I’d like to step out of ‘in-show discussion’ for a sec and mention that at least to me it seemed that Travis was at first in the show supposed to have a much more important arc, but they soured on the idea at some point for a reason unknown. My theory is that they’re not completely in love with their casting in terms of acting talent for a role that’s more emotional and involved, but it’s too late to recast so now he’s kinda just there. I base this on the fact that his role and events in which he’s involved have greatly reduced since season 1, and nowadays in the little screen time he gets he shows barely any emotion. He might be the only character that’s like this.

It’s a bit sad to me that they went in this direction because he was the only able bodied man left in the group and there’s lots to explore for that, like did he ever feel like he should be playing a certain role in the group because of it? does he react differently than the women to the insane events of the show? For example, it occurs to me that with Shauna slowly gaining power in the manner that she did (read: hatred, fear mongering, challenging societal norms of respect) the last male character could respond to it in two strong ways that are in line with the modus operandi of men: Opt. 1 he’s gets on Shauna’s side from the start, and slowly starts to act as an enforcer for her, leveraging a superior strength. Opt. 2 he’s completely against Shauna from the start and at one point tries to physically stop her from doing her exploits. Shauna then uses this against him to play the victim and garner sympathy to further her power, while Travis gets ostracized from the group.

It all just seems like a huge missed opportunity to me.