The Time Traveler’s Wife Episode 5 Introduces Henry to the Family

The following contains spoilers from Episode 5 of The Time Traveler’s Wife (adapted by Steven Moffat and directed by David Nutter)

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The Time Traveler’s Wife Episode 5 begins with Gomez (Desmin Borges) and Henry (Theo James) in the aftermath of last episode’s disastrous dinner party. They butted heads from the get-go, but Future Henry said that Gomez will become one of Henry’s closest friends. They are at a bar to see if there’s truth to what Future Henry had said, but things go south fairly quickly. Henry says the only thing they have in common is that they both want to have sex with Clare (Rose Leslie), and Gomez is enraged. Before storming out of the bar, he says that he’s met Henry before and that’s why he treats Henry rudely.

The Time Traveler’s Wife is so uninterested in making Clare the focus of the series that seeing Young Clare with a sketchpad in a flashback was jarring. Her interest in art should be one of the main things that’s tied to her, but it’s so infrequently mentioned and has been entirely forgotten in most of the episodes. Until now.

Supposedly, Young Clare drew a picture of Henry that she carried with her through the years. Something about this drawing made it obvious that Clare was in love with Henry, but it looks like an ordinary sketch. Multiple characters point to it as a fundamental part of Clare’s life, but this is the first time the audience is hearing about the drawing. It also highlights how little is really known about Clare. It’s a critique that’s been mentioned on this site previously, but as the episodes continue to focus on the same themes week after week, the critique only gains validity. 

Photograph by Macall Polay

The bulk of the episode takes place when 20-year-old Clare and 28-year old Henry are visiting Clare’s parents, Lucille (Jaime Ray Newman) and Philip (Michael Park), her younger sister Alicia (Taylor Richardson), and her brother Mark (Peter Graham) for the first time. It should come as no surprise that Henry is his usual standoffish self when meeting the Abshire family. He complains on the drive there, makes jokes to her parents that come across as insults, and only thinks about how he can sneak away to have sex with Clare. He’s not creating a good impression and it’s entirely his own doing. No, her parents and her brother are not stand-up citizens themselves, but if Henry cares about Clare as he says he does, the least he can do is try.

Henry at this age has not been to the clearing behind Clare’s house where Future Henry and Young Clare spent all their time together. Present-day Henry is curious to see it, but Clare is squirrely about taking him there because it was “their” spot. “Their” meaning Young Clare and Future Henry. It’s a strange distinction that she continues to make and always reminds the Present-day Henry that she much prefers him in the future. With only one episode left in the limited series, the show has done an awful job of showing how this self-centered, antagonistic, manipulative, narcissist turns into someone who’s kind.

But maybe that’s just it. Maybe Future Henry isn’t the kind gentleman Clare thinks he is. Henry is simply that good at manipulation and the kindness Clare interpreted as a child was just another form of narcissism. A way of manipulating time and space to his will. Perhaps, had Clare grown up without knowing she would be married to Henry, she wouldn’t have given him the time of day when they met. Why would she? The show has given Henry no redeeming attributes. Quite frankly, the only reason she puts up with him is because she has built her life upon the idea of an inevitability that was handed down to her by a creepy, time-traveling man in the woods. It’s certainly not how the show or the novel intended it to be, but without knowing Henry as anything more than mean-spirited, it’s impossible to see the romantic angle the show is desperately grasping at.

Present-day Henry complains to Clare that she’s holding on to the past too much and, specifically, to Future Henry. He even goes so far as to generalize that nostalgia is a problem all non-time travelers have. It’s quite ironic coming from the man who keeps returning to the same moment in time because it had a profound impact on his life.

While visiting Clare’s parents, Henry time travels to the future, where he inadvertently gets into a fight with a group of bikers. Gomez comes to his rescue and the two share a drink with much better results than the opening scene. However, it comes up that Gomez is still in love with Clare. It’s an odd decision for the show to make for these characters, because it’s clear that Gomez is married to someone else at this time. The fact that he’s still pining for Clare undermines his relationship and begs the question, how and why would Gomez and Henry be friends if they’re in love with the same person?

This scene between Henry and Gomez also highlights the same issue Clare’s sketchbook brought up: Clare’s characterization is paper-thin. The only attribute Gomez and Henry compliment Clare on is her looks. The audience doesn’t know what other attributes she might be complimented on because they know nothing about her. The only thing we do know is that she’s an artist and we were only reminded of that 45 minutes ago. What music does she like, what’s her favorite movie, does she like crunchy or smooth peanut butter, is she happy living in Chicago, etc. Anything would be better than the paltry information the script has given about her.

With one episode to go, the story feels very incomplete. The final minutes of Episode 5 show Henry getting a haircut that matches the cut of Future Henry that Clare loves so much. This decision is supposed to be indicative of Present-day Henry becoming the man Clare grew up loving, but no actual character development occurs. There’s also the matter of Henry’s impending death that was alluded to often in the beginning, but has since been forgotten (a recurring theme).

Lastly, there’s the question of who is filming Future Clare and Future Henry in what looks to be their home. Most of the episodes have started with a visibly older Clare and Henry talking directly into the camera, as though someone is making a documentary about them. A few episodes have even had them seemingly address the camera operator.

With the final episode, there’s also a futile hope that the show really looks at the relationship between Henry and Clare and the reason Henry molded it to be what it is. Judging by how the rest of the series has played out, it seems that is wishful thinking.