Loveday Writing

When Henry is eight-years-old, he and Annette pick up Richard from the airport. On the way there, a corvette is seen speeding along the road behind Annette, while they’re driving behind a truck with a loose sheet of metal on the back, which both Annette and Henry notice. When Annette stops behind the truck, the corvette, speeding, rear-ends Annette, which pushes the car forward, hitting the truck, sending the loose sheet metal through the windscreen, decapitating her. While the lead-up to the accident is playing out, we see multiple versions of Henry nearby.

As the accident happens, eight-year-old Henry time travels back a few seconds before it happens, finding himself on the footpath, where 28-year-old Henry throws a blanket on him. Henry tells him not to look at the accident and he does. He also warns him he’s about to go back and not to look (although he knows he’s going to). He and the other versions of him hear eight-year-old Henry’s screams. The visual effects reveal that there are several different versions (even if they’re not all shown onscreen) of Henry present, from as young as 10 to as old as 41 years old. This scene proves how pivotal moments affect his condition, and the start of the exploration of how cruel his condition can be.

We’re then shown 6-year-old Clare running to the clearing to meet 36-year-old Henry. Clare asks Henry about his parents, he tells her that his father, Richard, is a violinist, and his mother, Annette, is an opera singer (true to the book). Henry is abrupt with her, avoiding telling her the truth about his mother and condition, he tells her that she’ll find out everything she needs to know when a green man gives her a banana coffee on the shores of Lake Como. Clare dismisses him as being silly, and when he beats her at Checkers, she calls him an arsehole. This transitions to 20-year-old Clare calling 28-year-old Henry an arsehole when they’re on a train and she spots him looking at another woman.

As they’re making their way off the train, Henry and Clare argue essentially about free will versus determinism in the context of Henry’s condition. Clare asks why he can’t change anything, where Henry argues that everything is inevitable. Clare tries to change the future by going to a different café, only to receive a banana latte that she didn’t order from a waiter painted in green, by a picture of Lake Como on a nearby wall, echoing what 36-year-old Henry told her as a child.

When Clare asks him again what makes him sad and to introduce her to his mother, Henry tells her his mother’s full name, and she remembers reading about her brutal death. She then asks him if his parents knew about his time travelling. He said that his dad knew as he walked in on him having oral sex with himself when he was 16 years old (and the other version with him was also 16 years old, this moment is also true to the book). His mother never knew, however when he was growing up, his time travel was seen as him skipping school.

Henry also tells her about the moments he interacted with his parents during his travels. Annette met Richard on stage when she was 30 and he was 33, as she commented on the fact that he was a new violinist to a 24-year-old Henry after leaving the stage. A year later, Richard proposes, which a 25-year-old Henry witnesses from afar. He’d also say hi to them and his baby self in the park on occasion. They comment on the scar on his forehead, which is revealed to be from the sheet metal in the car accident. We also see multiple versions of Henry attend Annette’s funeral from afar, with a 42-year-old version arriving behind a 24-year-old version of him.

Clare then asks Henry if he ever talks to the other versions of himself. He then reveals that he was trained in time travel survival by older versions of himself, with scenes showing 28-year-old Henry training eight-year-old Henry in 1988. For eight-year-old Henry, Annette’s death has only happened a few months earlier.

When they sit in the café within the art gallery, 28-year-old Henry tries to explain free will versus determinism to an eight-year-old Henry in the context of their condition. 28-year-old Henry tells him that he can’t save Annette and that in a few minutes, he’ll get off his chair and run behind him. Eight-year-old Henry is determined not to leave his chair, but does anyway when he sees Annette.

From Annette’s perspective, Henry is skipping school again and chastises him whilst he tries to warn her about her impending death to no avail. When eight-year-old Henry tells Annette he hates her out of frustration, 28-year-old Henry watches from the table and breaks down.

Henry takes Clare to the Newberry Library to show him a box of keepsakes of Annette’s performances. He tells her that he keeps the box there as keeping it at home would be tempting for him when he’s stressed, depressed or drunk, to time travel to see her.  He plays a cassette tape of her last performance.

As the cassette plays, we see eight-year-old Henry realise that the “other time traveler” training him is his older self, and they show each other their various scars. Henry confides to Clare that he’s not an arsehole but caring about people subjects him to pain repeatedly due to his condition. He also asks Clare what she would ask her mother if she had the chance, as he has an idea.

Every night she performed, Annette would have a Q&A session with the audience, he wasn’t there that night but maybe it’s an opportunity for Clare to “meet” her. While she initially struggles to come up with a question, she finally comes up with asking how do people ever get together. Henry continues to play the tape and we hear Annette say hello to Clare. It’s revealed that an older version of Henry (by how he looks, the 36-year-old version of him) stopped her at the stage door earlier that day, asking Clare’s question for her and requested that she answer it tonight. Annette reveals that she liked Henry and found him sweet. Annette’s answer to the question is that love always ends, but it’s better to be happy for a while then to be ‘just okay’ for your whole life, that it happens later than you think, and to enjoy the time together while you can.

The episode ends with Annette taking her final bow and Henry breaking down over his mother’s words, letting his emotional walls come down.

Overall, I felt that this was a solid second episode to the series. The pilot established Henry as a time traveler, showed the beginning of his and Clare’s relationship both in the “present” day and when she first met him, as well as the circular nature of his condition. This episode goes deeper by showing how cruel and traumatic his condition can be, not only through having to relive traumatic moments and not being able to stop them, but also how cruel others can be when they encounter him, which was shown in the opening moments of the episode when he fell off a roof, was chased by police, and even locked in a cage and given electric shocks by the clearly sadistic people who found him. There was also an optimistic note on how his condition can provide incredible, futile moments of happiness through Annette “talking” to Clare at her final performance. I also enjoyed the brief, humorous moment of Richard catching Henry having oral sex with himself and not knowing how to deal with it.

In terms of how true this episode was to the novel, the art gallery and training scenes, as well as Richard catching Henry with himself can be found from pages 50-59. Annette’s death is described on pages 111-113 when Henry travels to Christmas Eve 1988 (in the series, Annette’s death is set on this date) and visits 17-year-old Clare, telling her what happened.

The writers also left us with another cookie crumb, Henry travelling to the future and seeing his daughter, Alba, when Clare briefly mentions in the video interview that Henry travels mostly within his own lifespan and sometimes to the future. Alba is not fully seen and their first meeting hasn’t happened yet, but it clearly will.

Judging by its blurb on Google, next week’s episode will address an incident in Clare’s teenage years. I won’t spoil it for anyone but I will say, it will be interesting to see how much detail the writers went into with it and how loyal they were to how the incident is played out in the book. It will also be good to see how Clare’s life and family are portrayed, in depth, onscreen, especially to change things up a bit, as the focus so far has been on Henry’s life.

Stray Observations:

-In the beginning of the episode where Annette’s death is played out, we see the following versions of Henry:

• 24-year-old Henry walks past Annette and eight-year-old Henry as they’re getting in the car.
• 38-year-old Henry is in a phone booth.
• 39-year-old Henry is in an adjacent cab to them when they stop and he looks directly at eight-year-old Henry.
• 23-year-old Henry is walking down the street.
• 22-year-old and 32-year-old Henry watch from a nearby building.

-The versions of Henry that were present (even those not shown onscreen) at the accident were the following ages: 8, 10, 12, 15, 17, 22, 23, 24, 25, 28, 29, 31, 32, 34, 35, 37, 38, 39, 40 and 41. This is 20 versions of Henry, the largest amount of versions together in one point of time.   

-Henry tells Clare that he’s used venetian blinds as weapons at some point during his travels.

-The shot showing Henry’s clothes on the ground alongside Clare’s feet, which mimics the novel’s cover, is repeated, this time with Clare wearing a different outfit and pair of shoes.

-28-year-old Henry’s hair is similar to Richard’s hair when he was in his 30s.

-Annette’s engagement ring is not the ring described in the novel.

Best one liners and interactions:

• “Theoretically, I’m your girlfriend.” “According to my future self who hung around with you in the woods when you were a kid, I don’t trust that guy.” “He’s you!” “And we both know what I’m like.” (20-year-old Clare and 28-year-old Henry going back and forth)
• “Most of what time travelling tells me is terrifying.” (28-year-old Henry to 20-year-old Clare)
• “Is there something about my face that attracts that word?” (28-year-old Henry to 8-year-old Henry after he, 6-year-old Clare, and 20-year-old Clare call him an arsehole)
• “Just because it’s your decision it doesn’t mean you can stop yourself from making it.” (28-year-old Henry to 8-year-old Henry)
• “Beauty’s not comfort.” (28-year-old Henry to 20-year-old Clare)
• “For you, old photographs, keepsakes, they’re nice things, for me they’re bear traps. You see, sometimes when I’m stressed, I time travel and if I’m thinking about my mom and it gets to me, sometimes I have to go and watch her die again.” (28-year-old Henry to 20-year-old Clare)