breast. She tells Henry that she wasn’t raped, and ultimately decides that she doesn’t want to kill the guy but have Henry beat him up and then humiliate him in front of her friends. I was expecting this.
In the TV show lead-up, we have teenage Clare behaving badly, driving recklessly with Henry in the car and demanding that he tell her about the future, because why should she be afraid when she knows she won’t die today?
Ugh, not only is it wildly unsafe for Clare to be speeding against traffic (as Henry said, she could’ve killed a family!), but Henry has car trauma because of his mom’s death! I know Clare doesn’t know this by this point, but… ugh.
But then we get the scene of Clare showing Henry her bruises and burns, and she insists that they can’t kill her attacker and that he didn’t rape her. And then… we’re interrupted by modern Clare saying “of course he raped me.”
I… what?
This wasn’t in the book! Yeah, I GUESS you can assume Clare was raped if you read between the lines of this scene, but my God, why was this included?? I kind of get Clare finding comfort in pretending it didn’t happen when she’s with Henry, but I still can’t believe the showrunners thought this was a scene we needed!
The one good thing in this episode comes from Henry yelling “I’m her fucking husband” to Clare’s attacker in the heat of the moment, revealing to Clare that he lied to her all those years ago, but that’s it. The episode ends with Clare calling any girls who were abused by boys to come and write what was done by them on her attacker’s tied-down body, which… I don’t know, I guess it makes more sense than the “everyone clapped” scene from the book, right?
Episode 4
“Don’t blame me, he’s the one not paying attention.”
Let’s forget about the darkness of the last episode, shall we? It’s not like the show will be bringing it up again! This episode is arguably the best of the series (well, this and the final one), as I’m just a sucker for anything with the two Henrys interacting.
Here, we have Henry visiting Clare’s roommates, Gomez and Charisse, for dinner, and… Gomez is way more of a jerk this time around, actively negging Henry at every angle. Surely adding a bonus older Henry to the mix will ease the tension, right?
We get into more flashbacks at this point, specifically Clare and Henry’s last meeting in the meadow… aka her 18th birthday. Yay, great. In the book, I don’t think Henry explicitly told Clare that she’ll be the one to find him in two years, making it more of a surprise when she finds him in the library, but it’s more explicitly stated here.
As we’ve come to expect, Clare presses Henry to sleep with her before losing him for two years. And in the middle of this scene, when Henry says she should sleep with someone else, Clare’s eyes go distant… and then we get a sudden terrifying rape flashback from the last episode! Because goddamn, WHO decided we needed that?? We can’t just read it from Clare’s expression?
Anyhow, the show had the nerve to try and pull one over on me, making me hope that this scene would only be Henry and Clare’s first kiss (thankfully removing the parts of the book where they’ve been kissing since she was 16) and subvert our expectations… but nope!
I was surprised (and a little impressed) that Henry outright called his and Clare’s relationship “grooming.” As I mentioned earlier, the lampshading is something, but it’s fighting for its life against the inherent weirdness! We still get a Clare/Henry sex scene, but at least Henry does a cute little proposal, so that’s something, right?
But let’s jump between time frames again. The other flashback series happening concurrently with the meadow and dinner party scenes has Clare sleeping with Gomez and betraying Charisse, so that’s fun. At least the show’s acknowledging the betrayal more than the book did! And in Gomez’s scene, we have young Henry being a jerk to Ingrid, resulting in Gomez standing up for her, which was actually nice. I’m still side-eying him for sleeping with a 19-year-old when he’s 31, but it’s not like TTTW has ever cared about weird age stuff!
(Also, this was the part where I made the note “I really hope we’re getting Henry beating up a homophobe,” as that was his bonding scene with Gomez in the TTTW movie. But alas, all we get is… a lot more gay stuff. Guess I can’t complain!)
A sprinkle of sapphicism never hurt anyone! I was pleasantly surprised by the addition of Clare not only sleeping with Gomez, but with Charisse as well in her time missing Henry! Yeah, I get that this wasn’t great for Clare, as she just wants one specific person, but this development made her situation with Gomez a lot less bad! Now neither Gomez nor Charisse can complain, since they’ve both slept with Clare! (But it means you didn’t have a leg to stand on when you yelled at Henry about Ingrid, Clare!)
Now, with all that past shit out of the way, let’s get back to the dinner party! This is probably my favorite episode of the show (although the last five minutes of episode 6 were lovely), as we get older Henry coming straight from the meadow to crash young Henry and Clare’s “meet the friends” dinner! You gotta love older Henry saying he can’t remember how this evening went and telling Clare, “Don’t blame me, he’s the one not paying attention.” It’s such a cool way for time travel to work – and 41-year-old Henry and Clare being couple-y in front of 28-year-old Henry is genuinely funny, too!
(And this is the part where I was wondering if we’d go full Mickey 17… but unfortunately we’d already exceeded the sex limit for this episode.)
Very nicely, we have older Henry calling Gomez his best friend, much to young Henry’s chagrin, and there’s the arrival of a new face: Ingrid, who knows all about Henry’s time travelling! So that’s a fun development; I just love everyone knowing about supernatural elements or discovering them along the way.
Henry playing off of himself is such a delightful dynamic, even if I’m spending the whole scene wondering why no one could get him clothes that aren’t a quilt. But we have quite a fun scene (with the obligatory time travel stock tips), right up until Ingrid asks older Henry if she’s alive in his time. He dodges the question with grace, making me wonder why he couldn’t just say “no, you’re still alive,” but he clearly knows he can’t outright lie to her. “Not very long” was one hell of a line, but overall I was genuinely impressed by how well the show handled Henry and Ingrid – especially after handling Clare’s assault so poorly in the last episode.
But as Clare misses old Henry and asks young Henry if she’ll ever see “him” again, it makes the audience wonder if Ingrid wasn’t wrong when she said Clare didn’t love current Henry. How much does she really care for the present one?
We get a lovely ending, however, with Clare embracing Henry and giving him what older Henry left her in the meadow – “mercy.”
Episode 5
“There is exactly one of me in the world and I’m coming second.”
Finally, we have Clare sketching Henry! In a weird naked potrait that’s gonna come up a lot more in this episode than you’d think. At least Gomez and Henry are getting along, right? Oh, nope, of course not. But despite their rocky beginning, I genuinely liked their phone convo and the two of them trying to get along, hard as it may be!
(Side note: Henry’s line to Clare on the way to meet the family about how he doesn’t drive because he doesn’t want to become “a big splat with a surprised-looking face in the middle”… has he already seen his future role in The Monkey?)
While the last dinner party episode was (mostly) a romp, we’re at the “meet the parents (and siblings)” episode, so… ugh, get ready for the awkwardness! Henry making jokes that don’t land made me want to crawl in a hole and stay there for the next 40 minutes.
But aside from the family drama, Henry has other issues to face when visiting Clare’s home for the first time… specifically, competing with a version of himself who doesn’t yet exist. Clare very openly preferring future Henry over current Henry and drawing a line in the sand between them felt… rude? Inconsiderate? Hell, I don’t even know how to categorize this, it’s just – like everything else in this show – weird!
Remember how Clare was a teenage creep to Henry when she was 16? Well, you’ll surely be glad to know that we get even more of that vibe from Clare’s younger sister, Alicia! Because with everything else going on, surely Henry won’t object to a teenage girl literally throwing herself at him and “pranking” him about being his future wife, right? Nothing gross and creepy going on here!
Well, let’s get away from the family nonsense and jump into the most interesting part of this show – the time traveling itself! You couldn’t have picked a worse time, could you Henry?
I was pleased that this episode was focused on Henry and Gomez’s time-defying, strangely built friendship. Henry getting the shit kicked out of him (in Theo James’ words from the BTS) and being saved by Gomez is a great scene (even though I was screaming to RUN and not let the bikers catch up to him). Something about Henry lying on the pavement, looking up at Gomez through the blood, and managing a laugh scratches a specific itch.
Luckily, the male bonding doesn’t end there, and we’re treated to Henry and Gomez having drinks. Despite the Gomez actor being partly Hispanic, at least he’s saying he has some Polish ancestry, making his name make sense! But this is where my least favorite aspect of the TTTW book came into play: Gomez unashamedly telling Henry that he’s been in love with Clare for MANY years. I mean, I guess it’s nice for Gomez to be this open with Henry, but this plot point pisses me off! Poor Charisse!
Overall, my favorite part of this scene was when Gomez told Henry he lied to the biker gang about the cameras. The look on Henry’s face when he realizes he likes Gomez despite himself, good shit!
And oop, Henry’s back in the present, bloody and bruised, with Clare’s family waiting for him downstairs! His “Go easy on me” line to Clare was vulnerable and tender, but… dude, maybe you should’ve given your girlfriend ANY information about your current state??
Thank God Clare had Alicia on her side when she was trying to excuse Henry, but man oh man was it hilariously bad timing for Clare to say they were in a fight, only for Henry to emerge looking terrible! Gah, this was one of the most painful scenes of the entire show. Clare frantically backtracking and trying not to look like a domestic abuser, Henry misstepping constantly because he doesn’t know what story Clare told everyone… good lord, guys, couldn’t you have worked something out upstairs?
Clare’s family dysfunction finally snaps into effect, ending with Clare storming out of the dining room and running into the forest, searching for her preferred version of Henry. I get her reasoning, but… this is so damn rough for current Henry!
It’s well set up for Alicia to be a hairdresser so she can give Henry the chop, even if it feels odd for Henry to get his haircut only because he wants to better resemble Clare’s favorite Henry. But I did like Clare’s blurted “Yes” to Henry’s proposal of two years ago. It made for a fun time-bending twist: older Henry thought he never got around to actually proposing because Clare said yes to him when he was 28, not yet knowing that he’d ask her the question at 41.
Ultimately, this episode did a fantastic job at illuminating the disconnect between Henry and Clare in relation to their criss-crossed timelines. For Clare, the days in the meadow are over, but for Henry, they’ve not yet begun.
Episode 6
“Happiness is suddenly having an opinion about a future.”
Our final episode of season 1 (and the series as a whole, ouch) begins with young Clare searching for Henry in the meadow. She finds him sitting against the rock, the shoes she left him untouched. He’s not only significantly older than she’s ever seen him – to a reader of the book, he’s likely slated to die very soon. And we know his feet are gone, too!
But that’s not the worst of it. Hearing music from the garden, Henry reminisces to Clare; he’s at the end of his life and he’s remembering the wedding she has to look forward to. Again, ouch.
Oops, that’s a lot of feels early on. Let’s jump back to the day Henry’s dad discovered he was a time traveler – that is, the day he walked in on Henry giving himself a blowjob! Because wow, the universe is conspiring against him!
Because of his mom’s death, Henry and his dad have a strained relationship, one not aided by Henry’s ability to see his mom at different points across the years. God, Henry being able to see everything from the first look to the proposal… my heart.
But ugh, the time-traveling angst never lets up. When Henry time-travelled to the future to see Clare watching their wedding video in tears and wasn’t able to even say her name before vanishing, I said “oh my god” out loud. Why not give the wedding episode the most pain, right?
Last episode, Henry met Clare’s family, so now it’s time for Clare to meet Henry’s dad! She got her “because he’s good in bed” line from the book, AND his dad referenced his teenage escapades, so we’re winning all around!
(But now I’m missing Kimy; wish she could’ve made it in here!)
In Henry’s next time voyage, he appears in a house where the furniture is all wrapped up, causing me to panic that he was seeing his house after his death. I was begging Henry to go find Clare if this was the case, but luckily enough I was wrong – this was the house before they moved in, not after!
But still, the multiple times Henry saw future Clare in pain and didn’t reach out to her… dude, do you not get that she won’t see you again after a future point??
Switching back into the modern day, Henry is looking for drugs to keep him in place for his wedding, leading to… Ben! I was originally disappointed that he wouldn’t show up in the final episode, only for my expectations to be shattered! Hey, if Henry’s gonna go drug crawling, at least he’s going to a friend for it, right?
I really liked Gomez and Ben crossing paths here – protective Gomez is so dang sweet. This is what I wanted from any TTTW adaptation: friendship focus!
Henry continues to slip precariously through time in terrifying bursts, jumping from his and Clare’s vasectomy argument to Henry about to die to a vision of who is likely Alba…to his own funeral. Henry saying “Dad” right before vanishing, ouch. You have to love the chaos of this episode!
The realization, though, that Clare crying over her box wasn’t because of Henry’s death, it was because the box held her pregnancy tests from her past miscarriages, agh. And then we get the two Henrys interacting again, this time to introduce the concept of time-traveling fetuses! Because why not, right?
And then future Henry tells current Henry, “You couldn’t even make it to your own wedding” before blipping away. When Clare sees current Henry, she realizes it’s “shoe polish day,” revealing that it’ll be quite some time before Henry actually marries Clare!
Ben, Gomez, and Henry’s dad all working together to get Henry to his wedding is a great plot point, especially when they realize they’ve wound up with the wrong Henry! The shoe polish reveal was great, and the simple line of Henry reassuring Ben that he’ll still be alive in the present made my day!
And oof, Henry asking his dad if getting married when there’s upcoming pain is worth it, but asking for Clare and not himself… ouch. At least they have a good relationship now!
The double-layered wedding was wonderfully fun, with future Clare and present Henry watching present Clare and future Henry getting married through the video, especially with future Henry flipping off his past self! And we’re given a new bout of pain with Clare telling Henry she misses this version of him, the younger one, as present Clare tells older Henry that she missed this him.
And then we get my favorite scene of the whole damn show that almost brought me to tears: “Get Me to the Church on Time!” Oh man… Henry and Clare singing it at their wedding, Henry and Clare singing it while watching the video, Clare singing it alone, old Henry and child Clare singing it in the meadow… how gorgeous.
The very last scene of the show (slipped in at the beginning of the end credits) has future Clare realizing that she has a chance to have a baby with current Henry, just like the book. And… that’s it! Six episodes, and we’ll never see anyone here again! Oh, how I wish this show got a second season. Maybe even a third one; they sure were spreading this out!
Overall, I really did like the TTTW show, despite its weirdness in so many scenes. The time-traveling elements and friendships were great, and I can’t stop staring at Theo James. But I found two glaring issues in their characters. The first came from Henry’s arc. In episode 1, older Henry explains to Clare that the younger asshole Henry is him without Clare, and he needs her to become a better person. But this arc is never fully explored. Despite showing brief vulnerability to Clare, all Henry does is chase after her approval, trying to become the version of himself he knows she truly wants. This reflects badly on Clare, always openly preferring a different side of him, and it taints their entire relationship.
On Clare’s end, the problem is much the same as the book: she’s very passive and exists only to marry Henry. The show gives her a flicker of personal wants in the final episode when she’s trying to have a baby, but this is a desire that never came up in the earlier episodes, not even with Clare wistfully looking at someone else’s child.
And then there’s Alba! A brief moment in the first episode and a vague scene in the last one are all we get of her. Despite the fact that Henry and Clare are clearly making their videotapes for her, this knowledge is only available to those who’ve read the book (or seen the movie, really). It’s one of many disappointing cliffhangers.
While it would’ve been lovely to see more of this show – there was so much more content to explore – one can’t help but wonder if the showrunners were over-ambitious. Each episode is rather long and focused on small plot points, dragging out the first part of TTTW with emotional talks on time and romance. If the episodes had been condensed and extended to ten or twelve episodes, could TTTW have been made into a miniseries?
The collection of dangling threads from the show – the videotapes, Alba’s existence, Henry’s feet, Henry’s looming death, Clare’s pregnancy – leaves behind an unsatisfying mess. It’s a real shame to have lost TTTW so early on, but at least the story endured for decades after its publication. Niffenegger keeps hinting at her future Alba sequel, so we’ll see if that ever comes into fruition! Maybe, with over twenty years between the original book and its follow-up, we’ll find something truly special. I’m looking forward to a TTTW revival!
