In the first episode of this show, I made it through two grape juice boxes. That’s how bored I was. Overall, I had mixed feelings about this show, but the majority are negative or neutral, which is not a compliment. Mostly, I felt annoyance and second hand embarrassment.
“Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette” is the story of the romance between Carolyn Bessette and John F. Kennedy Jr. throughout the ‘90s, from when they met to their deaths. The nine-episode show premiered on FX and Hulu on February 26 of this year and ran weekly through March 2026. The show depicts Carolyn and JFK Jr. living in New York City, with Carolyn working at Calvin Klein and John failing the bar exam multiple times. They meet when Calvin (Klein) introduces them at a party, and Carolyn is, safe to say, not into John. He pursues her and thus, the drama begins. A lot of the story revolves around Carolyn being avoidant and John being emotionally immature (in my personal opinion.) John also has a girlfriend named Daryl Hannah. If that sounds like a random addition to you, trust me, you are right. It’s the truth though, I guess. Anyway, their relationship begins in tumult through Carolyn and John’s various personal issues and the girlfriend that he has for some reason. As they let you know before every episode, it is not a documentary, and is instead a dramatized imagining of what their romance looked like. So, the level of fiction is ambiguous, perhaps even slightly concerning.
I think the people making this show were trying to give it a ‘90s vibe,because the show’s shots look ‘rustic.’ It does not look like the ‘90s. It looks like a modern day teenager trying to imagine what the ‘90s looked like and it bothers me. One thing I did enjoy though were Carolyn’s outfits. Rudy Mance, the costume designer for the show, had Carolyn in the show donning multiple all black outfits, Levi’s jeans, and slinky black dresses, which have been getting a lot of buzz online for being accurate to the real Carolyn Bessette’s ‘90s street style. As a big fan of dressing basic (jeans and black tee), I had a great time watching the endless montages of her walking around the city. Yes, it did get tedious at times, but I still enjoyed it.
The writing was really, really dry. It was almost juvenile. I think I could have written that script in ninth grade. Even the fights between JFK Jr. and his (ex) girlfriend Daryl Hannah were bland. I was bored watching them duke it out mildly. At best, the dialogue was middling, and at worst, I had to open Instagram reels to take a break. I audibly cringed multiple times. It was worse at the beginning of the show, and when paired with the awkward and dramatic music in the background, made for a very surreal viewing experience, in a bad way. I was overwhelmed by the way I wanted to turn it off. Towards the middle of the show, it got better, but only marginally.
Mostly, this show felt a little bit exploitative. I have a bit of an ethical issue with biopics and the way people monetize real people’s tragic lives for their own personal benefit, without considering how the family members feel about being constantly used for someone else’s salary. My first thought when I saw the advertisement for this show was ‘wow that looks so cool!’ followed immediately by ‘why can’t they just leave the Kennedys alone?’ A whole plotline in this show is devoted to how terrible it was that the press were so nosy and intrusive into John and Carolyn’s life. I was wondering why the writers even wrote that into the show if they are going to do the same thing. It felt extremely hypocritical. This show was invasive. It depicted parts of their relationships with each other and with other people that were extremely personal. Maybe it was all made up, but still. These were real people, and they died very tragic deaths. I am not attached to the Kennedys, but I know when too much liberty is taken when it comes to chatting about celebrities’ private lives. Who cares? It is none of our business what Carolyn’s relationships were before John, and none of our business what her relationship with John was like either. And all of this, the drama of Carolyn and John, just to turn a profit for the studio. It just isn’t very kind, and I don’t appreciate it.
The only real positive that I had while watching this show (other than Carolyn’s awesome wardrobe) was that both Carolyn Bessette’s actress Sarah Pidgeon and JFK Jr.’s actor Paul Anthony Kelly looked as close to the real people as physically possible. But even that can’t save this show from the fact that it was incredibly mediocre. I can’t reclaim the hours I spent watching this instead of reading a book or going outside. I feel like this show didn’t add any value in my life. My verdict is this: watch something else.
