‘Fellow Travelers’ Episode 7 Recap: The Age of Free Love Doesn’t Come Cheap

In last week’s installment of Fellow Travelers, Hawk closed the episode by telling his adolescent, rebellious son Jackson, “We’re all going to be fine.” It was a hollow sentiment, the type that we tell the people we love when we know in our hearts that the greatest tests are still to come. Indeed, he was right; the characters of Fellow Travelers might have ended the 1960s on solid ground, but a decade later, everything has been blown to smithereens—and this time, I don’t mean that as a gay sex pun.

In Episode 7, the penultimate chapter, we find Hawk in 1978, strung-out and practically moribund. He’s grieving the death of Jackson, who overdosed on heroin six months prior after a long battle with substance abuse. Hawk is no stranger to unhealthy coping, having spent decades burying his tender side with booze and fucking, lest he risk anyone perceiving his warmth as homosexuality. But after the death of his son, there’s no place for Hawk to hide from himself.

That doesn’t stop him from trying, of course. He absconds to the gay mecca that is Fire Island, looking for solace in hedonistic sex away from the judgmental, prying eyes of his wife Lucy (Allison Williams) and daughter Kimberly (Brittany Raymond). On the verge of total collapse—and with the gay community in a state of collective rage over the recent assassination of Harvey Milk—Hawk once again reaches out to Tim.

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