![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/aa478597a8c1b7b92c8e4d9c2a620ab53d-lovestory-1.rsquare.w400.jpg\")
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Love Story<\/a><\/p>\n Pilot \/ The Pools Party \/ America\u2019s Widow<\/p>\n \n Season 1<\/p>\n Episodes 1 – 3\n <\/p>\n \n Editor\u2019s Rating<\/p>\n 3 stars<\/p>\n ***\n <\/p>\n \n Ryan Murphy\u2019s Love Story is here to canonize the \u201990s\u2019 most iconic couple \u2014 and the \u201ccorseted\u201d demands of the Kennedy family tree. The inaugural season of Ryan Murphy\u2019s new anthology series, Love Story, chronicles the much-publicized romance between Carolyn Bessette and John F. Kennedy Jr. Its first episode concludes with a conversation between John (played by newcomer Paul Anthony Kelly) and his mother, Jackie Kennedy Onassis (frequent Murphy collaborator Naomi Watts). A few days prior, Jackie had turned the car around on the way to Ted Kennedy Jr.\u2019s wedding upon learning that John was bringing, as his date, the actress Daryl Hannah (Dree Hemingway), his on-and-off girlfriend of several years. Now, to make matters worse, Daryl wants to marry John. Jackie is unhappy enough about the prospect to pull \u201cstunts\u201d like refusing to be in the same room as Daryl or turning what should be a pleasant family lunch into a symposium on who John should date.<\/p>\n Being Jackie, though, she never raises her mellifluous, Atlantic-accented voice, even while reprimanding her son. \u201cOnly one of us knows what it\u2019s like to marry into this family,\u201d she reminds him. \u201cThere isn\u2019t enough exposure in the world to prepare a woman to be your wife.\u201d A marriage to a Kennedy is not a partnership but a trade-off: Any woman who agrees to marry John will have to orbit him, give her life for his. The right one will not only be okay with that but relish the opportunity. Most of all, she will love him \u201cin spite\u201d of who he is. It\u2019s a tall order. You could even say that, according to these parameters, the right woman for John-John \u2014\u00a0as he was affectionately known \u2014 doesn\u2019t exist. To her endless disappointment, Jackie cannot be reborn or re-created.<\/p>\n Over Jackie\u2019s description of the pressures of marrying a Kennedy, we see Carolyn Bessette (Sarah Pidgeon) enjoying her single freedom. She\u2019s out dancing at a club with her friends after a day of crushing at her job. The tension between the self-denying demands of being a Kennedy wife and Carolyn\u2019s assured self-determination sets the framework for this love story. Carolyn is not given to fawning or ass-kissing \u2014\u00a0only hours before meeting John, Carolyn advises her friend that the best way to get a guy\u2019s attention is to ignore him. She doesn\u2019t exactly seem like a woman who\u2019d be happy to sacrifice her life for her husband\u2019s.<\/p>\n One of the most iconic couples of the 1990s, Carolyn and John\u2019s place in Kennedy history was canonized by their untimely death by plane crash in 1999. I imagine the prospect of a story this glamorous and tragic makes Murphy salivate, so naturally, Love Story opens on the tarmac. John is about to fly Carolyn and her sister Lauren (Sydney Lemmon) to Martha\u2019s Vineyard in his Piper Saratoga to attend a Kennedy wedding. Things aren\u2019t so good between John and Carolyn: She resents the never-ending family functions, which force her to adopt a more corseted persona. Getting a manicure before going to the airport, she switches from a Carolyn-esque cherry red to a Kennedy-pleasing neutral while the paparazzi mob outside.<\/p>\n We flash back to seven years earlier, before John and Carolyn met, when she was less blonde. John has just flunked the bar for the second time, and his job at the DA\u2019s office \u2014 which has a three-strike policy \u2014 is in peril. Carolyn, by contrast, is only getting better at her job. She is living such a glitzy life you expect \u201cSuddenly I See,\u201d by KT Tunstall, to start playing. Carolyn is so skinny and tall and has Parliaments for breakfast. She stays up all night and still looks beautiful for work in the morning, though it doesn\u2019t take her more than three minutes to get dressed in a neat, elegant outfit. The showroom at Calvin Klein, where she landed after working her way up from \u201cfolding sweaters at the mall,\u201d is \u201ca prison.\u201d It doesn\u2019t even take her that much effort to impress Calvin Klein (Alessandro Nivola) himself. Despite the bitchiness of her lower-level boss, Tanya, she is bold enough to challenge Calvin and suggest Annette Bening wear a suit rather than a dress to the Bugsy premiere.<\/p>\n So while Carolyn charges through life with confidence, John grasps at straws. He knows his future is not in the law, and whatever favor he has curried with the public\u00a0by being the kind of guy who invites the paparazzi to play touch football with his friends in the park can\u2019t float him forever. It\u2019s in this context that they meet at a fundraiser. Carolyn sneaks in through the back door, not that anyone would be able to tell from the way she commands her interaction with John. They are introduced by Calvin, and she refuses to give him her number: If he\u2019s interested, he knows where she works. As established earlier, this is Carolyn\u2019s way of handling men. A sweet himbo named Michael (Noah Fearnley) \u2014 nicknamed \u201csexy doorman\u201d by Carolyn\u2019s friends \u2014 is hopelessly smitten, following her home even after she tells him that if he can\u2019t \u201ckeep things casual and cool,\u201d they should just be friends.<\/p>\n Of course, John is bewitched. Later, his cousin Anthony Radziwill (Erich Bergen) will tell him that he has never known John to have to \u201cwoo\u201d anyone. Attempting to do just that, John shows up at the Calvin Klein office to ask Carolyn to fit him for a new suit. He convinces her to have dinner with him, but, still unused to having to work for a woman\u2019s attention, he is late to meet her at Panna II. She\u2019s leaving by the time he gets there, but he charms her into staying. Carolyn disarms him by being unflinching in the face of his Kennedy-ness, though maybe it\u2019s the fact that she calls the reviled tabloids \u201ccheap and pathetic\u201d that wins him over. The date goes well enough for Carolyn to be pissed when she sees a picture of John and Daryl Hannah at Teddy Jr.\u2019s wedding on the front page of the New York Post.<\/p>\n Let us turn our attention to Daryl for a moment. As Carolyn\u2019s \u201crival\u201d for John\u2019s affection, her portrayal borders on caricature; Dree Hemingway does what she can, but the character is thinly written. Despite being constantly rebuffed by John, Daryl is willing to play ball with the paparazzi and give herself over to the role of Wife Hopeful. Things come to a head in episode two, when John gets home to strangers doing lines of cocaine off a \u201cfamily heirloom\u201d silver tray. The overall implication is that Jackie opposes their relationship not because of anything Daryl does \u2014 if anything, she\u2019s overly supportive, happy to read the fact that her \u201cwork is drying up\u201d as a sign that the universe is \u201cmaking space\u201d for them \u2014\u00a0but because she is so \u2026 ditzy. Or maybe Daryl is right, and Jackie has a vendetta against \u201cfamous blonde actresses.\u201d Either way, it\u2019s after Jackie refuses to come to the dinner table because Daryl is there that their relationship blows apart. Daryl can see the problems plaguing their relationship clearly, but she keeps coming back to him. Not even the fact that John is responsible for her dog Hank\u2019s death (!) can keep her away long enough. In the shocking moment that closes \u201cThe Pools Party,\u201d Hank\u2019s leash slips from John\u2019s hand; Hank runs into the middle of the street and is fatally run over by a car. Thirty years after the event, \u201cPage Six\u201d reported<\/a> that John was angry at Daryl for \u201cmaking him\u201d fly to L.A. to attend poor Hank\u2019s funeral when his mother\u2019s health was in decline.<\/p>\n The progress of Jackie\u2019s non-Hodgkin lymphoma becomes an important story line through episodes two and three. Carolyn rises through the ranks of Calvin Klein\u2019s publicity department, indifferent to the red roses and \u201cIt\u2019s not what you think\u201d cards John keeps sending to her office in the aftermath of his publicized reunion with Daryl. Meanwhile, Jackie finds herself in the hospital after falling from a horse. Her doctor wants to observe her, but she refuses, maintaining that she only needs a good night\u2019s sleep. John has finally passed the bar, but rather than settle down at the DA\u2019s office, he\u2019s rallying his efforts to get George magazine off the ground. John wants to create a magazine that treats politics like pop culture, banking on his ability to move seamlessly between the two worlds. But his suited-up investors don\u2019t get why Cindy Crawford is dressed as a \u201cpilgrim\u201d (she\u2019s supposed to be \u201can officer for the Continental Army,\u201d John corrects) on the cover. Wouldn\u2019t it be better to get, say, Daryl Hannah in a mermaid suit?<\/p>\n Jackie disapproves of John\u2019s attempt to join an industry that has profited from their misfortune for decades. As they talk about it in the hospital, we learn that two years have gone by between this moment \u2014 ten-ish minutes into the second episode \u2014\u00a0and the first episode. \u201cI\u2019m 33 years old,\u201d John groans, in contrast to \u201cI\u2019m 31 years old\u201d in the pilot. Jackie, in any case, is not holding out for George or even, really, her son. When John rattles off the accomplishments his father had achieved by the time he was 33 \u2014 war hero, congressman, published author \u2014\u00a0she replies that \u201csuccess isn\u2019t all that triumphant when it\u2019s expected of you.\u201d The subtext: Why should John try to make his own mark when the family would be perfectly happy with him being the Hunk Who Passed the Bar? John wants to shed the \u201calbatross of his name,\u201d as Jackie puts it, but he\u2019s not sure how.<\/p>\n John and Carolyn meet again at the launch party for a photography book \u201cby\u201d Kelly Klein (Leila George), Calvin\u2019s wife and Carolyn\u2019s friend (she \u201ccurated\u201d the photos, in Carolyn\u2019s generous words). John tries to rekindle their spark, but Carolyn reminds him that not only does he have a girlfriend, but they would never work out anyway. They live in two different worlds: There\u2019s his and there\u2019s hers, which she \u201cinhabits with everyone else.\u201d Later, Kelly warns Carolyn to be careful getting involved with such \u201cshiny people.\u201d Her counsel is that it\u2019s better to be loved than to love.<\/p>\n You know who loves Carolyn? Sexy doorman. Their relationship deepens: She decks him out in Calvin Klein and pushes his headshot through to Calvin\u2019s desk, successfully getting him a billboard downtown. Calvin Klein was looking for someone to replace the racist, homophobic, misogynistic \u201cMarky Mark\u201d as the male face of the brand. At this point, Calvin trusts Carolyn with finding ambassadors \u2014\u00a0she was the one who pulled Kate Moss\u2019s headshot from the reject pile on his desk \u2014 though he\u2019s happy to take the credit for \u201cdiscovering\u201d Moss. Carolyn opens up to Michael a little, but retreats from explicit affection. The next time she sees John, she\u2019s out to lunch with Michael. John has started sending her white orchids instead of red roses because that\u2019s the only kind Calvin allows in the office. Carolyn tells John she\u2019s thinking about his mom.<\/p>\n Jackie\u2019s condition has worsened, but it doesn\u2019t keep her from not-so-subtly discouraging her son. \u201cThere are so many doors open to you,\u201d she advises. \u201cYou don\u2019t have to run through one just to say you can.\u201d Watts plays Jackie according to the familiar beats: She is poised but brittle, a contained force. Kelly, on the other hand, plays John like he\u2019s \u2026 dumb. He is seemingly too dense to understand the gloved condescensions his mother passes on to him. We love you anyway, you poor, dumb thing, she says, and John is like, Thanks so much. Maybe John-John was a vacuous jock type, but even hunks have souls. Kelly\u2019s John, mostly a passive receiver of wisdom and judgment, feels disturbingly like a moving photograph.<\/p>\n It doesn\u2019t help that the writing, particularly in the interactions between John and Jackie, is almost unbearably rote. The most interesting thing Jackie says comes when she\u2019s burning her private correspondence, anticipating the interest that will surge after her passing. She tells her son that she always coveted the extraordinariness of her life, even more than Jack, who would have been content to sail and write. But the dialogue loops back to pedantic discussion of \u201cthe public\u201d before Jackie\u2019s desire for recognition can be developed. It\u2019s so tempting to gloss over Jackie\u2019s complexity in favor of an image of tortured grief that Murphy and Hines have Watts stumble as she sways to the sound of Camelot, just like Natalie Portman did in Pablo Larra\u00edn\u2019s 2016 film, Jackie<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n In any case, John is taken with Carolyn\u2019s clear-sightedness. Meeting with her in Washington Square Park at night, his mind is blown by Carolyn\u2019s down-to-earth assessment of his mother\u2019s determination to protect her child. \u201cThere\u2019s no greater force on earth than that of a single mom,\u201d she tells him, then admits her father \u201cfailed a lot of people.\u201d This is the second time Carolyn alludes to having had a troubled relationship with her father. John walks her home and they almost kiss, but Carolyn won\u2019t give him the satisfaction just yet.<\/p>\n A long series of sequences depicting Jackie\u2019s decline follows. She puts on lipstick as her doctor tells her that her cancer has spread to her brain. She asks for a priest to come by so she can be lucid for her last rites, during which she asks forgiveness for her sins and also forgives God. In her final moments, she counts on the reassuring presence of her longtime friend and personal secretary Nancy Tuckerman and dies while stroking John\u2019s head. It\u2019s all heavy-handed, and as John confirms his mother\u2019s passing to the press that has gathered in front of their building, I thought surely some part of him and Caroline (Kennedy, played by a sharp Grace Gummer) felt moved by the outpour of affection for their mother. This depiction of the Kennedys\u00a0might have been more incisive if it considered the satisfactions, however troubled, they may have gotten from their position. The best part of the wake sequence is when Caroline and John reminisce about the mundane, like when Caroline got in trouble for having a weed plant at Hyannis Port.\u00a0It\u2019s a relief when they talk about anything that\u2019s not \u201cthe public,\u201d the tabloids, or the pressures of being themselves.<\/p>\n Daryl, that troublemaker, shows up at the wake. Living up to Jackie\u2019s worst assumptions at last, she makes it all about her. When John steps out on the balcony to wave at the crowd below, she follows him outside and holds his hand, opportunistically making sure they are seen together during a hard time. Thankfully, that\u2019s not shown on TV \u2014 Carolyn is watching, and Ted Kennedy\u2019s eulogy moves her to tears. \u201cNo one we knew ever had a better sense of self,\u201d he says about Jackie, though he might as well be describing Carolyn. After it\u2019s all over, John bikes to Carolyn\u2019s place in the rain, freaking out. She holds him and pinches him in order to steady his breath, like she told Michael she used to do as a kid. When he kisses her, she pushes him away. But then she kisses him back \u2026\u00a0on her own terms.<\/p>\n \u2022 I appreciate the fact that we are getting to know John and Carolyn individually as characters before we get to know them as a couple.\u00a0The fact that we know where they are in their lives and what they need in a relationship, as well as how susceptible they are to messing things up,\u00a0deepens our investment in their story. But after the groundwork is laid in the first episode \u2014\u00a0Carolyn is self-determined; John is at a loss \u2014\u00a0subsequent events don\u2019t deepen those characterizations as much as reinforce them. They react to what happens to them: John doesn\u2019t actively pursue or push Daryl away; she leaves and comes back, twice, on her own. Carolyn fights for her career but simply runs into Michael all the time. Here\u2019s hoping that their coming together will push these depictions further and reveal some more of what\u2019s underneath.<\/p>\n \u2022 Some moments between Caroline and Jackie are worth noting. In episode two, Jackie tells Caroline that she more than exceeded her own mother\u2019s expectations that she would become \u201cthe most beautiful accessory to the most coveted man.\u201d But when Jackie tells Caroline \u2014\u00a0like she tells John \u2014\u00a0that every Kennedy marriage is a trade-off, Caroline is less willing to simply accept it as truth. She\u2019s happy with her husband, Edwin Schlossberg (Ben Shenkman), whom she married despite Jackie\u2019s reservations. Kelly would do well to study the kind of subtle resistance that Gummer puts up here; even if John was less self-assured, Caroline\u2019s reactions seem more alive.<\/p>\n \u2022 There was an opportunity to get deeper into John\u2019s attempts at self-determination through George. At Panna II, Carolyn asks John what he would do if he had free reign. He tells her he\u2019d like to be an actor, though his mother (once again) intervened on that path. George would become an influential glossy and a point of pride for John-John. We miss the opportunity to learn more about how it came about in that two-year time jump.<\/p>\n Sign Up for the Vulture Newsletter<\/p>\n Entertainment news, for the pop-culture obsessed.<\/p>\n Vox Media, LLC Terms and Privacy Notice<\/p>\n
\n Photo: FX\n <\/p>\n