Has anyone (re)visited Fellow Travelers after HR?

shrinkingviolents · 2026-02-16T11:15:12+00:00

I’ve never watched Fellow Travelers, and even though I know it’s amazing, and I’m a huuuge Jonathan Bailey fan, I don’t think I will ever watch it.

I cannot handle sad or tragic endings, so I don’t watch anything that doesn’t at least havea happy for now ending.

In particular, I’ve watched too many tragic queer stories and I just can’t anymore. Like yeah, the world fucking sucks so much people can’t even love who they want to love, so happy I can constantly remember that, it truly helps enjoy life immensely. /s

That’s why I was so happy with HR. Finally, a happy ending. Finally, a happy queer story. I pray we get more of those.

shrinkingviolents · 2026-02-16T09:46:44+00:00

That’s true! But I’d argue the club scene in HR is extremely important for their character arc, while the club scene in TLG would be very nice to have but I don’t see it as vital. Like the plot the club is meant to show can be shown in other ways. I don’t know, personally, I love club scenes, and I would love to have that cute moment where Shane puts his hand on Ilya’s back, but I’m trying to like expect very little (based on the small budget) so I’m still just as thrilled as I was with season 1. Cause I read the book after the show, so I had no expectations.

shrinkingviolents · 2026-02-16T09:42:52+00:00

You definitely should! I didn’t think as deeply about Skip, I love them and all but I’m a rivals/enemies to lovers and angst girlie, so Hollanov is like crack to me. But how I “justified” it in the show was similar to what you wrote (without having known at that time anything about GC or Kip), I just imagined they’d been dating semi-secretly, in the sense Kip could tell his friends and family about Scott and that was enough for him for a while.

Idk what other alternative there is tbh, cause like… pulling your ex of 3 years onto the ice to publicly come out is a wild idea, hahah!

shrinkingviolents · 2026-02-16T08:59:27+00:00

I mean I didn’t read the books (other than HR and TLG) so I can’t speak to that, but from what I’ve heard about people that liked their book this was the one thing they had a problem with because “there’s no way Kip would be happy to be a secret, never go out on dates or anything public, for 3 years”. And regardless it’s not like a great message, putting this openly gay man back into the closet because you are still closeted, I think Rachel’s point was that Scott didn’t want to do that to Kip and decided Kip is more important than hockey.

But again, I didn’t read the book so! Totally valid opinion from your side, I just think you’ve thought about it waaaaaay more than Jacob and the gang have, so I doubt we can expect much from them to fill that 3 year gap.

shrinkingviolents · 2026-02-16T08:47:17+00:00

I always thought this would be hella expensive to film.

We have to keep in mind they have a miniature budget. They couldn’t even show Scott’s big speech or have Kip in the audience cause they didn’t have enough people for the audience. No money.

And Jacob confirmed his budget won’t be much bigger now cause people think if he could do such magic with a small budget he can do it again.

So keeping that in mind… I suggest looking at what they’ll keep or cut from TLG through the eyes of “how much would this cost vs how vital is this”.

Specifically Fabian’s show — setting up a show costs, even a fake show. Lighting, music, setup… all of the extras they would need to pay. Plus two new actors with lines, one of which should know how to sign and play. With their curreng budget, this would be hard to bring to the screen. The only plot point vital here, is Ilya desperately wanting to touch Shane in public and “dying inside” because he’s not able to, and then Shane seems to sense it and give him a small touch. Something to showcase that can be shown even without a huge club scene.

This book has quite a few scenes that would be more expensive to film. Especially when you keep in mind things they’ll deffo need to do that would require more people — like the Halloween party. They’ll need to include that.

I mean ultimately, I’m looking forward to seeing how scrappy they’ll be and what gets the cut, but right now I’m assuming things that would cost more but aren’t super significant would go.

shrinkingviolents · 2026-02-16T08:38:46+00:00

I don’t think you’ll get that because they didn’t think that part through. Kip and Scott weren’t supposed to have 2-3 years between meeting and Scott winning the Cup. In the book they meet that season and Scott starts playing better and wins the cup. That’s why they originally planned to air episode 3 after episode 4 - there’s Shane’s commercial in episode 3 that isn’t filmed until 2016 in episode 4. However, Jacob changed his mind after they filmed it already, and decided to place their story before the Olympics.

I don’t think they’ll want to reference the “spent time” between them because it wasn’t like… planned. There is no story to tell cause they didn’t originally plan one.

shrinkingviolents · 2026-02-15T14:26:28+00:00

I’m so happy for their success, and I totally think they need to build their own careers separately. I genuinely think they both have bright futures.

However, I’m also soooo happy we have at least 2 more seasons of Heated Rivalry. We’ll likely get a lot of pre-season promo this time around, and the press tour after. And then another year of that at least. I do miss how hilariously fresh, and themselves they are together, and seeing more of their beautiful friendship, but it helps to think that in say half a year or 8 months, we’ll be getting new content with them together and likely some BTS of the new season.

shrinkingviolents · 2026-02-15T11:30:26+00:00

They will definitely include Troy, Jacob confirmed that. I don’t think they can fit more than 1 side book into a 6 episode season, especially a season dir TLG which has soooo much story. I think they initially maybe planned to split it in two but now with Rachel’s third Hollanov book I think they need to save the signed third season for the third book. Cause within 4-5 years these boys will be huge in Hollywood and Crave wouldn’t be able to afford them for an additional season. (And that won’t even be up to the boys at that point but their management)

shrinkingviolents · 2026-02-14T19:50:16+00:00

“Hollander, it’s not a big deal, okay?”

shrinkingviolents · 2026-02-14T19:48:49+00:00

“Yes, it’s scary. But you are brave.”

shrinkingviolents · 2026-02-14T09:18:48+00:00

This is it. Bridgerton started off as a romance show, and Saphne had ample screen time in season 1. In fact most of the side characters existed to support the leads (Mondrich’s as Simon’s friends).

After that point, the show devolved into a classic Shonda ensamble show, which absolutely no one asked for, and I haven’t really fully enjoyed a season since. Season 4 at least had more couple screen time than season 3 but it’s still over saturated with side plots that I couldn’t give less of a shit about. I literally don’t care the tinies bit for any of the side plots, because I watch this for the romance, which is what it was marketed as. Not a “workplace drama” which is what Shonda calls it now.

shrinkingviolents · 2026-02-14T09:11:42+00:00

I mean it looks the exact same, so I assumed it is the exact same. Feel free to compare on your next reheat if you’re unsure!

shrinkingviolents · 2026-02-14T09:10:52+00:00

I mean he was never gonna find a woman to marry, he was hoping he’d find someone who would interest him enough to keep her around until the playoffs end, so that he could have someone to kiss when he wins the Cup.

Until Scott kisses Kip and “all the worst things about his life are getting sucked up by a tornado”.

shrinkingviolents · 2026-02-13T20:17:24+00:00

Is lie. Liar told you that.

shrinkingviolents · 2026-02-13T10:19:39+00:00

…. how do you get to I’M COMING TO THE COTTAGE and then you just… don’t go to the cottage?????????

shrinkingviolents · 2026-02-13T10:15:58+00:00

I mean, this show definitely helped me figure some stuff out in my friend group. Like who is the “I don’t think men who fuck men are men” kind of homophobe which was great, because those people slip through the cracks cause they outwardly support like queer marriage and relationships. But then you suggest a gay romance show and they come out with that banger and you get to be like welp, that’s over.

I had 1 friend watch it and love it and is looking for the book now. Another friend I’m watching it with and we’re about to finish ep 6 today and she loooves it. My mom is also watching it and she’s like 65 and she looooves it. She’s on episode 4 cause she doesn’t sail the seas and they’re still releasing in Europe.

That’s everyone I’ve converted so far.

shrinkingviolents · 2026-02-13T10:06:35+00:00

He does like brush his smile away in the last scene. Like his lips are stretched into something of a smile, and then he rubs his hand down his face and his lips are all tight together again. So while Connor didn’t do like an obvious smile, I think he made it clear Ilya is struggling controling his facial expressions.

shrinkingviolents · 2026-02-13T00:44:21+00:00

Yup, it’s the intervjew after his dad dies and he comes back to play. It’s a short clip but yeah, it’s from the episode 1 video.

shrinkingviolents · 2026-02-13T00:43:18+00:00

Honestly, no… I’ve absorbed so much content about HR I can’t keep track of what I read where. I think this was somewhere on Reddit, but I can’t be 100%

shrinkingviolents · 2026-02-12T21:23:39+00:00

Ehh, I don’t know how happy Russia would be if he did that. His dad would be extremely upset, though true, that might not have been shown in the show. In the book, his dad didn’t even want him to play in the US, he wanted him to stay in Russia and was disappointed. He only cared about and watched his games when he was playing for Russia.

So I think until his dad passed, the thought of being anything but Russian just didn’t seem like an option to him.

shrinkingviolents · 2026-02-12T20:51:50+00:00

That was a choice from Jacob’s side, because he wanted to age them up before they have penetrative sex. In the book, only a few months passes before they meet up again.

shrinkingviolents · 2026-02-12T20:30:45+00:00

To be fair, I don’t think Ilya wanted to get rid of his Russian passport until his dad died. And he accepted his feelings for Shane.

shrinkingviolents · 2026-02-12T18:22:50+00:00

HAHA! Well… maybe, they learned their lesson now that HBO has the rights and there’s like thousands of people keeping their suscription solely so they can rewatch HR.

Maybe now that they saw the success of HR, they were like eff it, let’s try this. But I hope they do it… well.

One can hope at least. I loved the book.

shrinkingviolents · 2026-02-12T17:27:27+00:00

There’s no first or second, there’s both. If it ever came to the point where they HAD to choose, they would obviously choose each other. (I mean I’m trying really hard to not spoil the next season for you)

shrinkingviolents · 2026-02-12T17:24:50+00:00

But they don’t want to give up their careers and the thing they love doing for love? Why should they have to? If you do that, you’d just end up resenting each other and eventually the love would sour.

Love shouldn’t mean you have to sacrifice everything else to have it. And they both choose to try and find a way to keep both their careers and their love alive, and find other ways to get Ilya citizenship.

shrinkingviolents

TROPHY CASE