9.5
"xlucasverbunt gives "Fellow Travelers - Season 1" a 9.5."
Written by xlucasverbunt on 10 June 2024.
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Fellow Travelers - Season 1
Fellow Travelers hits where it should hit.
Sometimes series come along that don't release as well as others. Because of their originality, because of the quality or sometimes because of the personal emotion that the story evokes in the viewer. There have been a few in recent years that have managed to extract such emotion from me as a viewer. Fellow Travelers can add itself to that list.
Hawk Fuller and Tim Laughlin, played by openly gay actors Matt Bomer (White Collar) and Jonathan Bailey (Bridgerton), meet during this time. Both struggle with their sexuality. The slightly older Hawk does everything he can to keep it hidden, for fear of what it will do to his career. Tim struggles in his own way; about what it means for his relationship with faith. However, the men find love in each other. This one is passionate, intense and erotic. But above all behind closed doors. And that's where they lose each other.
However, Hawk and Tim have become too tangled up. Their lives no longer seem to be able to develop from each other. Over the years they continue to encounter each other in conscious and unconscious encounters. And that affects everyone around them, especially Hawk's wife Lucy (Allison Williams, A Series of Unfortunate Events). These encounters take place side by side in episodes. In the first episode in the 1950s, at the beginning of the meeting. And in the '80s, at the end, where Hawk travels to San Francisco to visit Tim, who is dying of AIDS complications.
The above may be a somewhat long summary, but for me it is essential because it describes so well the complexity of the context in which the story takes place. Besides being a love story, this series is above all a historical story. A historical story about fictional characters, that's for sure. But that doesn't make it any less true. These stories are real. This is about real people who had to live their real lives this way at the time (but not that long ago). That is probably also the emotion that hits home.
'There is a profound cruelty in denying the truth of one's being, even it is a means of survival' writes a Variety reviewer about Fellow Travelers. I couldn't have said that better, and couldn't have conveyed that better in this series. With masterful acting, Bomer and Bailey know how to portray this character and convey exactly that emotion. The powerlessness and despair of the situation, and at the same time the intense passion and hope. The moments together portray a beautiful naive bubble in which you as a viewer can also disappear for a moment.
In addition to the masterful acting, the script is also to be praised. The dialogues are beautiful. The costumes and make-up are very good, which is especially evident in the actors who play real characters. The aesthetic of the set, of the colors used, is appropriate and elegant. Everything is just very well put together. You can tell that this series was created with passion and dedication. Moreover, worth mentioning is the way sex is portrayed in the series, raw and real. Without censorship. Something you don't see much in mainstream Hollywood when it comes to queer stories.
It is important that stories like this continue to be made. It's a piece of history that many of us don't know. And history that one does not know can be repeated again and again. It's great to have hopeful queer stories like Heartstopper, or stories where being queer isn't a topic of discussion at all, but just is. But it's just as important to have these stories, and those of shows like Pose, of It's a Sin. After all, that is also the truth. And not just historical truth, but many queer people's everyday truth. Even today.
This reviewer is also full of praise (as you have read). A 9.5 from me.
Follow Fellow TravelersSometimes series come along that don't release as well as others. Because of their originality, because of the quality or sometimes because of the personal emotion that the story evokes in the viewer. There have been a few in recent years that have managed to extract such emotion from me as a viewer. Fellow Travelers can add itself to that list.
In Fellow Travelers we follow two men over a period of about forty years. But the most prominent part of the story takes place in 1950s Washington DC. Senator McCarthy is influential. Many of us will be familiar with the term 'McCarthyism', McCarthy's reign of terror in which anyone suspected of even the slightest bit of communist sympathy was chased out of the government (or even prosecuted). Less well known is the term 'Lavender Scare'. A moral panic that happened around the same time. This time not aimed at expelling communist officials, but homosexuals.There is a profound cruelty in denying the truth of one's being, even it is a means of survival
© Showtime
Hawk Fuller and Tim Laughlin, played by openly gay actors Matt Bomer (White Collar) and Jonathan Bailey (Bridgerton), meet during this time. Both struggle with their sexuality. The slightly older Hawk does everything he can to keep it hidden, for fear of what it will do to his career. Tim struggles in his own way; about what it means for his relationship with faith. However, the men find love in each other. This one is passionate, intense and erotic. But above all behind closed doors. And that's where they lose each other.
However, Hawk and Tim have become too tangled up. Their lives no longer seem to be able to develop from each other. Over the years they continue to encounter each other in conscious and unconscious encounters. And that affects everyone around them, especially Hawk's wife Lucy (Allison Williams, A Series of Unfortunate Events). These encounters take place side by side in episodes. In the first episode in the 1950s, at the beginning of the meeting. And in the '80s, at the end, where Hawk travels to San Francisco to visit Tim, who is dying of AIDS complications.
The above may be a somewhat long summary, but for me it is essential because it describes so well the complexity of the context in which the story takes place. Besides being a love story, this series is above all a historical story. A historical story about fictional characters, that's for sure. But that doesn't make it any less true. These stories are real. This is about real people who had to live their real lives this way at the time (but not that long ago). That is probably also the emotion that hits home.
'There is a profound cruelty in denying the truth of one's being, even it is a means of survival' writes a Variety reviewer about Fellow Travelers. I couldn't have said that better, and couldn't have conveyed that better in this series. With masterful acting, Bomer and Bailey know how to portray this character and convey exactly that emotion. The powerlessness and despair of the situation, and at the same time the intense passion and hope. The moments together portray a beautiful naive bubble in which you as a viewer can also disappear for a moment.
© Showtime
In addition to the masterful acting, the script is also to be praised. The dialogues are beautiful. The costumes and make-up are very good, which is especially evident in the actors who play real characters. The aesthetic of the set, of the colors used, is appropriate and elegant. Everything is just very well put together. You can tell that this series was created with passion and dedication. Moreover, worth mentioning is the way sex is portrayed in the series, raw and real. Without censorship. Something you don't see much in mainstream Hollywood when it comes to queer stories.
It is important that stories like this continue to be made. It's a piece of history that many of us don't know. And history that one does not know can be repeated again and again. It's great to have hopeful queer stories like Heartstopper, or stories where being queer isn't a topic of discussion at all, but just is. But it's just as important to have these stories, and those of shows like Pose, of It's a Sin. After all, that is also the truth. And not just historical truth, but many queer people's everyday truth. Even today.
It is therefore no small thing that a series like Fellow Travelers (in all its unapologetic rawness) is highly regarded by critics and the mainstream audience and that the series is also supported by two openly gay, successful A- list actors. After all, there aren't many of them.“It’s not who we sleep with. It’s who we love.”
This reviewer is also full of praise (as you have read). A 9.5 from me.
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