Fellow Travelers

Running all through Fellow Travelers, a limited series based on Thomas Mallon’s 2007 novel, is the question of what it costs us—as individuals, as a community, as a country—to make parts of ourselves unknowable, inviolate, invisible. Set against the backdrop of the “Lavender Scare” during the 1950s McCarthy era on one end and the height of the HIV/AIDS epidemic of the 1980s at the other, this ambitious period drama is anchored by the decades-spanning affair between Hawkins Fuller (Matt Bomer) and Timothy Laughlin (Jonathan Bailey). Along with their friends, who include a State Department secretary, an African-American journalist, and a stealth drag performer, the lovers are forced to wrestle with why and whether to keep their relationship—and their very identities—a secret. As Hawk finds pain and solace in the closet with a picture-perfect family and Tim rebukes his faith while thrusting himself into increasingly more radical politics, their love chains them to one another as they see the world and the queer community change around them. For chronicling a half century’s worth of LGBTQ history and anchoring it in a sweeping romance that makes us swoon and blush in equal measure, Fellow Travelers wins a Peabody Award.