A Shocking ‘Fellow Travelers’ Death Rocks the Series’ Future

For a show that has never once shied away from depicting the life-altering consequences of bigotry, I somehow did not see the ending of Fellow Travelers Episode 5 coming. I’ll admit, I even audibly gasped—something I very rarely do when watching, well, anything. Something that this episode does admirably is making even a relatively minor character’s death feel seismic. This occurrence shifts the narrative entirely, presumably sealing the 1950s-era half of Hawk and Tim’s story behind brick, not to be reopened again.

In fact, this episode buttons up Fellow Travelers as we’ve known it so far: as a tale of the effects of McCarthyism on innocent people and their loved ones. It was necessary for that period of this historical epic to come to a close; there are only so many ways that this show’s talented writers can maneuver its core couple around before those tactics become trite, feeling like ways to stall the narrative to fill an episode order. Frankly, the McCarthy years of this story were running the risk of bogging down the series, with five of its eight episodes spent entrenched in the Red and Lavender Scares. Luckily, the final episode set in the ’50s wipes the slate clean, but leaves blood on everyone’s hands with a few shocking and profoundly sad twists.

The wheels of McCarthy’s reign are spinning out, and before things come crashing down, a citywide crackdown on subversives is conducted, with the public remaining in favor of rooting out these supposed deviants. Hawk goes searching for Leonard Smith (Mike Taylor), the son of his senator boss Wesley Smith, who hasn’t been home for the last two nights. Hawk, who sees himself in Leonard’s lack of closeness with his father, asks his contacts in the Washington D.C. underworld to give him a call if Leonard turns up at any of Hawk’s favorite cruising spots.

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