Warning: This article contains spoilers for The Time Traveler's Wife episode 2.
HBO's The Time Traveler's Wife season 1, episode 2 just dropped the show's most gruesome Easter egg, alluding to the timing of Henry's death. The time-twisting story of love and fate based on the book of the same name by Audrey Niffenegger hasn't shied away from the dark side of protagonists Clare and Henry's love story. References to Henry's premature death and various serious injuries pepper the portrayal of their unconventional romance.
One of the gravest injuries Henry will suffer is the loss of both of his feet, revealed when Henry discovers that they've traveled to the present without the rest of his body. This is a quirk of his rare condition, chrono-impairment, the mechanism by which is able (and forced) to travel through time. The loss of Henry's feet is a disturbing revelation, but it's clear he survives, as later in episode 1 Henry uses a wheelchair due to the injury.
However, Henry doesn't survive for long, as The Time Traveler's Wife season 1, episode 2 reveals. The show often hints at his premature death, presenting images of pools of blood when traveling to the present. Henry tells Clare explicitly at the start of episode 2 that he knows he will die, and sooner rather than later: "I know that really bad stuff is coming, Clare. I know I'm going to be frightened and bleeding and I know that one day I'm not going to survive it." Later in the episode, Henry appears at his mother's funeral at age 42 after the loss of his feet. To those familiar with the book, this indicates that the scene is a dark sign that he will die soon after his accident.
HBO's adaptation does not reveal Henry's age at the time of his death. However, the bestselling The Time Traveler's Wife book places his age of death at 43. When Henry is at his mother's funeral, multiple versions of himself at different ages are in attendance. A 42-year-old version of himself lands behind him and coughs in pain. 24-year-old Henry turns to glance at him but turns away. By 42, he's near the end of his life, and 42-year-old Henry has just fallen into a graveyard in the middle of a funeral, foreshadowing his own death rapidly approaching.
There's an even darker read of this scene. Because there are some small changes between The Time Traveler's Wife book, movie, and HBO series, it's possible that Henry's age at his death has been altered. This opens up the possibility that Henry dies at age 42 instead of 43. In the funeral scene, 36-year-old Henry looks sadly away from the burial toward the spot where 42-year-old Henry is about to fall. 24-year-old Henry is resigned as he turns away from his suffering 42-year-old self. Henry dies while time traveling, and the gravity of his mother's funeral could potentially be strong enough to pull him to it one last time as he's dying. If so, this funeral Easter egg would be the darkest turn the Time Traveler's Wife has taken by far.
New episodes of The Time Traveler's Wife air on HBO Sundays at 9PM EST and release on HBO Max after. Subscribe to HBO Max here.