‘The Time Traveler’s Wife’ Episode 2 Has the Most Baffling Blowjob Scene in TV History

Sunday nights on HBO have never been for prudes. Over the years, we’ve watched Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) and her buds have graphic hookups on Sex and the City, let topless sex workers provide entertainment during long speeches in Game of Thrones, and seen all those dicks on Euphoria. But last night, HBO aired a sex scene that might have crossed some sort of secret, sacrosanct line. Was there nudity involved? No, not really. Was the scene consensual for the characters involved? Um, yes. So what was it about this The Time Traveler’s Wife sex scene that was so wild? Uh, well, a 16-year-old boy used his time travel ability to give himself a blowjob.

Young Henry DeTamble (Brian Altemus) used his time traveling power not to go back in time and kill baby Hitler, but to suck himself off. I can’t quite put my finger on why the scene is so disturbing, but it will haunt me for the rest of my goddamn life.

Based on the best-selling novel by Audrey Niffenegger, The Time Traveler’s Wife follows a hot asshole named Henry DeTamble (Theo James) as he blunders his way through life, time traveling (always in the nude). When ever his condition lands himself somewhere new on the space/time continuum, he beats people up and steals their clothes. When the show starts, 28-year-old Henry lives like an unkempt maniac, and has one thing on his mind: sex. His one saving grace? His beloved wife Clare Abshire (Rose Leslie), for whom he learns to be slightly less of an asshole.

Now the thing is, older Henry has been hanging out with Clare since she was a very small child. Like, when he’s not beating up people or reliving his mother’s death, he’s grooming his future lover. The HBO show reminds us of their unsettling age gaps in every scene they’re together so you never forget Henry is grown man teaching a little girl how to be the woman of his dreams. Against this already bonkers backdrop, Henry is haunted by a future involving his frozen feet, which just show up from time to time…? There’s also really bad old age makeup and a frigid level of sexual chemistry between stars Theo James and Rose Leslie. This show is stupid.

Then, in The Time Traveler’s Wife Episode 2, we get the wildest oral sex scene in the history of television. It comes to us in the middle of a serious conversation between a 20-year-old Clare and 28-year-old Henry. He tells her about his mother’s tragic death and how he gets to ironically see his dead mom all the time because of time travel. Clare asks if both his parents knew he could time travel and Henry reveals that his dad only figured it out when he was 16. Why? Because…as we see in flashback form…Dad walked in on one Henry performing oral sex on another Henry.

While it would be funny to say The Time Traveler’s Wife has a scene where Theo James gives himself a blowjob, that would be inaccurate since young Henry is played by Grand Army alum Brian Altemus. So Brian Altemus gets to do the dirty. And even though we don’t see anything super graphic, it feels dirty.

Now what’s weird about this whole set up is I don’t consider myself a kink-shamer. Please, do whatever you like in the privacy of your own boudoir, so long as it’s consensual! And while teen Henry had to be okay with this set up, something about it still feels weird. While pleasuring yourself via masturbation is a natural, time-honored sexual act, something about this set up isn’t quite masturbatory. One Henry is doing all the work and the other is getting all the satisfaction. Maybe the Henry under the covers is also turned on by this? But he says he’s not gay…except for himself? Everything about the scene is distinctly more narcissistic than purely passionate.

Also the timing of the moment lands with a thud. Are we attempting to add emotional depth to Henry (and his relationship with Clare) or are we reducing him into a walking tawdry joke? It’s also hellaciously uncomfortable to imagine how Dad dealt with this? And strange that he’s just offering up this info to the woman Henry assumes he will marry? And she’s okay with it?? Keep in mind, a few minutes earlier, a version of Henry time traveled to play checkers with kid Clare.

All in all, The Time Traveler’s Wife is a baffling misfire of a show and this blowjob scene is emblematic of its inability to figure out what tone it’s driving at. Is it a serious, sweeping romance? Or a goofy sci-fi sex comedy? Is the show worried about the grooming aesthetics of Henry and Clare’s relationship? Or more interested in recreating the book’s twee cover? I know one thing: I never want to marry a man who used time travel to suck himself off when he could have killed Baby Hitler.