Loveday Writing

The episode kicks off with 28-year-old Henry meeting Gomez at a bar for a drink. They awkwardly ask each other how Clare and Charisse are, which eventually leads to Henry bringing up the fact that the only thing they have in common is wanting to have sex with Clare. Gomez, who we know has already had sex with Clare, gets offended and angry with Henry, denying his feelings for Clare. In his anger, Gomez tells Henry that he has seen him before the time they ran into each other when Henry was with Ingrid, however he doesn’t tell Henry anything more about it.

We then cut to 16-year-old Clare drawing 38-year-old Henry in the clearing, although she is drawing him naked, which he knows as he’s already seen the finished drawing. He then tells her that he’s met her family. We then go to a 20-year-old Clare driving 28-year-old Henry to her childhood home to meet her family. While they’re on the way, Henry and Clare stop at a petrol station, where Clare compares him to his future self and Gomez is constantly calling him. When Henry answers, Gomez apologises for lashing out and Henry forgives him, but when Gomez asks if his choice to tell Henry about seeing him before affects causality, Henry sarcastically jokes about it, upsetting Gomez and leads to him hanging up. Both Henry and Gomez ask Clare and Charisse respectively how it’s possible for them to become best friends when they don’t like each other.

When Henry and Clare arrive at her home, her parents, Lucille and Philip, greet them, and Mark introduces himself sarcastically to Henry. They then sit outside having drinks, which immediately becomes awkward when Philip asks Henry about his long-term career plans, and Mark is interrogating him. Later, Clare shows Henry the guest room he is staying in, and then they go to Clare’s bedroom. Henry can see the meadow from Clare’s window, which leads to him asking Clare if he can go to the clearing. Clare doesn’t say no, but clearly doesn’t want to take him there, as she regards it as ‘their place’, the place she shares with his future self. This leads to Henry pointing out that his future self and him are the same person, and that the present is the only period of time that matters. As he and Clare start to have sex, Mark tells her that lunch is going to be ready in five minutes, Clare tells Henry to go back to his room and freshen up.

As Henry is freshening up in the bathroom, Alicia bursts in, claiming that she is going to marry him. Clare comes in with towels for him moments later, and it’s revealed Alicia is messing with him, as she knows he’s a time traveler. Alicia knows as Clare had to bring Henry indoors sometimes during the winter months and she saw him. After Clare and Alicia leave the bathroom, Henry turns the tap on, only to time travel to 2022 and land on a biker. The biker attacks him, but Henry naturally fights back. Once Henry manages to subdue the biker, his gang comes out and attacks him. Gomez drives up and comes to his rescue with a bag of clothes and by telling the bikers that they’ve been caught on camera by his law firm.

Whilst Henry is stuck in 2022, Clare is starting to realise that her childhood home isn’t as magical as she once thought when she discovers the fireplace in the sitting room is fake, Nell mixed up Henry as ‘Alicia’s imaginary friend’, and the clearing is filled with rubbish with a factory of some kind nearby. After Gomez manages to scare away the biker gang, he and Henry go to a bar to eat and talk. They talk about their friendship, with Gomez telling him to accept that they will become best friends and Henry telling him it’s not going well at the moment. Gomez tells him they have something in common, being in love with Clare. Henry tells him that he doesn’t hide it well and asks him if Charisse knows, but Gomez doesn’t give him an answer, instead telling him that it’s hopeless for him to be in love with Clare, because he knew that Clare was love with Henry before they even met, having seen 16-year-old Clare’s completed drawing of him. Gomez also tells Henry that he’s still around in 2022. When Gomez sees the time, he tells Henry to put his coffee down, gives him the date and times of their interaction, and tells Henry to write it down and tell Clare. Henry then leaves, with the bartender witnessing him disappear.

Henry returns to Clare’s home and has a shower to freshen up. Clare goes downstairs to join her family for lunch, telling them that Henry will be down shortly. Clare tries to prepare them for Henry’s bruises by saying that they had a fight, only for Henry to say he fell. Mark tries to interrogate them about the inconsistencies in their stories, as Alicia asks Henry about his parents, and Lucille tries to push Alicia to play the cello again instead of working as a hairdresser, which she loves. Clare ends up having an outburst, telling Lucille that Alicia is happy as a hairdresser and there’s nothing wrong with that, Mark becomes a lawyer without somehow becoming a worse human being, and that she’s going to marry Henry.

Clare leaves and Henry follows, only to find her bedroom door locked. Alicia opens it for him, only to find the bedroom empty. When he looks out the window, he sees Clare running towards the meadow to go to the clearing. Alicia reassures Henry that the family are actually good people, when Henry looks at himself in the mirror, he asks Alicia to do something for him.

We then go to Clare sitting alone in the clearing, with Henry finding her. When she gets up to talk to him, his hair has been cut to the style and length she is accustomed to, and he’s wearing a new outfit, with his shirt tucked in. Clare tells him that she’ll marry him, that she was in love with him when she saw him again in the Newberry Library, and apologises for expecting him to be his future self. The episode ends with them kissing.

Overall I felt that this was a transitionary episode for Henry on many levels. Henry himself transitions from the young “arsehole” to the older, settled Henry that Clare has known for most of her life. With Henry’s transition, Clare accepts his proposal and their relationship can move forward to their marriage. Gomez and Henry are slowly transitioning from strangers to friends, especially when future Gomez saves Henry from a biker gang without hesitation and in style.

This episode was the most humorous of the season in many ways from Henry and Gomez’s awkward drinks session, to Mark’s interrogation of Henry, to Henry’s awkwardness around Clare’s parents, to Alicia messing with him in the bathroom, to the elderly man overhearing Henry and Clare’s conversation about his future self at the petrol station, and Henry and Clare struggling to come up with a believable and consistent story for his bruises and cuts at lunch.

I also appreciated the recurring themes explored in this episode – Henry competing with his future self, Henry and Gomez’s struggling friendship, and Clare’s drawing of Henry.

One criticism I do have is the choice to cast Jaime Ray Newman and Michael Park as Lucille and Philip Abshire respectively. They are fantastic actors, however I feel they are too young to play her parents as they are only nine years and 19 years older than Rose Leslie respectively.

I’m looking forward to reviewing the season finale next week, based on the promo, it looks like it will focus on Henry and Clare’s wedding, as well as Henry experimenting with pharmaceuticals to control his condition, possibly Henry and Clare trying to have a baby, and Henry’s death. There’s been no news of a second season, but as a fan of both the novel and this series, I hope it is renewed.

Stray Observations:

-Gomez calls Henry ‘comrade’, a detail true to the book.

-Henry travelled to 21 September 2022 and was there from 7.32pm to 8.05pm according to Gomez. Henry follows his instructions and writes the details down, with the note ending with the words ‘tell Gomez’, establishing a causal loop. Gomez asked Henry about causality earlier in the episode.

-Lucille and Philip have recordings of Annette’s singing.

-This episode takes inspiration from pages 159-170 and 252-253.

Best one liners and interactions:

• “I’m a lawyer, I literally get paid to prevent interesting things from happening and now look at me, I’m friends with a time traveler.” (Gomez to Henry)
• “Could you stop preferring me to my face?” (28-year-old Henry to 20-year-old Clare on Clare telling him that his future self is awesome)
• “There is exactly one of me in the world and I’m coming second.” (28-year-old Henry to 20-year-old Clare on competing with his future self)
• “That’s Mark, promise you won’t out-arsehole him.” (20-year-old Clare to 28-year-old Henry on Mark)
• “So, you’re the lucky guy who’s been violating my kid sister?” “Well, you know, one of them.” (Mark-Henry as they meet)
• “I’m Henry, the same Henry.” “Someday.” (28-year-old Henry and 20-year-old Clare on his future self and their meetings at the clearing)
• “Old is what happens to new stuff if you wait around long enough.” (28-year-old Henry to 20-year-old Clare)
• “You non-time travel people, you don’t ever, ever get it. You hang on to things from the past, like the past matters anymore. You worry about the future, and it’s not even here yet, when the only time is now. That’s the only time there ever is. Now. The past is what didn’t kill you, the future is what definitely will, and in between is the only thing that matters.” (28-year-old Henry to 20-year-old Clare)
• “Why does sex with you always make me feel like I’m going to hell?” (20-year-old Clare to 28-year-old Henry)
• “What, you told her I was a time traveler and you believed that?” “The alternative was that my sister had found a pipeline of naked men under the house. Time travel seemed so disappointing by comparison, I thought it must be true.” (Henry-Alicia)
• “I’m supposed to freak out your boyfriends, it’s my sacred duty as your younger sister.” (Alicia to Clare)
• “I fell in love with a grown up, and now he turns up and he’s all young.” (Clare to Alicia on 28-year-old Henry)
• “Hey there comrade. Welcome to the future, it’s 2022, please disregard my hairline.” (Older Gomez to 28-year-old Henry)
• “Right, now, to be clear the footage from those cameras is uploading to a couple of hard drives to which none of you have any kind of access. Now, my law firm on the other hand, has already logged a request to see tonight’s footage. I had kind of…an inkling that something good was going down. So, here is my advice, my legal advice, go the fuck home!” (Older Gomez to the biker gang who attacked Henry)
• “We’re best friends Henry, you’ll learn to live with it.” (Older Gomez to 28-year-old Henry)
• “How can I like someone who’s hot for my future wife?” (28-year-old Henry to Older Gomez)