Henry has a Limited Wardrobe made up of a suit, matching vest, and a scarf. As seen in the show, whenever he dies, he and whatever he happens to be wearing disappear before he reappears, naked, in a body of water. Keeping to a limited set of clothing options would make it easier for him to get dressed everyday without having to worry about losing a specific outfit in the event of an untimely death. Also, it's been shown that he's had to quickly pack up and relocate in the past due to people getting suspicious about him never seeming to age. A limited wardrobe would mean he wouldn't have to worry so much about keeping track of his belongings with every move.
Return in the river:
Because he always comes back in the nearest large body of water (and not a bathtub or a swimming pool), Henry is probably a lifeguard level swimmer — possibly even Olympic level.
Indeed, some areas of the East River and Hudson can have very strong currents; Henry would have to be able to swim at an angle strongly enough to escape them before being swept downstream too far.
Because he has at least a few times come back in the highly polluted Hudson River of New York, he probaby has (died from and then) developed immunities to several bacterial and viral infections from the nastiness in the water. Confirmed via examination of Adam's blood, which contains antibodies for diseases that haven't been seen in centuries.
How appropriate that a 200-year-old gentleman should live in an antique store. Also, he must have amassed a lot of things over the years that have probably become very valuable in the modern age, makes sense that he uses the store as a front to sell some of them off. It also allows him to shed elements of past identities (or what have you) slowly and without drawing suspicion, such as his old medical bag or various cabinets (but not the medical bag, itself).
Confirmed in "Punk is Dead" when 1985 Abe tells Henry he's "one broken clock short of becoming a hoarder" and he thinks they should sell off his accumulated possessions.
A dark example. In episode 11, we find out how Adam gets out of so many sticky situations without anyone noticing him: He kills himself. His body disappears, and with it any evidence. The fact that he's a police therapist also gives him an explanation if he is caught.
Abe tracking down his family line so far back, so accurately, so fast, seeing as that can be a pretty hard thing to do (there are businesses like Ancestry.com for a reason after all). However, as an antiques dealer, Abe would have to do pretty much the same thing to verify the authenticity of some of the pieces in his shop, so he's got a lot of experience to help him out.
Adam thinks that Henry will inevitably become like him, and that forcing him to kill will help push him towards that end. He's actually doing the opposite. "Skinny Dipper" helped Henry realize that he can't do everything on his own, that he has to and can ask for help from his friends, that the whole station was ready and willing to rally around to support him, both against his stalker and in dealing with the aftermath. The best way to avoid becoming detached and callous is, quite simply, to make those human connections. To care and be cared for. To take the risk of getting hurt by making yourself vulnerable.
Henry says that when he dies, he reappears in the nearest large body of water. In "Skinny Dipper" Henry is arrested for swimming naked in the East River, but afterwards, the taxicab is pulled out of the Hudson river. It would appear that the answer to "What happens if he dies in a large body of water is, "He reappears in the nearest large body of water other than the one he died in."
This could be very helpful if Henry reappears in a body of water whose surface is frozen over, or in a boiling hot spring, or if it's otherwise likely for Henry to keep dying over and over if he were to stay in the same place.
When Henry dies, he comes back in perfect health. That's actually a pretty rare thing, even for a thirty-five year old. Most people have strains, minor bruises, paper cuts, back strain, and all manner of tiny aches and pains. Even if Henry were somehow unconscious when he came back, he'd probably still know he'd just died, because of how physically fit and comfortable he'd feel! (Assuming he doesn't strain anything swimming out of a strong current in the river…) In fact, as simple as it is, enjoying that feeling of perfect health could be part of the slippery slope towards being blasé about dying.
When Jo finds the old picture of Henry, Abigail, and Abraham, she probably isn't thinking, "That picture looks like it was taken in the 1940s!" or "Wow, Henry hasn't aged!" because there's nothing in the picture that couldn't be from five or ten years ago. She's probably thinking, "That's Henry, and the woman with him is probably Abigail, but he never told me they had a baby!"
Henry had Lucas steal Adam's pugio from evidence for him, after Jo threatened Lucas with firing and prosecution if he did so. So Lucas is toast, right? Except after giving the pugio to Adam, Henry injected air into Adam's brainstem, and Adam felt the effects immediately, staggering away from Henry, in no shape to hide anything, and collapsed in the subway station. Adam didn't have the chance to get rid of the gun or the dagger. So, they would have both been on Adam when he was taken to the hospital. The way the doctor was speaking to Henry, he seems to have managed to get himself recognized as next of kin. He could probably take charge of Adam's personal effects, reclaiming the gun for himself and the pugio to be returned to the evidence room. By the time Jo came to the antique store to return Henry's watch, the pugio was probably already back in Lucas's hands, if not checked back into evidence.
At 34 years old, when Henry had his first death, he was *at* the average life expectancy for Europe for 1770 to 1790. (Estimated average life expectancy in Europe was 33.3 in 1800, 35.6 in 1820, so in the year he died he was still right around average.) In 2015, living in New York, the average life expectancy was 79 years. Abe was supposed to be turning 70 early in 2015, so he was nine years below the average life expectancy. So, in a way, Henry was older when he died than Abe was in 2015.
Abe's tattoo is said to come from Auschwitz concentration camp, but Auschwitz was liberated by the Russians. However, as Allied forces closed in, most of the prisoners were force-marched or moved by cattle cars into Germany, to other camps, including Bergen-Belsen, which was liberated by the British April 15, 1945. A much more likely place for a British nurse and a doctor serving with the British army to find him (and each other). The last serial number tattoos were placed on 18 January 1945, so Abe could have been born in January, tattooed in Auschwitz, and then carried to Belsen.
Henry has died so many times and in so many different ways that he, rather clinically, records each death in a notebook and writes down remarks about the experience (including a pain scale). Dying continues to be an extremely unpleasant experience, but he has to keep track or else it will all fade into a blur.
Some science fiction writers theorize that should humans achieve immortality, they would go mad from boredom after having experienced so much of time dilation resulting in days becoming nothing more than mere moments in an absurdly long life. "Adam" appears to have reached that point, claiming to have been alive for more than 2000 years and that the passing of two millennia has numbed him to the troubles of the world. It's also theorized that since human memory capacity is limited they would forget their own name and origins.
More of Henry's tragic backstory is revealed in "The Ecstacy of Agony." He tries to explain what's happened to him to his first wife and she has him committed. To an asylum. In 1815. "Until he is cured of his delusion." Yeah, Henry's not crazy and he can't die. How long was he trapped there? And was this where he learned first-hand about what scientists might do to him if they every found out his secret? Being carved up by 19th-Century doctors in the most notorious era for poor treatment in madhouses on Earth... that's Silent Hill territory right there. It's bad enough that a priest is the one who breaks his neck so he may escape.
In Episode 12 the murderer would have gotten away with his crime simply because the M.E. was too lazy to do anything above the bare basic in investigating the body and didn't want to deal with extra paperwork. It makes one wonder how many real life M.E.s do the exact same thing. It is actually a huge problem in real life. Many larger jurisdictions have M.E.s who are so overworked that they either miss things or intentionally let things slide to try and deal with the workload. Smaller jurisdictions may only employ part-time coronersnote there is a legal distinction between an M.E. and a coroner who may be a physician with no training in pathology or someone who volunteered for the job but doesn't have any medical training whatsoever (often a mortician), meaning that they don't know what to look for in the first place.
First deaths:
When Henry first returned to Nora, why was he so sure he hadn't just survived death once but was really immortal? And why does he show such abject terror and panic at the prospect of drowning when he's faced other deaths with relative calm? Because the first time he died and resurrected, he was in the middle of the Atlantic. Even if a ship eventually passed to rescue him, it's likely he first swam until he drowned, resurrected again, drowned again, resurrected again, drowned again... until a ship arrived, or even all the way to land. He may have drowned too many times to count before he ever reached shore.
He may have discovered comparing different ways to die, too. Rough seas, he'd get pulled under and drown fighting for his life. Hit a smooth tropical area, he might swim until he was weak from dehydration, or until he was desperate enough to drink seawater, then sickened and drowned when he was too weak to keep himself afloat. Find a tiny island or sand bar, and he could die of dehydration and/or exposure — only to wake up back in the water again....
Or hypothermia. Remember, he would have been naked the entire time after his first death.
And don't overlook the possibility of a shark chancing across him at an inconvenient moment.
Stinging jellyfish, kelp beds, toxic blooms, all sorts of hazards in the sea!
Even after he made it to land, Henry would have had a long journey to get home, and he'd be starting out with almost nothing, only what charity he might receive from those who rescued him at sea. Unless he could make it to his father's company and find someone who recognized him (other than the Captain and crew of the Empress of Africa), but he did seem determined to make his own way and never take anything paid for by slavery. Highwaymen, storms, bad food, disease, and every time he died, he'd be back to being naked and penniless. No wonder it took him over a year to make it back to Nora!
When Adam came into Abe's Antiques in "Hitler On the Half-Shell" he seemed surprised to see the tattoo on Abraham's arm. If Abe had been wearing longer sleeves that day, Adam would have still seen Abe as a target, and who knows what might have happened to him!
The first time Jo and Henry meet, Lucas has just commented that initial signs are that the subway conductor died of a heart attack, and Henry muttered, "Lucky bastard." Jo hears this. We later learn that her beloved husband Sean died of a heart attack. The first thing she ever heard Henry say was basically that her husband was lucky to have died.
We see the results of Adam interrogating a mortal twice, once with Julian in "Hitler On the Half-Shell" and once with Xander in "The Last Death of Henry Morgan." Both times it's a bloody mess; Henry says Julian was beaten and tortured for hours. Now, picture what Adam would have been willing to do to Abigail if she hadn't driven the car off the road, if she hadn't grabbed his knife and slit her own throat, if she was the only thing standing between Adam and finding another immortal after over two thousand years and she'd refused to betray Henry!
Henry saw both bodies in great detail. Sooner or later, it would/will occur to him that this is what Adam might have done to his beloved if she hadn't escaped the only way she could.
If Henry hadn't given Adam the air embolism and incapacitated him, and Adam's timing had been better, Jo would have seen Henry die and vanish — and Adam would have been right there watching. Would he have been content to just watch and wait for Henry to get the chance to explain? Or would he have come forward and given Jo his own spin on the truth, in a way that would have poisoned her against Henry?
When Henry dies, all his clothing and anything he's carrying disappear with him, and apparently cease to exist. So what would have happened if Henry died while holding baby Abraham in his arms? Imagine Henry cuddling his son, smiling and laughing, then a shot rings out, and Henry finds himself in the water, his arms empty?? This is the sort of thing Henry likely had his darkest nightmares about!
Then again, Henry has died in contact with others, such as when he died in Abigail's arms, and nothing happened to her, so it's possible that his immortality draws a distinction between Henry's clothing and possessions and other living beings.
Other people have always been in contact with the surroundings in some way, such as standing or kneeling on the ground. Only a baby or small child could be held completely out of contact with anything else.
Whether Abe would have actually vanished or not, it would surely at least occur to Henry at some point that it might be possible, and that's all a parent needs for a few nightmares.
Adam tells Abigail, "For two thousand years I've thought I was alone!" That is not the same thing as saying he's never met another immortal before. Where did Adam get the idea that the weapon which made them immortal might be able to kill them for good? Why would he think they even could be killed permanently? Maybe there was another immortal once, back when Adam died the first time. And Adam either saw them die for good, or perhaps even killed them himself. If Adam was the "good and decent man" he claims, what could the other immortal have done to drive him to kill them?
Why was Adam in such a hurry for Henry to kill someone? Because he wanted to die for good, and he thought the only way that might happen was if Henry were to kill him with his pugio. If Henry wasn't willing to kill, then no matter how much Adam provoked him, he couldn't get what he wanted. So he manipulated Henry into killing in "Skinny Dipper" and then forced him into bringing him the pugio expecting Henry would use it to try to kill him….and then Henry didn't play his part!
