My Review of Fellow Travelers: "You're Wonderful"

 

Written by Ron Nyswaner

Directed by Daniel Minihan

Tim: "I'm your boy, right? And your boy wants to go to the party."

Hawk: "How much does he want to go?"

Yeah, I know. I should have reviewed this months ago but I didn't. However I am now and it was certainly worth the wait. This episode kicked things off to an intense start.

Bouncing back and forth between the 1950s and 1980s, this miniseries opened with a much older Hawk Fuller (Matt Bomer) at a family birthday party where his friend Marcus Gaines (Jelani Alladin) delivered some bad news about Hawk's former lover, Tim Laughlin (Jonathan Bailey).

Early in this episode, we're aware that Tim's ill and both him and Hawk didn't end their relationship well. Hawk also married his childhood friend, Lucy Smith (Allison Williams) and while they had two children and grandchildren, it's pretty much a marriage of inconvenience between the two of them. Lucy wasn't best pleased when Hawk went to see Tim. It's the older scenes that bookends the episode.

The bulk of the episode largely focused on the beginning of Hawk and Tim's romance and it's rather hot and messy. There's no denying that Matt Bomer and Jonathan Bailey radiate chemistry and their sex scenes (along with some toe sucking) certainly heated up the episode. No, seriously, they're that great to see.

Of course, while Tim and Hawk bond over sex, they somewhat differ politically to a point and a party hosted by Roy Cohn (Will Brill) certainly brought out their differences. Saying that,  it didn't take too long for the two of them to reunite in the episode.

As for the rest of the episode, we had the whole McCarthyism layed out, with both Hawk and his friend George (Jameson Kraemer) throw one of Hawk's former one night stands, Eddie (David Tomlinson) under the bus. That had some pretty disastrous results.

- Tim talked a lot of about being religious in this episode. He also drank milk a bit and mentioned his first lover being a priest. Hawk's was a guy named Kenny.

- The bar that Hawk, Tim and Marcus went to was the Cozy Corner. Chris Bauer played Joseph McCarthy and Linus Roache played Lucy's homophobic father, Senator Wesley Smith, a mentor to Hawk.

- Standout music: Stevie Wonder's If It's Magic and Anita O'Day's You Turned The Tables On Me.

- Chronology: 1952 and 1986 Washington, along with a trip to San Francisco.

You're Wonderful has gotten this miniseries off to a great start. Yes, there's political intrigue, a split timeline and unabashed sexiness with the two leads. Looking forward to the rest of this.

Rating: 8 out of 10