Lisa DePaulo was a feature writer for John F. Kennedy Jr.’s magazine, George. This is her final insider’s recap of the FX hit series Love Story for The Hollywood Reporter.
The episode I’ve lived in perpetual fear of — the finale of FX’s Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette , titled “Search and Recovery” — opened with Carolyn (Sarah Pidgeon) telling her and JFK Jr.’s (Paul Anthony Kelly) therapist about her recurring dream: that she and John are the ones in the backseat of the convertible In Dallas and she is the one who gets “injured.”
“And what are you wearing?” asks the therapist. Yes, yes! Make it about fashion. Thank you.
“I’m wearing the same thing his mother wore.” Great, keep going. “The pink tweed suit and the pillbox hat. An outfit I wouldn’t have been caught dead in, by the way … Okay, I admit, she didn’t say that last line. But you know she was thinking it.
“She hates wearing hats,” says John.
All I can think is, thank you, Ryan Murphy. Nine weeks of sheer terror anticipating the grand finale, and this is what you got? I love it. Except for when the therapist takes it too far. She tells her clients that “you are just white-knuckling this marriage into a downward spiral.” Did you have to say “downward spiral”? Arrgghhh.
And did you have to make their dog Friday fat? Friday was not fat.
I was expecting… oh, what was I expecting? I dunno. Look, it’s hard to make a plane crash nice, I get it. (Even if it wasn’t about John Kennedy, Jr, who was everything you heard he was. A prince.) Just like it’s hard to write about it. I keep thinking of the days after the crash, when I had a cover story to crash, on Rob Lowe, who was a sweetheart by the way, and I kept reminding myself, Do it for him. Pull yourself together. This is for you, John. See, I can be as trite as Ryan Murphy.
What I dreaded, for nine fucking weeks, was that he’d get into the cockpit with John and imagine the final moments before the crash. And yup, he did. And yup, I sobbed my guts out. You know what’s funny? In all these years, 27 to be exact, I’ve never once asked any of my friends from George if they, too, have to constantly bat away the most devastating thought, that horrible lingering question — and then there’s Ed Schlossberg (played by Ben Shenkman) spelling it out in Love Story: “Would they have known they were going down?” Stop, just stop.
I don’t want that image in my mind. I want the last one I had, before I flew to L.A. for that interview with Rob Lowe for the magazine. Walking (or rather, hobbling, after his paragliding accident) with John to the men’s room (we were in his office talking about the story and he had to take a piss), his right arm in mine and his left holding his crutch, laughing about how much Lowe had bragged about the girls he banged at the Democratic Convention of 1988, in what would turn out to be the sex-tape scandal that torpedoed his career. We get to the men’s room door and John still has his arm in mine as he opens it. “Um, John, I don’t think that’s in my contract.” And he cracks up. “Have a great trip, Leese. And have some fun out there.”
Of course, Ryan Murphy also does that predictable thing of dramatizing how everyone heard the news. And how could you not cry at that? He has Caroline Kennedy (played by Grace Gummer) saying she knew, she just knew he was gone, the moment the cops came knocking at her door. Oh boy. Wasn’t that the truth? The other day, I had to do a stupid podcast (enough with the podcasts), and the host asked me how I first heard the news, and suddenly I was crying, on a podcast, on a stupid podcast (you should never cry on a podcast). But then I didn’t have to tell her the rest. How an editor called me at 6:30 in the morning and told me to turn on CNN, because John’s plane was missing. Or how we all went into the office at 1633 Broadway, and watched the TV, outside his closed door, and none of us said it, but we knew, we all knew. And then Lauren Bessette’s suitcase washed up on the beach with her business card in the ID tag, and there was a silence I will never forget.
I have to give Murphy props for making Carolyn and Lauren’s mother such a central figure in this episode. What a magnificent job Constance Zimmer has done throughout the whole show playing Ann Messina Freeman, but especially in this episode. Ann to Ed Schlossberg: “Where is she?” perfectly delivered, the eyes, the rage. She means Caroline, who sends her husband to the meeting about what to do with their remains. “What the Kennedy family wants….” And so on. She takes no shit. “I had two daughters in that plane that he crashed.” And later, at the couple’s Tribeca loft, when she finally sees her: “Your husband needs to work on his bedside manner.” Sweet.
Look, I was hoping for a modicum of dignity in “Search and Recovery,” and Murphy delivered. Yes, he did. But I’m glad it’s fucking over.
As the credits rolled and I picked myself out of a puddle, all I wanted to do was hug my dog. Who is also not fat. Aw, Joey, John would have loved you. And cut.
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