Congratulations, You Watched Love Story and Bought a Black Turtleneck

Have you seen a black turtleneck, a pair of perfectly sleek rectangular sunglasses, baseball caps with a tux, or worst of all, someone on a skateboard on campus or around Leamington recently? It’s up for contested debate, but best believe it’s people who have watched FX’s new show, Love Story. Because apparently, all it takes is a few episodes and suddenly half the population has decided they are Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy’s long-lost cousin. Everyone is gliding around in sunglasses like paparazzi might jump out from behind Pret at any moment.

What makes it stranger is that, on paper, this show should have been easy. In the 1990s, John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette weren’t just dating. They were everywhere. He was American royalty, the golden heir to one of the country’s most mythologised political families. She was the cool, glamorous Calvin Klein executive who somehow made quiet confidence and good tailoring look revolutionary. They were absurdly photogenic, constantly followed by paparazzi, and their relationship came with everything television producers dream about. Secret wedding. Whirlwind romance. Endless tabloid drama. And a tragedy so shocking it permanently sealed their story in cultural memory.

So how does a show with material this dramatic end up feeling so thin?

Because instead of digging into what actually made their relationship interesting, Love Story mostly just replays the highlights. There are intense looks across rooms. Fashion moments. Long dramatic pauses where you’re clearly meant to think: wow, what a romance. But the show never really explains why we should believe that. The show more or less relies on the Kennedy mythology to do most of the work.

So, what you get doesn’t really play like a love story. It feels more like a tragedy that’s been styled to look like one.

What’s been interesting is the reaction. Suddenly, everyone has strong opinions about this ‘iconic love story’ as if they personally attended the wedding in 1996. There is a lot of romanticising the idea of a man dramatically chasing a woman, which, in fairness, probably feels revolutionary in a world where modern dating mostly consists of dry texting, delayed replies, and someone disappearing after three dates like they’ve entered witness protection. But the reality behind this relationship was never that simple.

Carolyn Bessette was also walking into one of the most-watched families in America. The Kennedys already came with decades of pressure, tragedy and public obsession attached to the name. The “commoner marries royalty” storyline sounds romantic until you realise it also means trying to survive inside a family that the public has been obsessing over for decades. That tension is far more interesting than the refined version the show prefers to present. Then there is the strange way the show handles the people around them. Most notably, Daryl Hannah. If you watch Love Story without knowing the real history, you would think Hannah spent the early 1990s wandering around Manhattan, dramatically spiralling while JFK Jr. tried to gently escape the relationship. The show essentially casts her as the emotional obstacle standing in the way of the grand romance. Hollywood has never met an ex-girlfriend it didn’t want to turn into a villain.

The problem is that the portrayal borders on cartoonish. In the series, Hannah ends up looking erratic and overly dramatic, almost like the stereotypical ex that exists only to make the main couple seem inevitable. But the reality was far less simple. Hannah and Kennedy were together for years, and the tabloids followed every bit of it.

Yes, Hannah and Kennedy had a famously messy on-and-off relationship that lasted years. Yes, they were constant tabloid material. But turning her into a punchline just to make the main romance look cleaner feels… lazy.

It is also a strange choice considering Hannah was hardly a random side character. She was already an established actor with a serious career. Reducing her to a chaotic romantic obstacle feels less like a good story and more like rewriting a real person for convenience. The Kennedys have noticed too. Jack Schlossberg, JFK Jr.’s nephew, has publicly criticised the way the series plays with real people’s lives. His point is pretty simple. Most of the writers and viewers analysing these relationships never actually knew the people involved. Turning their lives into glossy TV drama flattens everything into something much easier to consume.

Which leaves you with a bigger question by the end of it. Are people actually falling in love with John and Carolyn, or just the idea of them?

Because watching the reaction to this show feels less like rediscovering a real relationship and more like trying to fill an emotional gap. The show offers a neat little fantasy. A glamorous couple. New York in the 1990s. Long walks around Manhattan. Dramatic romance that looks effortless. Compared to modern dating culture, where the biggest declaration of love is replying to a message within a reasonable timeframe, that fantasy obviously has its appeal.

None of that means the reality was simple. Their relationship played out under constant scrutiny, with tabloids practically camped outside their door. It was complicated and probably exhausting.

Either way, Love Story is entertaining. It’s glossy. It’s very watchable. Just maybe don’t pretend you were there. And if I had a dime for every person who has suddenly started listening to American Wedding by Frank Ocean after watching this show, I’d probably be rich.

Hot take though: Hotel California did the doomed California love story thing far better.