The Death of Tim Laughlin and the Birth of a Hero
Fellow Travelers is an incredibly, brilliantly written show that manages to dive with depth and beauty into its subject, while never shying away from the ugliness of its historical truth and context. Amongst the various narrative choices they made, one of my favourite ones is the fact that we never see Tim Laughlin die.
We see him struggle with his physical health, we see him disconcerted, angry and very aware of his mortality, but we never see him actually die. In fact, the last images of his character show him fighting alongside his friends, his community, with more fervor than his physical state probably allows.
There is something heroic about the closing of his arc. We see Tim almost giving up, falling lower than we have ever seen him before, and then he rises again. He refuses to sign the do not resuscitate order (note: he wouldn't have been less heroic if he had signed it), openly states he wants to fight and come back to life, and he does. He fights for what he believes in and for what he wants, even if the latter means lovingly asking Hawk to go back home and let him go. He blows into a whistle with all of his strength even if it means finding himself breathless for a fleeting moment. He stands even if he can't walk without his cane.
His determination being the last thing we see of him gives even more power to the image of his quilt, an indelible mark of his impact on those who knew him and by extension the audience who spent eight episodes adoring him. His quilt, made of his clothes and a line that defined his life, adds his name to the pantheon of heroes who had to die to make the cause move on, to be seen, for help to be considered.
To make the death of Tim Laughlin invisible to the eyes of the audience only gives his character a greater, more lasting impact and, while heart-wrenching, makes for a beautiful conclusion for his story.
disclaimers: apologies for the potential grammatical and spelling mistakes, english is not my native language.
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