‘Fellow Travelers’ Jumps in Bed With Rough Sex and Dirty Politics
Now that Fellow Travelers has effectively shown viewers that it’s a series that is as much about explicit sex as it is about the constantly shifting power dynamics that are intrinsically part of sex, the show hits a fascinating stride. In Episode 3, “Hit Me,” Fellow Travelers rides the momentum of its first two installments, weaving between timelines more fluidly while allowing for a clearer, more urgent glimpse of what is happening in the bigger picture of 1950s Washington D.C. And, yes, it also gives us another hot and heavy sex scene that won’t soon be forgotten. Sorry to bury the lede!
But like all good shows—and, well, all good lays—Fellow Travelers makes us wait for it. First, we get an actual peek into what life between Hawkins Fuller (Matt Bomer) and Tim Laughlin (Jonathan Bailey) could be like if their romance didn’t have to be clandestine, when the two men abscond from Washington for a weekend away. For Hawk, this trip comes with a hidden agenda, and it’s his secretive nature that keeps Tim suspicious of Hawk’s intentions all the way up through the 1980s, when Hawk stays later than planned at Tim’s apartment on his visit to San Francisco. Once again, the seriesnot only expertly juggles two narratives at once, but uses both of them to develop the story happening in the opposite decade so efficiently that the unknown elements in Tim and Hawk’s relationship feel all the more gripping.
At the top of the episode, in ’80s San Francisco, Hawk admires a photo of Tim that he took during their road trip. He’s impressed that Tim has held onto it all these years, and smiles remembering the details of their weekend away. For Tim, these memories are more frequently colored with melancholy and rejection; they’re both some of his happiest times and those when he felt the least able to be himself. Tim asks Hawk why he’s showed up to his apartment, to which Hawk responds that he doesn’t quite know. Or, perhaps, he doesn’t know yet.