Love Story

March 4, 2026·25 min·2 clips

Candice reveals why JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bessette's tragic story feels like a precursor to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's struggles.

Love Story arrives with the panel already squinting at it. The FX series follows John F. Kennedy Jr. and his wife, whose courtship and marriage played out under public attention. That should be plenty to work with. The problem, from a few angles, is that the show keeps explaining what these people avoid, want, or stand for, instead of letting their behavior carry it. The complaint is not that the Kennedy material is boring by nature. It is that the series does not seem to uncover much. The Daryl Hannah material lands worse. To the panel, she comes off less like a person and more like the easiest villain available: an actress who wants to marry him, drawn with a cruel edge. If the romance is blocked by anything inside the show's own logic, the panel thinks Jackie O matters more than Daryl Hannah's situationship. That becomes a craft problem. Naomi Watts's Jackie O feels dropped in from another show, with a joke that the performance sounds like Natalie Portman doing Jackie. The side characters nearly run away with it. Calvin Klein and Kelly Klein, played by Alessandra Davola and Layla George, sound more alive to the room than the main romance around them. It is not a full dismissal. The panel finds bits of camp it might have enjoyed, including someone waltzing around with a painting of a husband. But the show keeps holding back. Even the too-tailored costumes fold into the same complaint: Love Story wants the juicy version, then keeps over-explaining itself. The episode is more fun than the series being discussed.

As heard by us

A sharp panel critique of FX's Love Story that leans into cast, character, and TV chatter more than plot.

NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour turns FX's Love Story into a conversation about how John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bissette are already trapped inside public fixation and myth.

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If you want smart pushback on FX's Love Story, start here.

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