TV Talk: Western Pa. native, CMU grad bring engrossing ‘Fellow Travelers’ to Showtime, Paramount+

Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen offers a viewing tip for the coming week.

Equal parts political thriller and steamy, doomed romance, “Fellow Travelers” proves to be an addictive yarn that, despite its period setting, feels vital and relevant in 2023 America.

Now streaming on Paramount + and making its linear debut at 9 p.m. Oct. 29 on Showtime, Southwestern Pennsylvania native Ron Nyswaner — Oscar-­nominated screenwriter of the Tom Hanks-starring 1993 HIV discrimination legal drama “Philadelphia” and writer/director of 1988’s filmed-in-Harmar, Keanu Reeves-starring “The Prince of Pennsylvania” — adapted “Fellow Travelers” from the 2007 Thomas Mallon historical fiction novel of the same name.

Matt Bomer (“White Collar”), a 2001 Carnegie Mellon University grad, stars as Hawkins “Hawk” Fuller, a war hero-turned-government bureaucrat who hides his sexuality by avoiding emotional entanglements. But he can’t quite help himself from falling for milk-drinking Washington, D.C., newbie Tim Laughlin (Jonathan Bailey, “Bridgerton”), who attends Mass daily and feels guilty for his attraction to other men.

While viewers have seen Bomer play a cool, suit-­wearing character before in “Suits,” his Hawk can be downright chilly even as the romance between Hawk and Tim heats up.

Bailey’s Tim, whom Hawk nicknames “Skippy,” proves to be a more likeable character, even when he’s occasionally a brat and despite his hypocritical adoration for queer-smearing, communist-­hunting U.S. Sen. Joe McCarthy (Chris Bauer).

It’s a credit to Nyswaner and the other writers that they make this relationship convincing as the story hops through time from its 1950s McCarthy-era beginning to its destined-to-be-tragic, AIDS crisis 1980s conclusion.

Nyswaner, who grew up in Clarksville, Greene County, said he expanded the novel’s story, which mostly takes place in the 1950s, and its characters.

“If you’re taking (viewers) over time, you want to follow more than two people over the course of 40-plus years,” said Nyswaner, a 1978 graduate of the University of Pittsburgh. “I expanded the role of Hawk’s wife a great deal. And then Marcus and Frankie are inventions for the television show.”

In addition to tracking the stories of Hawk and Tim, the TV version of “Fellow Travelers” introduces Marcus (Jelani Alladin), a gay Black man who is a Washington correspondent for the Pittsburgh Courier. Marcus gets involved with Frankie (Noah J. Ricketts), a performer he meets at a secret Washington, D.C., gay club.

Nyswaner said he had Marcus work as a stringer for the Pittsburgh Courier because it was “one of the most significant Black newspapers there was, so I leaped on it immediately, but also because of Pittsburgh. Any shout-out to Pittsburgh I can do, I will.”

Nyswaner said he was drawn to adapt Mallon’s novel because of the complicated relationship between Hawk and Tim. He also connected to Tim’s religious feelings.

“I was very religious as a teenager,” said Nyswaner, who is now an Episcopalian. “I was what they called in the ’70s a ‘Jesus freak.’ I went to church camp and to Campus Crusade for Christ conventions. … I didn’t decide I had to reject my religious faith to fully embrace being a sexually active and exuberant homosexual. Those things are not contradictory, and that’s expressed in the show.”

One way Hawk manages to stay out of McCarthy’s crosshairs, at least initially, is through Hawk’s friendship with U.S. Sen. Wesley Smith (Linus Roache), a Democrat whose daughter, Lucy (Allison Williams, “Girls”), Hawk dates to cover for his gay assignations.

“Sen. Smith is inspired by Sen. Lester Hunt, who was a McCarthy opponent who got in trouble because of his opposition to McCarthy,” Nyswaner said. (Don’t Google Hunt before completing “Fellow Travelers” to avoid spoilers.) “Our show is impeccably historically researched. Everything McCarthy and Roy Cohn say in public, in hearings, that’s all from transcripts.”

Inclusion of the Smith character allows Nyswaner another way to make the ’50s story relevant in 2023.

At one point, Smith notes, “Our democracy is under attack by those who at times preach the loudest hoping to sew fear within our imperfect but always striving union, a union defined by ideals which we hold to be true and self-evident that all men are created equal. The truth is now in question. The truth has been replaced with fear. It is fear that rots the bones of our American body. If we do not have good men and women seeking truth, then we do not have America.”

“It’s inspired by events that are relevant today and relevant through all human history,” Nyswaner said. “Fear is often used to manipulate people. … Our democracy is genuinely under threat because people are afraid. They’re afraid economically, they are afraid of people who don’t look like them. They’re afraid of people coming to the country and taking their jobs, and their fears are not unreasonable. He is saying, don’t respond to fear by turning away from the truth and the values of our country, which are liberty and justice for all.”