‘Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette’ Season 1, Episode 5 Review: Battery Park

Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette is the ultimate love story. Love is not the easiest journey to go on and having to do it in the public eye? Hard pass. What people see in the press versus what is behind the scenes are two very different things. It is terrifying to know that there are people that believe that everything is front and center when that’s just not the way it is. We learn that quickly in shows like this.

One of the most important couples of the 90’s was John F. Kennedy Jr and Carolyn Bessette. At least as far as I can remember. They were American royalty, but apparently it was during a time where people knew how to keep a secret.

It’s actually quite interesting watching this show how many people knew about their relationship and didn’t say a word.

In the 90’s the name Kennedy meant something different than it does now. The Kennedy’s were intimidating and untouchable. They were somewhat scary. But the name Kennedy is infamous and after watching this episode I will say that I am scared of Ethel Kennedy. She seems terrifying.

With the launch of George around the corner, John takes Carolyn to Hyannis Port to meet the family. That genuinely would make even the most grown of people be terrified. What we learn also is that John really didn’t know how to ever give all of the information that he needed to in order to prepare Carolyn for being around his family.

FAMILY DINNER

Ethel Kennedy seems terrifying. As the undisputed matriarch of the Kennedy family, she commands the compound and that is intense. The dinner – the family dinner – John didn’t prepare Carolyn for that.

And hey, Ethel was not being kind or letting up.

There is a part of me that would have thrown something a John, because of course he wants to make a good impression and she’s not able to do that. Ethel Kennedy is making it seem as though she hates Carolyn and that’s partially on John for not teaching her the rules. He doesn’t seem to think that what his family says matters, but to her, it does. She may not want to be known in the world, but she definitely wants to be loved and have family.

Ethel’s dinner party games of all about politics is too much. Then it’s the whole signing up for breakfast and the family not doing anything but making fun of the way that Carolyn is. My heart actually broke for her as she sat all alone, waiting for some sense of normalcy, knowing that she’ll never get that where she is.

Meeting the family didn’t go over easily. It seemed like torture.

HE SEES HER

Did hell freeze over? Yes. John sees Carolyn playing with all the small cousins and he’s taken by her. He sees her and he knows that she’s it. She’s the one. It’s time to head back to New York and he wants to make a detour with her.

John is impulsive and that impulsivity is okay if you are a private person. But when you are a public person, it doesn’t work that way. He takes her out on a boat and he thinks he knows what the answer will be. He asks her to marry him and I believe she wants to say yes, but doesn’t know how to.

And I agree that they have to talk about things first. Because their lives will change. For him his life won’t change but for her there wouldn’t be one thing that stayed the same. He doesn’t get that it’s not a matter of just loving him. It’s a matter of what loving him entails. It’s not that simple. It’s more complex than that.

His proposal was great, but his inability to see the big picture was holding him back.

John didn’t expect to not get a yes, but if we’re speaking honestly, I admire the fact that she did just that. She didn’t care that he was John F. Kennedy Jr – she cared that he was John. He couldn’t say that about many people.

BIG LEAPS

I do believe that Caroline and John had a sibling relationship that none of us will ever understand. They both had to grow up so fast and handled the pressures of fame so differently. He loves his sister and respects her opinion – so having her tell him that it was too early to propose – I see why she exploded.

And I also see why he unleashed on her and didn’t want to hear what she had to say. From the magazine to the engagement he didn’t want to hear anything.

Carolyn and John still aren’t having big conversations and she’s feeling strangled. So she goes to meet up with Bergin and have a conversation. She feels overwhelmed and you can see that in her eyes, He has moved forward and so has she – but the two of them – they know each other two well and it makes it complicated.

I really don’t know what to think – to a certain point – that she went to her ex. I think to a point she wanted to give him answers, but I also think that she wanted to know that she was enough.

For someone she wanted to be enough.

She needed reassurance and telling Bergin about the proposal – I feel like she was looking for a way to run. But I do think that she needed to be called out and for him to do that – there is some respect for him to push her.

WE NEED TO TALK

I respect that Carolyn’s conversation with Bergin pushed her to talk with John. We all need a push. He may wanna avoid it because rejection isn’t easy, but one of them has to be the bigger person. He still tries to avoid the conversation. She knows he’s not fine.

He doesn’t know what to do with “i don’t know” and he doesn’t get that he is making these promises that he can’t keep. He thinks that he can keep their private life – private. He wants trust and that is admirable. But there is a moment that he’s gotta stop and think.

And I love that she wants to believe in him. When she tries on the ring and says that she’ll wear it when it’s the two of them alone – I teared up. But they have a lot to talk about.

The news of him proposing was made public and it was too much. Calvin Klein tells his wife that she knew from the beginning what she was signing up for, and she replies that she didn’t know how hard it would be.

Carolyn can’t say yes. There has to be conversations. She has to hold on to some semblance of who she was and she knows it will all fade away. But she’s making strides too.

A STATEMENT

John promised that he wouldn’t talk to the press and would keep their private lives private. It overshadows George and that means a lot to him. But John is getting so lost, he’s not being smart. How does he keep everyone happy?

Carolyn wants things to stay between them. John’s partner says that he should release a statement that he didn’t propose, and that would be going against everything that he just told her. She may not agree with him, but how he can not understand what he’s doing has made her angry and hurt her – I do not understand.

There is no happy medium with keeping private lives private and satisfying everyone. You know you’ll never be able to keep everyone happy in life. John was never going to make everyone happy, but I don’t think he wanted to isolate Carolyn either.

INFAMOUS

John is not catching on that things aren’t okay or he’s trying to brush by them. We get the infamous fight that no one even knows what it was about. But somehow it all makes sense and the way that they wrote the fight makes sense.

The two of them calling each other out – Carolyn and John fighting and saying everything that they think about each other – my mouth dropped. The way that she worried about everything that they were going through and how it would affect John, it was a lot. She loved him – she just didn’t know how to deal with the hard. He didn’t know how to deal with the hard.

Love is hard.

I watched the way that the fight was portrayed here in the show and then I went to watch the video of the real one and it was just so perfect. It was like every beat was matched up. Every moment seemed plausible.

Kelly and Pidgeon‘s portrayal has been spot on throughout this whole thing, but I will always appreciate so much that you can tell that they cared so much about these roles. They gave them everything.

The way that John and Carolyn handled everything wasn’t the greatest way of handling things. But that argument was something that they needed. Sometimes its the fights that lead to the hard conversations and the hard conversations lead to the easy breathes and just being.

The last five minutes of the episode had me crying my eyes out. Somehow getting to the YES was the good part.

The yes was everything.