Lisa DePaulo was a feature writer for John F. Kennedy Jr.’s magazine, George, and has shared her opinion of the FX hit series Love Story for The Hollywood Reporter. She will be recapping episodes through the end of the season.
This penultimate episode of Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette is ominously titled “Exit Strategy.” And the crash is next week. So which of the plot points constitutes said exit strategy? Is it John having to go to a book party by himself because Carolyn won’t leave their loft? Is it John forlorn because he can’t figure out if Carolyn has run the dishwasher? (“Did you hear it running?” he hisses. Could they be more banal?) Is it the Kentucky Fried Chicken he brings home for dinner? Kentucky Fried Chicken? They live in Tribeca! They eat at the Odeon! Rest assured that John Kennedy did not bring his bride Kentucky Fried Chicken, which in episode eight gets more product placement than Prada.
And why, oh why, are they making him so queeny? All the little hissy fits, the fey mannerisms, the gyrating to Sade. “I love this song,” he says. Then: “You know what else I love?” Oooh, what? “I love you.”
Is there a writers strike I missed, or something?
Since we last left our heroine, she has gotten much more miserable. And some of this is true. She hates going outside and facing the vultures. Indeed, and who wouldn’t? She’s pissed because he came home at 3 in the morning. “We were closing the August issue of George!” he snaps. Well, that might be true. Though few believe this, he did spend many a late night at the magazine. It wasn’t John’s style to walk out on the rest of the staff, to leave the fact-checkers and copy editors to toil in the middle of the night. Graydon Carter would have been leaving Bar Pitti at this point, or in bed. What isn’t true is that Carolyn would have been pissed — at least about that. She was all in with George, from picking models for the covers to meeting with investors. This idea that she was a put-upon housewife is absurd.
In any event, it reaches a crescendo when Carolyn’s sister calls to tell her that Princess Diana has been in a car crash and John responds by going out for a run. A bereft Carolyn watches the news by herself until Diana dies. “She died,” she tells John when he gets home. Then they have another fight, after Carolyn says of Prince William and Harry, “at least they have each other — like you and Caroline,” and John has another hissy fit. It wasn’t anything like that! Not sure where the writers were going with this. But we get another fight.
Meanwhile, back in real life, have you noticed the frenzy that Love Story has unleashed? It’s a non-stop bombardment on social media and beyond. How to dress like Carolyn. Where to shop like Carolyn. Her tortoise-shell headbands are sold out at C.O. Bigelow. Her colorist Brad Johns is giving interviews. (No, it is not easily copied.) It really got out of control when Harper’s Bazaar had a story on how to smell like Carolyn Bessette: “If You Want to Smell Like CBK, These 10 Musk Perfumes Are Your Best Bet.”
Even John, who never thought of himself a style icon, is now a style icon. But I find that sweet. I have no problem with the new generation of otherwise boring young men wearing backward baseball caps and berets and hanging their wallets from a chain. (Though he did that so he wouldn’t lose it.) I am glad, really glad, that thanks to Love Story, an entire new generation knows who John and Carolyn were. But the John Kennedy, Jr. Look-Alike Contest in Washington Square Park. contest? That was gross.
The second half of “Exit Strategy” skips ahead a year to the days before the crash, and it is even more grim than the Princess Di half. The dining table in their loft is littered with wine bottles from a dinner party they had the night before (because Carolyn won’t go out, remember?) They are fighting, a lot. Carolyn is distraught. “Please don’t prove my mother right,” she says, sobbing. It’s ugly. I don’t want to watch this. Neither does John. He packs his stuff and leaves for the Stanhope Hotel, which in real life is next door to his mother’s old apartment. Then… am I reading this right? (I had to watch it three times.) Does the dining room morph into an institutional cafeteria, with Carolyn literally on a ledge? What kind of a misogynist fantasy is this? Are we to assume that she is having a nervous breakdown?
Ok, that never happened. UPDATE: And nor does it happen in the show. I had to watch it a fourth time to see that, nah, she’s just sobbing uncontrollably, as he leaves on one crutch for the Stanhope, which is bad enough. See how crazy this show is making me? I’m giving Ryan Murphy twisted ideas.
Do I really have to watch the last episode?
