‘Love Story’s Sarah Pidgeon & Boss Explain the Show’s Haunting Opening Scene (VIDEO)

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Love Story: John F. Kennedy & Carolyn Bessette Episodes 1-3.]

Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette doesn’t start at the beginning of their romance — quite the opposite. The opening scene of the new FX limited series, which premiered on February 12, takes place on the day of their deaths: July 16, 1999.

Our first introduction to Carolyn Bessette (Sarah Pidgeon) is her at the nail salon. She opts for red before changing her mind at the last minute for a more subdued color. Meanwhile, John F. Kennedy Jr. (Paul Anthony Kelly) is still recovering from a fractured foot and writing a letter to his cousin and best friend, Anthony Radziwill (Erich Bergen), who is dying of cancer.

Carolyn’s sister, Lauren Bessette (Sydney Lemmon), and John head to the airport together, and it’s clear that John and Carolyn are still working out some marriage troubles. When Carolyn and John see each other, they start having a spat, which Lauren helps settle down. Before taking off, John apologizes to Carolyn for being so anxious, and they share a kiss before boarding the plane. The last image before the show goes back to 1992 is the plane taking off and flying away.

Sarah Pidgeon and executive producer Brad Simpson spoke with TV Insider about the decision behind starting the show at the very end of JFK Jr. and Carolyn’s love story.

FX

“We wanted to start with them on the last day of their lives, and not show the plane crash, because we wanted to start with this sort of iconic image that people know of them from the later days of their relationship, where she was wearing this very fashionable wardrobe that was almost a suit of armor when she faced the paparazzi, where her hair was blonder, where she was wearing sunglasses,” Simpson told TV Insider. “And we wanted to then be able to flash back and start the series, showing her before all this happened, when she was less concerned about how she looked when she went out in the morning, where she was just a young woman enjoying the city, going to her job at Calvin Klein. We wanted that contrast to be there right from the beginning. Because most people actually… the Carolyn they remember is that later Carolyn. We wanted to give them that while also showing that this is Carolyn before she became the famous person.”

As with most shows, Love Story wasn’t filmed in chronological order. Even though the opening scene is the last day of John, Carolyn, and Lauren’s lives, it was filmed in the middle of production, Pidgeon revealed.

FX

“I remember when we were filming that scene, knowing that it came at the beginning of the series, but I hadn’t yet experienced Carolyn up until that point, so I was very conscious of how we played that of, ‘I know so much about her, and I’ve done all this research, and I think I know where it’s going, but I haven’t felt it in my bones yet,'” Pidgeon explained. “I think we shot it at the same time we were shooting Episode 5 or 6. So there were still four episodes that we had to do before we got to that part of their story.”

She continued, “It was a very special day. I think the importance of shooting those first couple of scenes in the beginning of the episode, that wasn’t lost on us at all.”

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Review: 'Love Story' Is a Gripping Look at the JFK Jr. & Carolyn Tragedy

John, Carolyn, and Lauren were headed to Massachusetts for a weekend on the coast. John, who was piloting the plane, and Carolyn planned to drop Lauren off in Martha’s Vineyard before flying to Hyannis Port to help kick off the wedding weekend of Rory Kennedy, JFK Jr.’s cousin, to Mark Bailey.

Just over an hour after taking off, the plane crashed into the ocean. The plane was recovered days later. John and Carolyn had been married less than three years when they died alongside Lauren. The cause of the plane crash was later determined to be pilot error due to spatial disorientation.

Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette, Thursdays, FX and Hulu