The first installment of Ryan Murphy’s anthology series, Love Story, came to an emotional end Thursday night, with the finale depicting the tragic plane crash that claimed the lives of John F. Kennedy Jr., Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy and her older sister, Lauren Bessette.
Warning: Spoilers ahead for FX’s Love Story finale.
Episode 9, titled “Search and Rescue,” picks up during the final week of the couple’s lives. The two are in marriage counseling following their explosive fight in Episode 8, with John no longer living with Carolyn and divorce off the table. During the session, the counselor suggests a temporary separation to help them understand what life would be like apart.
But the pair’s attraction intensifies when they’re told to stay away from one another. While they still have significant issues to work through, they remain committed to working on their relationship. Their perspectives shift after conversations with their respective siblings, Caroline Kennedy and Lauren, who, in different ways, remind them that they cannot fundamentally change one another.
Carolyn takes her sister’s advice and shows up at John’s George magazine event. The pair also returns to the site of their first date, where they laugh about the laminated menus and reflect on the early days of their relationship, before relentless media attention consumed their lives and left Carolyn with virtually no privacy.
There are also several references to the upcoming Kennedy wedding in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts. Lauren tells Carolyn that John called to ask if she needed a ride to Martha’s Vineyard that weekend, adding that she couldn’t refuse jetting off on a summer Friday. With some hesitation, Carolyn agrees to attend the wedding. The trio then boards John’s plane, a moment briefly shown at the beginning of the series.
How Does Love Story Depict The Plane Crash?
The day of the crash, July 16, 1999, is depicted roughly 20 minutes into the finale. Ahead of the flight, John calls to check the weather and flight conditions, while Carolyn gets her nails done ahead of the trip.
John, Carolyn and Lauren are then shown aboard the plane. Carolyn is initially seated in the back with her sister but later moves to the front to sit with John. As the flight progresses, the weather deteriorates and John begins to lose his bearings. When he asks her to return to her seat, she refuses, sensing the danger ahead of them.
“I want to sit with you,” she assures him, adding, “It’s OK, just breathe.”
As they’re losing altitude, Carolyn and Lauren appear visibly distressed but remain calm. The final moments show a red warning light flashing across John’s face, signaling some type of engine failure. The screen then cuts to black.
What Happens In The Aftermath Of The Plane Crash?
Police arrive at Caroline’s home to inform her and her husband, Edwin Schlossberg, that her brother’s plane is missing. Carolyn and Lauren’s mother, Ann Messina Freeman, also receives a call that her daughters and John are missing. Viewers also see news reports and newspaper headlines, including a replicated New York Daily News cover with the word “LOST” plastered across the front page.
President Bill Clinton calls Senator Ted Kennedy to inform the family that they have been found, but are deceased. Caroline breaks down, screaming and crying at her husband, unable to believe that her brother, whom she had just seen, is gone. As shown earlier in the season, Caroline and John had already lost their mother, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, to cancer.
When it comes time to make funeral arrangements and burial plans, Ann and Ed meet, but Ann is visibly upset that Caroline isn’t there. She also calls Ed out for only mentioning John and Carolyn, reminding him that she lost not one, but two daughters in the crash.
Caroline and Ann eventually come face to face at John and Carolyn’s Tribeca loft, where they grieve together. Caroline apologizes and acknowledges her regrets, recognizing that Carolyn had been struggling. She admits that she keeps people at a distance because it means fewer losses to endure. She also recalls a traumatic near-death experience from her teenage years.
The final moments of Love Story depict the funeral service for John, Carolyn and Lauren. Among those in attendance are John’s cousin Anthony Radziwill, Carolyn’s former boss, designer Calvin Klein, John’s former business partner Michael Berman and members of the Kennedy family. Ann delivers an emotional reading of “Death Is Nothing at All” by Henry Scott Holland.
“Do not stand by my grave and cry. I am not there. I did not die,” Ann says, as the scene cuts to the families scattering the trio’s ashes at sea. In the closing moments, Carolyn and John are seen embracing on the beach.
How Accurate Was The Love Story Finale?
FX’s Love Story offers a dramatized account of the couple’s final days and the crash that ultimately took their lives. In real life, John, Carolyn and Lauren were killed on July 16, 1999, when a small plane piloted by Kennedy went down.
While the Kennedys and the Bessette family were not involved in the production (John’s nephew Jack Schlossberg publicly called the series “fiction”), the show is based on Once Upon a Time: The Captivating Life of Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, which draws on in-depth research and exclusive interviews with friends, family members, teachers, roommates and colleagues.
In the book, author Elizabeth Beller describes the weeks and months leading up to the flight as a strained period for the couple. John and Carolyn had started marriage counseling that spring. They were also dealing with the approaching death of John’s cousin, Anthony Radziwill, challenges at his political magazine George and Carolyn’s ongoing struggles with the press.
“They were both very sympathetic to what the other one was going through, but also getting a little impatient,” Beller told People in May 2024. “Sort of, ‘When will things be okay at George? When will we stop having to have every night be about going out to promote the magazine or look for advertisers?’ And [John] felt like, ‘When are you going to be able to handle the press, because it’s not going to go away?’”
For a long time, rumors swirled that Carolyn’s spa appointment delayed their flight on the night of the crash. However, the book disputes that claim, noting that John, Carolyn and Lauren were all caught in traffic en route to the airport.
“Tabloids put forth an alleged timeline in which Carolyn lingered for hours getting a pedicure,” Beller added. “Yet an eyewitness report has her leaving there by 5 p.m. She went to Saks to buy a dress for the wedding, and after the purchase, the salesgirl wished Carolyn good luck. ‘Thanks,’ Carolyn said, ‘I’m going to need it.’”
What Was The Real Cause Of JFK Jr.’s Plane Crash?
The National Transportation Safety Board attributed the crash to pilot error. JFK Jr. was also recovering from a broken ankle at the time. As the show depicts, he checked the weather twice prior to takeoff, according to the agency’s final investigation report.
John was seated alone in the cockpit, while Carolyn and Lauren sat behind him, facing the rear of the plane. (There is no evidence that Carolyn entered the cockpit to sit with him, as portrayed in the finale.) The NTSB concluded that the combination of nighttime conditions and reduced visibility likely caused spatial disorientation due to darkness and haze off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard.
“It was getting hazier and hazier as the temperature went up and my concern was that the fog that develops along the coast could happen quickly,” pilot Kyle Bailey, one of the last people to see JFK Jr. alive, told People. “The concern was, if the fog blanketed everything as I was getting closer to the island, there would be no way for me to maintain visual sight of the airport upon approach.”
On July 21, 1999, Navy divers recovered the bodies of John, Carolyn and Lauren from the ocean floor. They were found still strapped into their seats within the wreckage, which lay about 116 feet underwater, roughly 7.5 miles off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard.
Autopsies later confirmed that all three died on impact. Their cremated remains were later scattered into the Atlantic Ocean from the Navy destroyer USS Briscoe. In July 2001, the Kennedy and Bessette families reached a reported $15 million settlement.
All nine episodes of Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette are streaming on Disney+ and Hulu.
This article was originally published on forbes.com and all figures are in USD.
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