My Review of Fellow Travelers: "White Nights"

 

Written by Brandon K. Hines And Ron Nyswaner 

Directed by Destiny Ekaragha 

Tim (to Hawk): "Everything we said last night. Everything we've been through. What is wrong with me?"

The penultimate episode and another big time jump. We trade a groovy decade for one with flairs and one of the biggest protests to happen for the queer community. We also had another awkward reunion between Hawk and Tim.

Since the last time the two of the clapped eyes on each other, things have changed for the pair. Tim spent time in prison, came out to his family, moved to San Francisco with Marcus and Frankie and worked with the latter as a social worker. However in spite of those positive changes, he was still drawn into Hawk's orbit yet again.

As for Hawk, his marriage was barely hanging on, he somewhat wrecked Kimberly's (Brittany Raymond) baby shower and Jackson died between episodes due to a heroin overdose. That, along with the excessive drinking and drug use, Hawk seemed to be hellbent on killing himself. 

Going to Fire Island on Hawk's beck and call certainly turned out to be a mixed experience for Tim. Sure, he made some new friends like Rafael (Carlos Gonzalez-Vio) and also clashed a bit with Hawk's new boytoy/dealer, Craig (Morgan Lever). Though not as bad Craig clashed with Hawk when he dared to bring up Jackson at the worst time.

Yes, this episode had Tim realising that he needed to completely break away from Hawk while in 1986, Hawk was by Tim's after the latter's latest setback in the hospital. Then there was the Lucy and Kimberly scenes where the latter did all the work in figuring out for herself that her father was gay.

As for the Marcus and Frankie storyline, there was the origin of how Jerome came into their lives. The backdrop of Harvey Milk's death and the protest that followed at the Elephant Walk Bar was a great way of bringing these three characters together. 

- Not too surprising that Hawk preferred the term "homosexual" while Tim and everyone else preferred "gay". 

- Plenty of talk of the meat rack on Fire Island while in San Francisco we had Cleve Jones (Augustus Oicle) also talk about Milk being murdered  y Dan White.

- Standout music: Dan Hartmann's Relight My Fire, David Bowie's Boys Keep Swinging and Sylvester's You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real).

- Chronology: 1979, Fire Island, San Francisco and Washington. 1986 San Francisco. 

I loved White Nights. Two very important plots in regards to gay politics and culture and both done so well too. It was nice to see more focus on Marcus and Frankie as well as what seemed to be the end of Hawk and Tim yet again.

Rating: 9 out of 10