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That BJ scene in ‘The Time Traveler’s Wife’ broke my brain – Queerty

Kim Martel

So, The Time Traveler’s Wife is a show to which I haven’t really been paying much attention. I mean, Rose Leslie is lovely, Theo James is notably dreamy—and apparently quite frequently naked in this show! But also, the reviews have been… not great.

Then this happened:

And now my brain is broken. Because suddenly I can’t stop thinking about this totally random scene and trying to make sense of it.

Let’s start with what I know about The Time Traveler’s Wife, which is: It is a TV show on HBO. It is based on a 2003 novel by Audrey Niffenegger. It was previously adapted into a movie in 2009 starring Rachel McAdams and Eric Bana. It is about an ostensibly heterosexual couple who are in love, but the guy (played by James in the series) has a genetic disorder (???) that randomly transports him back in time—and possibly also forward?

OK, sure, fine. Mostly, I’m like, “Pass!” But then this scene from this show I’m not watching starts popping up in my Twitter feed! And I’m compelled to understand it.

So, apparently, in the show’s second episode, which aired this week, adult/present-day (???) Henry is explaining his time traveling to his present-day adult girlfriend Clare (Leslie). He’s time-traveled all his life, he explains, and this is how his dad found out when he was 16:

Henry’s dad (OG hunk Josh Stamberg)… caught his 16-year-old son (played by obviously 20-something actor Brian Altemus) getting a blowie from… himself, also 16 years old.

First thought: Is the time traveler in The Time Traveler’s Wife gay? No, because he is married to a presumably cis wife, and I’m willing to accept the premise that he is in love with and sexually attracted to her.

So… he’s bi? Sexually fluid? Unclear, as in the episode James’s character simply insists he’s “not gay.” OK, OK, but clearly… still willing to perform oral sex on another dude.

But how did this all happen? 16-year-old horndog Henry is just sitting around one night and POOF! Another version of his 16-year-old self appears in his bedroom? And one of them is like… “Let’s do a BJ”? Which one?

Also, was he, like, sitting there all horny and then thought, “I know! I’ll go two seconds into the past and blow myself!” Cause then the horny Henry who had that thought wouldn’t be the one getting the blowie… would he? Unless he convinced his past self to blow him, in which case the Henry who had that idea would be kinda coerced into doing something he, as a “not gay” person, might not really want to do? So, why would he go back in time at all to make the current him who presumably wants a BJ do the blowing?

Except, wait, Henry can’t control when he time travels or, I assume, when he travels to, right? So, then, 16-year-old Henry randomly traveled back (or forward?) a remarkably short distance in time, to arrive naked (he’s always naked when he time travels apparently, which is a great thing about this show) in his own bedroom. And so, one of him convinces the other to give him a blowy. Or they both consensually decide? LOL! How did that conversation even start!?

I mean, look, I feel like we can all agree that putting something attached to your own body in your mouth is significantly different from putting something attached to a completely other separate body in your mouth. Right? So, this, at the very least suggests that Henry is marginally sexually fluid. Because 16-year-old present him would either A.) know that he would be arriving from the past to blow himself because he’d already done that in the past; or B.) know that he would at some point be traveling back to blow himself because he’d already experienced that. Right???

Also, we’re all just agreeing that this somehow… isn’t incest???

Conclusion: Brain is broken.