Fellow Travelers review: Matt Bomer and Jonathan Bailey are sizzling, star-crossed lovers

When Hawkins "Hawk" Fuller (Matt Bomer) takes Tim Laughlin (Jonathan Bailey) out to dinner for the first time in Showtime's Fellow Travelers, it's clear their relationship is doomed. Dining by candlelight at a swank Washington, D.C. restaurant, Hawk poses as Tim's uncle; it's one of many run-of-the-mill ruses that the suave State Department staffer uses to survive as a closeted gay man in 1950s America.

But for Tim — a diffident, devout congressional aid drunk on red wine and the first real love of his young life — the lie is an agonizing reminder of what he'll never have. As the restaurant's accordionist launches into a jazzy standard, Tim sings along ("You won't admit you love me/ And so/ how am I/ ever to know? You always tell me/ perhaps, perhaps, perhaps") before fleeing the dining room in tears. Hawk, his face a mask of practiced placidity, signals the waiter. "My nephew's not feeling well. Could I just get the check?"

The fraught choice between the hollow happiness of safety and the precarious dignity of freedom fuels every beat in Fellow Travelers' bittersweet romance. Inspired by Thomas Mallon's 2007 novel, the limited series from Ron Nyswaner (Ray Donovan, Philadelphia) uses Hawk and Tim's torrid, toxic relationship as the nexus of a broader exploration of the American LGBTQ+ experience over several decades. Travelers' execution doesn't always match its time-hopping ambitions, but the magnetism and pathos of the series' central duo remains powerful throughout.

After meeting on election night in 1952, Hawk — a war hero and rising State Department star — helps Tim get a job working as an aide to Senator Joseph McCarthy (Chris Bauer) and his malicious chief counsel, Roy Cohn (Will Brill). Tim's a true believer in McCarthy's high-profile campaign against the "threat" of Communism within the U.S. government, but he's a neophyte in the social aspects of Beltway politics — particularly the unspoken protocol of blending into polite (meaning "straight") society. Dazzled by Hawk's effortless authority at work and his sexy, commanding confidence after hours, Tim succumbs to an all-consuming infatuation with his mentor, despite warnings from his closeted colleagues Marcus Hooks (Jelani Alladin), a Black political reporter, and Mary Johnson (Erin Neufer), a cautious State Department secretary.

Once McCarthy and Cohn start to expand their spurious investigations to weed out "sexual perverts" in the halls of government, it foments an atmosphere of paranoia and dread that only serves to bring Hawk and Tim's contradictory coping mechanisms into stark relief. With his eye on an overseas appointment in a few years, Hawk steers through life behind a smooth and uncrackable façade, acquiring people who meet his needs socially — including his boss' elegant daughter, Lucy Smith (Allison Williams) — and physically. But Tim is desperate for connection and hungry to serve, be it his God, his country, or the man he loves. "I'm not ashamed to feel things, that I need to feel things," he scolds Hawk. "You're the coward, not me."

The push-and-pull between these antithetical philosophies stokes the couple's fierce passion for each other, which Travelers' displays in regular and unblinkingly erotic sex scenes. (Side note: It wasn't that long ago that the TV industry wouldn't let Matt kiss another man on Melrose Place. Hooray for progress!) Bailey, so effective as a haughty heartthrob on Netflix's Bridgerton, shimmers with vulnerability as Tim, who is forced to slough off his naïveté as the reality of Hawk's emotional shortcomings set in. Though Hawk lets his charm and immense beauty shield him like armor, Bomer reveals the slow corrosion of his character's inner being.

Nyswaner created the character of Marcus — as well as his boyfriend, a forthright drag performer named Frankie (Noah J. Ricketts) — specifically for Showtime's adaptation, ostensibly to explore facets of the LGBTQ+ experience beyond those of white, straight-passing men. As a gay Black man, Marcus believes he must shut himself off from relationships and focus instead on advancing his career in the predominantly white field of journalism. But as his feelings for Frankie grow, Marcus — like Hawk — grapples with building a life that looks "acceptable" from the outside versus one that feels right on the inside.

Marcus and Frankie's nuanced arc blends smoothly with the series' initial episodes, but Travelers' story yields diminishing returns the further it gets from the source material and Mallon's McCarthy Era setting. The final three episodes chart the characters' lives through the tumult of the Vietnam War protests in the '60s, the burgeoning gay rights movement in the '70s, and the emergence of the AIDS epidemic in the '80s. The plotting becomes more message-driven, and Tim, Hawk, Marcus, and Frankie feel less and less like characters and more like dutiful tour guides through major gay rights milestones: The 1978 assassination of Harvey Milk and subsequent White Night riots; the creation of the country's only in-patient AIDS unit at San Francisco General Hospital in 1983; the first showing of the AIDS Memorial Quilt in 1987.

This somewhat didactic detour dilutes the emotional strength of Travelers' back half, but the bittersweet allure of Hawk and Tim's ill-fated connection sustains until the end. Lessons aside, it's the lovers' personal history — and the painful truths they learn about themselves — that linger. Grade: B

Fellow Travelers premieres Sunday, Oct. 29, at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Showtime.

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