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Breaking Down That Intimate JFK Jr. & Carolyn ‘Love Story’ Scene in Episode 3 (VIDEO)

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette Season 1 Episode 3 “America’s Widow.”]

In the hours after his mother’s funeral, there was only one person John F. Kennedy Jr. (Paul Anthony Kelly) wanted to see: Carolyn Bessette (Sarah Pidgeon). In the final scene of Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette‘s third episode, “America’s Widow,” John bikes through New York City in the rain to Carolyn’s apartment.

When he’s inside her tiny studio apartment, Carolyn almost can’t believe he’s really there and not just a figment of her imagination. These two have been orbiting around each other for years, but it’s never been the right time. John is pacing around, keeping his composure, and trying not to break. His built-up Bouvier and Kennedy steely resolve is crumbling by the second as his immense grief looms over him.

Carolyn walks over to John and puts her hand over his heart to steady him. She whispers in his ear to “breathe,” so softly you can barely hear it, but you feel the breath John takes after that. When John tries to kiss Carolyn, she pulls away at first. But when she stares into his eyes and realizes they both want the same thing, she kisses him, and the only sounds you can hear are rain and breath.

FX

Swooon spoke with creator, executive producer, and writer Connor Hines, executive producer Brad Simpson, and stars Sarah Pidgeon and Paul Anthony Kelly about Episode 3’s powerfully intimate moment.

“I had imagined John carrying such a burden, especially through that time, grappling with the loss of his mother, all the things that would bring up from the loss that he had of his father,” Hines said. “He spends so much time comforting other people and assuring other people, and sort of feeling that now he has inherited the baton, and it’s up to him to run with it, and he’s now the face of the family. And it just felt like in that moment, he just needed to be understood, and he just needed to be comforted, and I don’t think anything else needed to be articulated.”

He continued, “I think part of Carolyn was just the power of her presence and how comforting and assuring it was just to be with her. I thought that that, and especially because of the chemistry between the two of them, I didn’t think that any dialogue would be necessary because of the actors that we had, and just the incredibly already heightened context of the situation.”

Simpson pointed out that Episode 3’s director, Jesse Peretz, did something “unexpected” by not putting “any music under that, just the sound of the rain, which I think really spoke to Connor’s intention there of just a wordless connection.”

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Pidgeon noted that Carolyn does say the word “breathe” in the scene, but that’s it. She needed to say that because John was bringing in “so much energy” to her small East Village apartment following his mother’s death.

“I think we all know that soundscape, when things are so loud in our head, and we can’t even breathe, and I feel like it was captured so well, that intensity between two people,” Pidgeon explained. “In that moment, I think what we’re trying to do in the series is showing that Carolyn is really the grounding force that he needs. It doesn’t make up for the loss at all, but like at least allows him to breathe.”

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