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. The latest, episode six, is titled “The Wedding.”
“The Wedding”? Bring it, Ryan Murphy! Only 40 people on earth actually went to John and Carolyn’s secret wedding, certainly no one from George, so I was excited about this episode of FX’s Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette. Until I thought I was watching an episode from Bachelors in Paradise, complete with Carolyn stripping down to her panties and a bare-assed John (well, ok, that was nice) jumping into the ocean, then doing that wet kissy stare-into-each-other’s-eyes and touch-each-other’s-hair thing that’s only done in the middle of the ocean on reality TV shows. This follows a scene where they rip each other’s clothes off after the rehearsal party and end up on the beach, where they wake up — fully dressed. Even John’s crisp white shirt is buttoned all the way up.
There’s much made about the ocean. In a scene where they are sitting on the beach (because, of course), John says it’s the same ocean that they have in Hyannis Port. Ya think? Then Carolyn chimes in to say it’s the same ocean her Italian aunt in Queens had, seemingly to show what different worlds they came from. Then there’s the moment where they ponder the deep meaning of the ocean. Is it scary? (Carolyn) Or comforting? (John). Or how ‘bout this? Is it what the plane will plunge into? Which must be what all this ocean stuff is about. We get it.
This episode does have its nice moments, however. The recreation of Cumberland Island, the stately inn, the jungle roads (Carolyn’s mother mortified to be bumping along in the back of a Jeep, or maybe she was mortified to be sitting with Ethel) and the little Baptist Church was pretty cool. As is the scene where John and Carolyn decide not to invite Aunt Lee (Radziwill of course, Jackie’s sister) because she’d never keep the secret (“she can’t keep her mouth shut”). This was true.
I wonder who on the show Carole Radziwill pissed off. Not in real life. Though her husband, Anthony, was John’s best man and best friend, she was cut out of Love Story. Not just the wedding, the entire series. It would have been nice to have a Real Housewife of New York to go with all the Bachelor in Paradise stuff.
What was sadly missing from the wedding was all the fun prep stuff — like Carolyn and Carole slipping into George’s offices at night to xerox the wedding programs. There were no printed invitations in order not to leave a paper trail; the guests were invited by phone call, with some of John’s friends told they were the only friend invited, to limit the chatter. And how utterly thrilled the couple was that they actually pulled it off. John sent the cutest email to his staff before the news broke saying, “Guess what I did this weekend?”
The episode opened with Ethel sitting in a orderly, meticulously furnished, Georgetown-like house that we learn is her home. At first I thought, that can’t be Ethel. Has Ryan Murphy heard about Hickory Hill? It was a zoo! Nothing was orderly. In any event, she is watching TV coverage of the fight in Battery Park, from last week’s episode, when a tidy maid announces the arrival of her guest, Carolyn Bessette. Ethel’s first line is, “You remind me of her. Jackie.” And from Ethel, this is not a compliment. It goes downhill from there for Sarah Pidgeon’s Carolyn. And for Paul Anthony Kelly’s John. There’s Uncle Teddy slapping the tabloid coverage of the fight on a table between him and John, extra-red-faced and shouting, “This family means something to people!” Like, duh. Then John explaining she’s not his girlfriend anymore (“Ohhhh?”), she’s his fiancée. “Did you know this?” Ted asks Caroline, who suddenly appears. “Jesus, John,” says his sister.
And it gets worse. Caroline and Ed Schlossberg host dinner in their Park Avenue apartment for the newly engaged couple. It’s just the four of them and Ed has picked the dandelions in the salad in Central Park (!), which makes Carolyn look like she wants to vomit. Reasonable enough. Somehow Ed comes across in Love Story as an innocent goofball, a weirdo, and not an arrogant SOB as he’s usually described. (I never met the man, so I really don’t know.) And speaking of vomit, at the rehearsal party, he’s had t-shirts made that say “Politics + Fashion = Passion,” though that, apparently, is true.
Again, Caroline is meanly portrayed as a shrew, though at the engagement dinner she is a shrew who looks totally ridiculous wearing her mother’s long dangling “moon” earrings (the ones Aristotle Onassis gave her on her 40th birthday to commemorate her late husband’s moon-landing accomplishment).
“They were Mummy’s, right?” (Newsflash: John really did call her “Mummy.”)
Caroline is the real Bridezilla, at least until Carolyn shocks her (and her own sisters) by asking her to be her Maid of Honor. Yeah, that one I never got. Murphy portrays it as Caroline’s one concession to making it a “Kennedy wedding.” Which might be true. I’d rather see it as more evidence of how smart Carolyn actually was.
And again, we have this myth: “He’s not interested in politics!” Carolyn shouts to her sister, Lauren. No one believed that, ever.
