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Lisa DePaulo was a featured writer for John F. Kennedy, Jr magazine,George. This is her final insider’s take on it FX hit series love story to Hollywood Reporter.
The episode in which I lived in constant fear was the finale of the FX series Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. and Caroline Bissette titled “Search and Recover” – opens with Caroline (Sarah Pidgeon) telling her and JFK Jr.’s handler (Paul Anthony Kelly) about her recurring dream: that she and John are the ones in the back seat of the convertible in Dallas and she’s the one who “was shot.”
“And what are you wearing?” asks the therapist. Yes yes! Make it about fashion. Thank you.
“I’m wearing the same thing his mother was wearing.” Great, keep going. “The pink tweed suit and the bowler hat. By the way, an outfit I wouldn’t have been caught dead wearing …Okay, I admit she didn’t say that last line. But you knew she was thinking about it.
“She hates wearing hats,” John says.
All I can think about is, Thank you, Ryan Murphy. Nine weeks of absolute terror waiting for the grand finale, and this is what I got? I love him. Except when the therapist takes it too far. She tells her clients, “You’re just putting this marriage on a downward spiral.” Do He owns To say “downward spiral”? Arghghh.
Did you have to make their dog Juma fat? Friday was not fat.
I was expecting… oh, what He was I expect? I don’t know. Look, it’s hard to make a plane crash cute, I get that. (Even if it wasn’t about JFK Jr., which was all I heard. Prince.) Just as it’s hard to write about. I kept thinking about the days after the accident, when I had a cover story on the accident, about Rob Lowe, who was a boyfriend by the way, and I kept reminding myself, Do it for him. Get yourself together. This is for you, John. You see, I can be as corny as Ryan Murphy.
What I feared for nine weeks was that he would get into the cockpit with John and imagine the last moments before the accident. And yes, he did. And yes, I cried my guts out. Do you know what’s funny? In all these years, 27 years to be exact, I have never asked out any of my friends George If they also have to constantly weed out the most destructive thought – that terrible, lingering question – then there’s Ed Schlossberg (played by Ben Shenkman) demonstrating that in love story“Did they know they were coming down?” Stop, just stop.
I don’t want that image in my mind. I want the last one I got, before I fly to Los Angeles to do that interview with Rob Lowe for the magazine. He was walking (or rather limping, after the paragliding accident) with John to the men’s room (we were in his office talking about the story and he had to pee), with his right arm in my hand and his left arm holding his cane, laughing about how much Louie had bragged about the girls he had raped at the 1988 Democratic Convention in what turned out to be the sex tape scandal that torpedoed his career. We reached the door to the men’s room and John’s arm was still in mine as he opened it. “Um Jun, I don’t think that’s in my contract.” And it’s cracking. “Have a great trip, Liz. Have some fun out there.”
Of course, Ryan Murphy also does that predictable thing of dramatizing how everyone hears the news. How can you not cry about that? Caroline Kennedy (played by Grace Gummer) has said she knows it’s just her custom He was gone the moment the police knocked on her door. Oh boy. Wasn’t this the truth? One day, I had to do a stupid podcast (enough with podcasts), and the host asked me how I first heard the news, and suddenly I was crying, over a podcast, over a stupid podcast (you should never cry over a podcast). But then I didn’t have to tell her the rest. How an editor called me at 6:30 a.m. 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 television, outside its closed door, and none of us said it, but we knew, we all knew. Then Lauren Bisset’s bag carrying her business card washed up on the beach, and there was a silence I will never forget.
I have to give props to Murphy for making Carolyn and Lauren’s mother a central character in this episode. What an amazing job by Constance Zimmer throughout the entire show playing Anne Messina Freeman, but especially in this episode. Ann to Ed Schlossberg: “Where is she?” Completely delivered, the eyes, the anger. She means Caroline sending her husband to the meeting about what to do with their remains. “What the Kennedys want…” and so on. She doesn’t take anything. “I had two daughters on that plane that crashed.” And later, in the couple’s apartment in Tribeca, when she finally sees it: “Your husband needs to work his bedside manner.” Sweet.
Look, I was hoping for a modicum of dignity in Search and Recover, and Murphy delivers. Yes he did. But I’m glad it’s over.
When the credits rolled and I pulled myself out of the pool, all I wanted to do was hug my dog. And who isn’t fat either. Oh, Joey, John would have loved you. And cut off.
