The most heartbreaking moment in the finale of “Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette” is arguably also a manufactured one. Bessette’s mother Ann Messina Freeman, played by Constance Zimmer, is having an emotional conversation with Caroline Kennedy following the death of her daughter and famous son-in-law. “She said she didn’t recognize who she had become,” Freeman tells Kennedy, played by Mamie Gummer. “And now that person will be immortalized forever. I only wish she had lived long enough to be remembered for something else.”
Freeman’s lament echoes one that Caroline Kennedy voices earlier in this last episode of the Ryan Murphy-produced FX and Hulu limited series. “The only thing he’ll be remembered for is what he could have become,” she says of her now-late brother, the son of a revered American president who also died suddenly in the prime of his life. In this fictionalized version of history, and perhaps in real life, these women wish for a more nuanced legacy for their loved ones and resent how the media flattens and distorts their existences. That’s a fair sentiment perhaps, but it’s also a disorienting thing to process while watching a series that flattens and distorts the existences of those same loved ones to ensure the main thing they will be remembered for is their tumultuous relationship and the tragic manner in which they died.
This type of hypocrisy has gotten harder to ignore over the past decade as scripted, realistic-seeming stories based on actual celebrities, crimes and scandals have become omnipresent. Murphy has been responsible for a lot of the entries in this genre and actually set the bar for it 10 years ago, with “American Crime Story: The People vs. O.J. Simpson.”
Like “Love Story,” that limited series revisits a high-profile narrative from the 1990s: the murder trial of O.J. Simpson. “The People vs. O.J. Simpson,” which was produced and partly directed by Murphy but developed for television by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, ticked all the scripted true crime boxes that subsequent shows would strive to hit. It featured strong performances from an exceptional ensemble cast. It won nine Emmy Awards. Most importantly, it revisited a story that most people felt they knew — the prosecution and acquittal of Simpson in the stabbing deaths of his former wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ron Goldman — but did so with an eye toward the racial and gender dynamics that affected the media coverage of the case and public perception of it.
Rather than simply rehashing old news, “The People vs. O.J. Simpson” seemed to want to help us understand this volatile chapter in modern American history from a more nuanced perspective.
Certainly there were concerns about the ghoulishness of revisiting the deaths of Brown Simpson and Goldman, particularly from their respective families. But overall, the show was sensitive and substantive enough to shake accusations of being exploitative for exploitation’s sake.
I watched all of this and wondered what, exactly, I was doing other than rubbernecking at the scene of a past tragedy.
But as these types of shows have proliferated and Murphy has added murder anthology series “Monster” to his roster, it has become harder to argue that these fictionalized versions of the truth serve a more noble purpose. Which brings us back to “Love Story,” and its final hour, “Search and Recovery.” Inevitably, the show puts us in the Piper Saratoga plane with Carolyn, Lauren Bessette and John just before it goes down off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard.
But mercifully, series creator Connor Hines, who wrote the finale, and director Anthony Hemingway, don’t actually depict the crash itself, only the moments just before, when Kennedy starts to lose control of the aircraft. “John, just breathe,” Carolyn reassures her husband in their final — and fictionalized — moments together.
I watched all of this and wondered what, exactly, I was doing other than rubbernecking at the scene of a past tragedy. Witnessing this interpretation of these terrifying scenes does not add anything to our understanding of their relationship. It just allows us to see what (allegedly) happened before their lives ended, which feels like an invasion of privacy.
Honestly, most of “Love Story” feels like an invasion of privacy. That does not mean that it was made completely without care. As is always the case in the Murphy-verse, there are some very strong performances in this series, particularly from Zimmer, Gummer and, especially, Sarah Pidgeon as Carolyn. Largely known to the public as the image of perfect bridal elegance, Bessette becomes a real flesh-and-blood person in Pidgeon’s hands. The actress captures her vibrancy, her quick wit and her allure. This is the most we’ve ever gotten to see of the real Carolyn Bessette, even though this is only a facsimile of her. But is that enough to justify making nine episodes of a series that picks apart the arguments, pressures and therapy sessions from her complicated relationship with one of the most high-profile, frequently photographed men who ever lived? In a recent op-ed for The New York Times, Daryl Hannah, an ex-girlfriend of Kennedy’s who is portrayed in an extremely unflattering light in “Love Story,” argued that it is not. “Many people believe what they see on TV and do not distinguish between dramatization and documented fact — and the impact is not abstract,” she wrote. “In a digital era, entertainment often becomes collective memory. Real names are not fictional tools. They belong to real lives.” That doesn’t mean that Hollywood should never make TV shows or movies based on actual people. The industry has been doing that forever, long before Murphy came along. But I think the creators of this form of entertainment need to ask themselves what they are hoping to achieve, not just as they prepare a pitch to a network, but every single day they are working on the project. During that moving conversation between Freeman and Caroline Kennedy, the women agree that there is no sense to be made of the deaths of these promising young Americans. As the Kennedy family has learned far too many times, life can be random and cruel for no good reason. That’s the feeling that persists as this “Love Story” ends: that what happened to Carolyn, John and Carolyn’s sister Lauren was terribly sad and there’s nothing that can be done to change it. But there is one thing that Hollywood and the public can actually do: Just let them rest in peace.
Jen Chaney is a freelance TV and film critic whose work has been published in The New York Times, TV Guide and other outlets. 
