“You can feel how much he cares about her. And how much she understands that he’s there for her. He just wants to be there to protect her however he can in his mind. Natalie is the only person that he’ll break his conforming for.”
-Kevin Alves on Travis and Natalie in Season 3
After Javi’s death, Season 3 sees Travis retreating inward, distancing himself and conforming to the group’s shifting power dynamics to avoid drawing attention, or putting himself in danger. Even when he disagrees with the direction they’re heading, survival takes precedence. He’s in survival mode, he’s extremely determined to get home (which is apparent in his desperation to get rescued even if it means leaving the group behind initially). He can't let his mother lose both of her sons.
To protect himself, he softens, lingering on the outskirts, refusing to have a voice; not just because he’s still reeling from Javi’s death, but because he understands how dangerous the group has become. We see this conformity in his dynamic with Lottie, as he takes the mushrooms even if he doesn't fully believe in the Wilderness anymore. It’s even clearer during Coach Ben’s trial. Despite knowing Ben is innocent, Travis votes him guilty, recognizing the shift in power and the solidifying of Shauna’s reign. He knows that dissent isn’t an option, not if he wants to survive.
The only person Travis is willing to break his safe conformity for is Natalie. Last season, he defied the group by stopping Shauna from killing her after the card draw. This season, we see it again during the trial—when the group turns on Natalie, Travis immediately jumps up to defend her.
But the most powerful example is his role in Coach Ben’s mercy killing. Despite knowing the risk of going against the group, he understands that Natalie needs to do this, and he stands guard all night to ensure she can see it through. When the others discover what happened and condemn her as a murderer, he is one of the few voices speaking up in her defense. And if Shauna had followed through on her threat to kill Natalie for it, there’s no doubt that Travis would have stepped in, no matter the cost. He's already lost Javi and his father. He is willing to risk never making it back home if it means never having to lose Nat, too.
Even through their distance, there is a strong thread of loyalty and understanding that binds them. The weight of their shared trauma and unspoken resentment keeps them apart, yet Travis still expresses his love in the only way he knows how: through quiet acts of protection and unwavering presence. And this loyalty and protection for each other endures over the next 25 years of their lives, through their attempts at keeping each other sober, through their pact to not commit suicide no matter how much they both may have wanted to. Nat and Travis have always been bad for each other because their instinct to protect one another will always outweigh their own self-preservation. Their dynamic is a constant push and pull, a cycle of devotion and destruction, and I will always love the way they can’t help but come back to each other.
“I don’t think that he could ever see her die. Natalie is the only person that he stops sitting back for. He sits back for the whole time, for everything that happens. But, if Natalie is involved, I think you will see him do whatever he’s got to do.”
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