‘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 series not 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.

Tim tells Hawk that his lesions are the result of Kaposi sarcoma, a rare cancer that often affects people suffering from complications with HIV or AIDS. “My friends and I debate who has the best chance to survive: the ones with KS or the ones with PCP [pneumocystis pneumonia],” Tim says. “They say if you have lesions and have PCP, it’s a matter of months,” Hawk reluctantly asks Tim if he’s had PCP, and Tim replies that he has. Hawk excuses himself to Tim’s bathroom to steady himself, finally really confronting the fact for the first time that his longtime love is going to die.

Meanwhile, back in the ’50s, Hawk is determined to investigate a tip he’s received about an ex-Army corporal named Daniel who had an alleged incident with Senator Joseph McCarthy. The Army vet is in Rehoboth Beach, down the coastline, and Hawk invites Tim away for the weekend without telling him why he’s going. Tim eventually agrees, not wanting to miss the chance to engage in a little romance with his stony suitor.

When the two arrive, Hawk tells Tim that the bar they’re stopping at is known for its “cheap booze and rough trade.” He wants Tim to think of it like an education, something Tim is not particularly interested in getting, especially under false pretenses. “It’s the risk that makes it exciting, Skippy,” Hawk tells him, before leaving him to a bar full of coarse patrons while he goes to speak with Daniel.

In Washington, McCarthy’s underling Roy Cohn (Will Brill) is on a one-man mission of his own, raging against the Army for making fellow McCarthy employee David Schine (Matt Visser) eligible to be drafted into service. David—a permanently pompous child of privilege—breaks down, to which Roy responds by putting a reassuring hand on the back of David’s head and tightening his grip just slightly.

David reacts to Roy’s physical gesture in anger and fear, unwilling to be a participant in whatever games Roy is playing if he’s no longer guaranteed being spared from the draft. Fellow Travelers heavily implies that both David and Roy have something more than just McCarthy’s agenda in common. (For those who might not be history buffs or Meryl Steep fanatics, it’s essentially an open secret that Roy Cohn was likely gay; Angels in America is Tony Kushner’s fantastical depiction of Cohn’s later life, rallying against the AIDS diagnosis that eventually killed him.) David tells Roy that his new girlfriend will “do anything for me, anything I ask,” prompting Roy to try to compete by doing the same. D.C. is a town rife with manipulation, and even the powerful Roy Cohn isn’t immune to being influenced by his own latent desires for Schine.

In Rehoboth Beach, a man approaches Tim in the bathroom and kisses him. When Tim tells him that he’s with someone, the man replies, “Anyone who would leave you behind doesn’t deserve to keep you,” a sentiment that Hawk will test by the end of the episode in San Francisco. Tim goes looking for Hawk and discovers him in a motel room with his companions, trying to revive Daniel out of pill-and-booze-induced catatonia. When Hawk runs after him, Tim tells him, “I want to be with you, sleep in the same bed with you all night, not get kicked out at midnight so the neighbors won’t see me leaving. I want to eat a meal with you, like other couples.”

Hawk and Tim have their first public dinner together, and we get to see the chemistry crackle between Bomer and Bailey once more. The distinct twinkle in Bailey’s eyes, when he gives a cheeky response to a suggestive line from Bomer, is just magical to watch. Bailey’s charm cuts through Episode 3’s intertwining narratives to remind viewers of the intensity of Fellow Travelers’ central relationship. That passion erupts shortly after Tim leaves their dinner in a jealous huff after dinner after seeing a straight couple romance one another.

Tim meets Hawk back in his room, and they both confront each other about not being able to hold their respective vices: liquor and romance. Tim tells Hawk that he kissed the man at the bar, and Hawk—for the first time—has a look of jealousy in his eyes, but says nothing. Tim shoves Hawk, looking for a response. “You want me to be rough trade?” Tim asks. “Hit me.”

Hawk slaps him, to which Tim responds, “Again.” Hawk obliges, before telling Tim to take his clothes off, maintaining eye contact with Hawk the whole time. Hawk reaches down to bind Tim’s wrists with his tie, before asking Tim who he belongs to. Hawk spits in his hand and shows Tim exactly what he meant by “rough trade.” The two men maintain eye contact while Hawk fucks Tim, and Hawk insists that his lover tells him who he belongs to, full name and all. “I belong to Hawkins Fuller,” Tim says in a moan. It’s aggressive, and as sexy as it is tinged with darkness.

The following day, we briefly check in with Roy, who has been up all night in McCarthy’s office. He meets with David to tell him that, in order to keep David from being drafted, they’ll investigate the Army command for being unwilling to comply with McCarthy’s demands to root out communists serving in high state positions. It’s a move to keep David in his proximity; the allure of having a young, beautiful man around is what is really fueling Roy’s game. Roy offers him a cigar, and David obliges, wrapping his lips around the phallic object as Roy watches, the two of them trading power once more.

Back in Delaware, Hawk meets back up with Daniel, the vet with information about McCarthy. Daniel tells Hawk that McCarthy and he met years ago, before they got a room at a motel, where McCarthy sodomized him. Daniel has proof of their tryst, and Hawk gets what he came for. Tim, however, has not, confused as to why he’s been brought on this road trip at all if it’s just going to make the continued secrecy all the more difficult to bear. “We lie about who we sleep with,” Hawk tells him. “I know it hurts you… but the lying gets easier.” Tim replies that it isn’t who they sleep with, but who they love, verbally suggesting for the first time that there is something much more powerful between the two than just sex. For once, Hawk doesn’t recoil.

This moment mirrors Hawk’s unwillingness to run away in the ’80s, after Tim takes a fall getting out of the shower. Hawk helps him up, and washes Tim’s blood from his hands. The next day, the two of them go to a clinic so Hawk can get his first AIDS test. Hawk tells Tim he wants to stay another week to make sure he’s okay. Tim asks if he’s sure, and Hawk responds that he’s “not sure of anything anymore.” There’s a clever ambiguity to this line, since we also don’t know how the results of Hawk’s test will turn out. But it’s something much more cosmic. This is Hawk intimating that—if, at this moment, he can choose to stay longer—the only thing he is certain of is that he wants to be there with Tim.

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