“Fellow Travelers” honors a crucial piece of LGBTQ history in emotional finale

Matt Bomer and showrunner Ron Nyswaner explain how they used real squares from the AIDS quilt to craft the emotional conclusion.

Warning: This article contains spoilers from the Fellow Travelers finale, "Make It Easy."

Ron Nyswaner walks into a vacant office at the Toronto studio where he’s filming Fellow Travelers in early November. He seems very pleased with himself — and for good reason. Just one day earlier, he found out that the NAMES Project Foundation agreed to send him actual squares from the AIDS quilt to use for a pivotal moment in the finale of his limited series. And not just some. “Lots of ‘em,” the showrunner tells EW, enthusiastically. “It is so large now that it can never be displayed in one place ever again. There’s no space big enough. So they send pieces.”

It’s the crowning achievement for a drama series that has been so entrenched in crucial moments of LGBTQ history. “People are forgetting about AIDS, they’re forgetting about the quilt,” Nyswaner adds. “So [the foundation] felt this was a way to help keep it alive.”

The quilt pieces arrive in the final minutes of the Fellow Travelers finale, titled “Make It Easy” (now streaming on Paramount+ with Showtime). After shifting across decades to track the love story between Matt Bomer’s Hawkins Fuller and Jonathan Bailey’s Tim Laughlin, the story shows the conclusion of the 1980s timeline when Tim dies of AIDS. Hawk, now in his older age, brings his daughter Kimberly (Brittany Raymond) to the National Mall in Washington, D.C., where the quilt was unveiled for the first time in 1987, each square honoring an individual who died from the disease.

Hawk, a closeted man all his life, arrives at Tim’s square and reveals for the first time to his own child that this man was his true love. Through the magic of green screen and CGI, the producers then show a time-lapse of the quilt, shifting to each concurrent time it was displayed with even more memorial squares.

Nyswaner and his team had to custom make a square for the character of Tim for the show which they then intertwined with squares from the actual AIDS quilt. Among the real ones is a patch for Roy Cohn, Senator McCarthy’s chief counsel who’s portrayed in the show by actor Will Brill. Also among them is a patch for Kevin, Nyswaner’s nephew for whom the Hollywood screenwriter had previously dedicated his Oscar-winning film Philadelphia.

According to Bomer, no one told him in advance of the finale shoot that he’d be filming with real quilt squares. “Well, if they did, I had a monologue in my head from episode 5, so I didn't process it until I got there,” the actor tells EW much later in December. “Honestly, it was probably for the best because I didn't have time to overthink anything. I was really responding in real time on camera.”

The production recreated the National Mall in a field in Toronto. Nyswaner at first resolved to create their own version of the AIDS quilt, so he contacted the foundation for tips on how to make it look authentic. He was surprised to then hear the offer to send real squares instead. “The gay God was looking out for me that day,” he remarks. “They sent a video with how you handle the quilt squares when you unpack them, and when you lay them out.”

Having lost his nephew to the AIDS epidemic and having bore witness in D.C. to the quilt's first unveiling, Nyswaner knew the added care that needed to be paid to this moment in the series. As he explains, the real families of those honored on the quilt likely know exactly which other squares are around their loved ones’ names. “It would be very confusing for them to see something they don't recognize,” Nyswaner acknowledges. So the team created entirely new sections to put around Tim's square. “People from the art department were each assigned a quilt square to make, and they honored different people,” he continues. “So some of the names that you'll see are people that were actually from my life or from our art department's lives.”

“It was one of the most overwhelming experiences I've ever had as a performer and completely immersive,” Bomer says. “It's one of those moments as an actor where you really just try to get out of your own way. The story is already happening. It's alive in you. I think it's such a beautiful, poetic ending to the show. You've been on this massive four-decade arc with these characters and hopefully invested in their lives and their loves, and you realize that Tim was just one of these squares. There are thousands and thousands and thousands more just as rich and interesting.”

As a final thought, the actor shares the surreal moment that occurred on that last day of filming for the finale. “Right when we called wrap on the last shot, this beautiful hailstorm came down on all of us,” he reveals. “Thankfully, they were able to cover the quilt and get it all taken care of, but it was wild.”

The Fellow Travelers finale is currently available to stream on Paramount+ with Showtime and will air on television through Showtime Sunday at 9 p.m. ET/PT.

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