Ben Mark Holzberg/Showtime
In retrospect, it’s funny that I thought I’d be able to make it out of the Fellow Travelers series finale without a few tears. If I was moved enough to have a healthy cry during the premiere eight weeks ago, did I really think that I’d successfully hold back the waterworks when this epic love story reached its inevitable outcome? I am, after all, only human (despite the amount of microplastics I’ve consumed), and the bittersweet ending that Fellow Travelers built itself up to is an unquestionably mortal conclusion, one that details our unique capacity for ugliness and compassion in equal measure.
The finale jumps all over the series’ three-decade-long timeline, but thanks to the makeup team’s skilled prosthetic work, it’s an easy enough plot to follow—as long as you can keep track of a few wrinkles and liver spots. The episode begins with Hawk receiving a call from Lucy, who has flown to San Francisco to confront the husband she hasn’t heard from for days. As Tim’s illness has progressed, Hawk’s once fervent dedication to his family has fallen by the wayside. After spending nearly 30 years as a family man to cover up his true nature, the facade comes crashing down when Tim’s life is on the line. Lucy is merely giving Hawk the courtesy of something he never gave her: the truth. Their marriage is over.
Watching his lover die has renewed Hawk’s sense of urgency when it comes to getting Tim a meeting with the California governor. Time is running out to get the state government to care about an integral AIDS bill, and Hawk makes it his mission to use a lifetime of government service to pull some strings. A flashback reveals to us that this isn’t the first time Hawk has done something like this, the first being after he and Tim said their initial goodbyes when Tim joined the army. After Tim completed his service, Hawk recommended Tim for a spot in a government office working to bring Hungarian refugees into the country. The position would keep Tim close, and bring the two men right back to where they left off.