Get to know the suave supporting players of ‘Fellow Travelers’: Jelani Alladin & Noah J. Ricketts
Fellow Travelers had its work cut out for it: There were main characters to introduce, there were two different timelines to set up, there were toes to suck…In all seriousness, the time-hopping romance did an excellent job of establishing a sense of time and place—particularly 1950s D.C., when Senator Joseph McCarthy began stoking anti-communist paranoia—and the very physical relationship between jaded war hero Hawkins “Hawk” Fuller (Matt Bomer) and green idealist Tim Laughlin (Jonathan Bailey).With the table firmly set, this past weekend’s second episode, “Bulletproof,” had some breathing room to flesh out more of this world, beyond Hawk and Tim’s bedrooms.*Spoilers ahead for Fellow Travelers Episode 2, “Bulletproof.”*As McCarthy announces his intentions to sniff out suspected “deviants” working for the government—a.k.a.
queer people, who he paints as sympathetic to communist causes—we learn much more about Hawk’s secretary, Mary (Erin Neufer), who it turns out is a lesbian and even lives with her partner under the guise that they’re roommates.We also spend some quality time with Black journalist, Marcus Hooks (Jelani Alladin), who we learn is not out at work and, like Hawk, has some pretty clear-cut rules about hook-ups—why get attached?—in order to preserve his idea of masculinity.Still, Marcus can’t keep his eyes off of drag performer Frankie Hines (Noah J.
Ricketts) every time he walks into The Cozy Corner, a safe haven underground bar for queer folks. Frankie appeared in the background a few times in the premiere, but “Bulletproof” lets us get to know him a bit better, just as Marcus does.By the time Marcus and Frankie start making out at episode’s end, it’s pretty clear their romance will be an important parallel to Hawk and Tim’s in Fellow Travelers.
