‘Fellow Travelers’ puts its foot in its mouth (literally) with sex-filled premiere that already has the gays hooked

In its premiere episode, Showtime’s new historical drama Fellow Travelers skips the foreplay and just gets right to the hot, streamy, rough sex. And lots of it!

In the lead-up to its premiere, we’d been told sex would be a big part of this decades-spanning romance between closeted D.C. professionals Hawkins “Hawk” Fuller (Matt Bomer) and Tim Laughlin (Jonathan Bailey). But, you know, they were trying to promote a new series—of course they’d talk up the explicit scenes.

However, if season opener “You’re Wonderful” is any indication, they weren’t lying. We just might be in for one of the hottest gay TV shows of the year—or maybe ever.

*Spoilers ahead for Fellow Travelers Episode 1, “You’re Wonderful.”*

Fellow Travelers actually kicks off in the ’80s, where we’re introduced to Hawk as an older man living with his wife, Lucy (Allison Williams), in a big suburban home, surrounded by friends and family there to celebrate a move to Italy.

But when an old pal, Marcus (Jelani Alladin), shows up with news that hid old lover Tim is in San Francisco, dying from AIDS, Hawk can’t help but remember what they had and what could have been.

Cut to: Washington, D.C., 1952. We’ll occasionally revisit the ’80s timeline, but it’s here and now that the crux of Fellow Travelers‘ story will unfold.

Hawk, a celebrated war hero, is a staunch “independent” working for the office of Democratic Senator Wesley Smith (Linus Roach), his longtime mentor and—as we know from our glimpse at the future—the father of his eventual wife, Lucy.

He’s also quite the top, it turns out, which we learn through a covert bathroom hookup with a younger guy named Eddie (played by hunk David Tomlinson, for the curious). Their sex is quick and rough (lots of *ss-slapping!), and it’s clear Hawk is used to this sort of one-night-stand, as he refuses to exchange numbers or even give his name.

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At a party celebrating Dwight D. Eisenhower’s election, infamous Senator Joseph McCarthy grandstands about restoring America to its former glory (sound familiar?), but Hawk is barely paying attention because a handsome, bespectacled Tim catches his eye, ordering… milk at the bar. This guy’s clearly new to town!

The series wastes no time putting these two in one another’s orbit and, after some heavy flirting, Hawk refers the idealistic, Catholic good boy Tim for a job in McCarthy’s office—albeit with some ulterior motives: He wants him to spy on the Senator and his pal Roy Cohn’s (whose named should be very familiar if you’ve seen Angels In America) efforts to weed out communist sympathizers in America.

Later on, Hawk arrives at Tim’s studio apartment unexpectedly, brushing off the timid newbie’s attempts at small talk and cutting right to the point: He came over to f*ck. And so begins the first of many sex scenes this episode, with Hawk grabbing Tim’s crotch as he asks, “Who’s my boy?” Afterward, he nicknames his new bottom “Skippy”—as if their dom/sub dynamic wasn’t obvious enough already!

Both Bomer and Bailey are fully committed—neither quite going full-frontal, but showing us just about everything else. It’s pretty rare to see a TV show (especially a so-called “prestige drama”) be this frank and forward about gay sex, but Fellow Travelers really goes there!

And nowhere is their commitment better showcased than a later scene that’s got all the gays talking. Over at Hawk’s, Tim tries to get an invite to swanky, hobnobbing political party and knows just the trick…

“I’m your boy, right?,” he asks Hawk while flashing him those sad, puppy-dog eyes. “And your boy wants to go to the party.” Hawk finds it impossible to say no, but reminds Tim who’s dom-ing who by making him take off his socks and worship his feet. And Bailey, to his credit, really puts Bomer’s toes in his mouth—talk about to commitment to craft! You can check out the scene here:

Of course, history marches on outside the bedroom. When a closeted colleague of Hawk’s reveals he was caught at a gay hook-up spot and is being blackmailed, he asks for help to “name names” and oust other government employees to take the heat off him.

Hawk, reminding us how cold and callous he can be, throws his one-time hook-up, Eddie, under the bus, who he’s told loses his job and attempts to take his own life. Ever the complicated protagonist, we later see Hawk dropping off an envelope of money to help Eddie out—so he’s not completely heartless!

Meanwhile McCarthy announces a crackdown on suspected homosexuals working for the government, “sexual deviants” who he says are “sad sick pathetic” and paints them as “susceptible to communist coercion.”

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With Hawk and Tim working right under the senator’s nose, they better hope he doesn’t catch a whiff of their foot-play!

Well, one episode in and we’re already hooked! Bomer and Bailey have fantastic chemistry—sexual and otherwise—and Fellow Travelers provides a fascinating glimpse into a very different time in history for the LGBTQ+ community that nevertheless has a lot of parallels to our current moment.

What’d you think? Will you be tuning in for the rest of the season? Check out a few of our favorite premiere reactions from gay Twitter below:

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Because you just can’t have enough.