Lucy’s Shocking Decisions in Fellow Travelers Episode 6 Explained

Summary

• In Fellow Travelers episode 6, Lucy cheats on Hawk with Chet to get back at him for his multiple affairs over the years.
• Lucy cares about holding up the perfect family image in society, so she does not break her marriage or confront Hawk.
• Lucy also burns Tim’s love letter to Hawk as it could be used as evidence to break her perfect family.

Fellow Travelers episode 6 begins in 1968 when Hawk and Lucy have been married for at least ten years. At the end of episode 5, Hawk tells Tim that he would marry Lucy to keep his homosexuality hidden and come across as a straight man. Hawk follows his words, and we see him married to Lucy in episode 6.

Hawk appears to be conservative and strict in the Fuller family, most likely to hide his real personality. Although at first, it seems like Lucy has been unaware of Hawk’s sexuality for years, it is revealed that she had known about Hawk’s truth for a while.

Lucy finds out about Hawk’s affair with Tim when she comes across Tim delivering a love letter to Hawk in his apartment in Washington D.C. Lucy’s discovery of Hawk’s truth and her need to protect her family explains most of her actions in Fellow Travelers episode 6.

Lucy cheats on hawk in Fellow Travelers episode 6 to get back at him for cheating on her and lying to her for years. She does not want to confront Hawk in fear of tarnishing her public image, so cheats on him to get back at him.

1. Why does Lucy cheat on Hawk in Fellow Travelers episode 6?

Lucy cheats on Hawk as she knows about Hawk’s affairs and lies for years. She felt that if Hawk could cheat on her for years, she could do it, too. Lucy also wanted to regain her confidence by ensuring Hawk’s disinterest in her was not her fault.

Infidelity is very uncharacteristic of Lucy, but we see her breaking herself loose for the first time in episode 6. Lucy and Hawk throw a party in their vacation house in Pennsylvania, where Lucy approaches Chet through provocative and sexual gestures.

Chet is celebrating his 15th wedding anniversary with his wife at the party but is unable to resist Lucy’s sensual charm. The episode does not clearly depict what happens between Lucy and Chet, but it is clear that it is an act of infidelity on Lucy’s part.

Hawk notices that both Lucy and Chet arrive at the fireworks display at the party later than the others and realizes what happened between the two. Given that Hawk has been cheating on Lucy with other men for years, it does not take him long to catch the clear signs of infidelity.

Lucy did not want to hide the signs from Hawk either since she wanted him to get a taste of his own medicine. Hawk deserves it after making Lucy suffer for years.

2. Did Lucy know about Hawk’s affairs?

Lucy knew about Hawk’s multiple affairs for a while but continued to be in denial to keep their family intact. Several signs confirmed Hawk’s affairs with Lucy, such as his unwillingness to give up his Washington apartment and his being unaffected by Lucy’s affair in Europe.

Lucy continued to be in denial of Hawk’s affairs because she cared about having a conventional, happy family. She did not want to create trouble in the family by confronting Hawk about it.

The first sign of Hawk’s infidelity was when Lucy told him that she had an affair with someone in Europe while being married to him. To her surprise, Hawk did not react to Lucy’s words at all, as though it did not matter to him.

Moreover, Lucy suspected Hawk for his blatant unwillingness to give up his Washington apartment. One of Lucy’s friends also questioned about Hawk’s apartment for this very reason.

3. Why does Lucy remain in denial about Hawk’s affairs?

Lucy remains in denial about Hawk’s affairs because she cares about the image of her family and does not want to tarnish its name. Despite being emotionally unsatisfied, she does not want to give up her prestige, lifestyle and wealth.

Most elite marriages are based more on social status rather than emotional compatibility. Lucy and Hawk’s marriage was a result of Lucy’s father, Senator Smith’s incredible connections and deliberate politics.

Lucy comes from a rich, upper-class elite family in American politics, so her idea of a good marriage is what satisfies her social needs rather than her personal ones. Her marriage to Hawk takes care of her public image and gives her a lifestyle fitting to her social status, so she does not want to disrupt it by bringing her emotional needs into the picture.

Moreover, she also cares about her father’s name and does not want to tarnish his reputation by breaking her marriage. After all, to everyone else, Hawk comes across as the perfect elite, upper-class, straight-family American man Lucy always wanted as a husband.

If Lucy wanted, she could have easily exposed Hawk’s truth. She had all the proof needed to do so and ruin his reputation as the ideal, conservative, patriarchal man. However, she does not do so to protect her social status and the idea of her perfect family.

4. Lucy Burns Tim’s Letter to Protect Hawk’s Image

In Fellow Travelers episode 6, Lucy confronts Tim because his letter could be used as a weapon to destroy her family. She catches Tim when he is delivering a love letter to Hawk to protect his family.

Lucy burns the letter as it was a piece of evidence. It could be proof against Hawk’s perfect image of a family man, but it could also destroy what Lucy has been trying hard to protect for years: her family image.

Although Lucy may have been sympathetic towards Tim, if not for her image consciousness, her social status stops her from doing so. In a way, Hawk’s truth shocks Lucy in episode 6 not because of his sexuality but because she finds out how well Hawk created a personality for himself.

Lucy is not shocked to find proof of Hawk’s homosexuality, but she appears shocked by his deceitfulness and deception in Fellow Travelers episode 6.

5. About Fellow Travelers

Fellow Travelers is an American historical romance political thriller television miniseries based on the 2007 novel of the same name by Thomas Mallon. Starring Matt Bomer and Jonathan Bailey, it centers on the decades-long romance between two men who first meet during the height of McCarthyism in the 1950s. The series premiered on October 27, 2023, on Showtime.

After a chance encounter in Washington D.C. in the 1950s, Hawkins Fuller (Bomer) and Timothy Laughlin (Bailey) start a volatile romance that spans “the Vietnam War protests of the 1960s, the drug-fueled disco hedonism of the 1970s and the AIDS crisis of the 1980s, while facing obstacles in the world and in themselves”.