In ‘Love Story,’ an Emmy-Worthy Grace Gummer Proves the Meryl Streep Acting Bloodline Is Strong
For Grace Gummer, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
FX’s anthology drama “Love Story” may center on the cultural mythology of John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, and their tragic deaths in July 1999. But by the end of its nine-episode arc, it’s Grace Gummer’s stoic and revelatory turn as Caroline Kennedy, John’s sister, that breaks your heart, giving the miniseries its beating pulse and summoning its most ardent Emmy-worthy entry of the cast.
When your mother is Meryl Streep, perhaps we should expect nothing less.
Streep’s career is the stuff of industry legend. Three Academy Awards, eight Golden Globes, four Primetime Emmys, and even a Presidential Medal of Freedom. She holds the record for the most Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations of any performer in history — 21 and 34, respectively — across a career spanning more than 64 films and 18 television projects (and counting). Gummer, 39, may have not inherited her mother’s name in Hollywood, but she’s earning her own. And in “Love Story,” she shows that specific bloodline is entirely otherworldly.
Gummer’s Caroline is a woman perpetually composed in public and shattered in private. She carries the weight of American royalty without ever letting it topple her. It is a performance of discipline and incredible restraint, two qualities that are frequently undervalued in TV awards conversations.
The most devastating single episode and scene in the “Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette” finale arrives with a conversation between two women in mourning, inside an apartment that once held a familial promise. Constance Zimmer’s Ann Freeman — Carolyn’s mother — faces Gummer’s Caroline and delivers a line that cuts. “She said she didn’t recognize who she had become. And now that person will be immortalized forever. I only wish she had lived long enough to be remembered for something else.”
Gummer doesn’t flinch and simply absorbs, before responding: “The only thing he’ll be remembered for is what he could have become.” In fewer than 30 words, she encapsulates decades of Kennedy grief, the burden of promises cut short, and the specific loneliness of mourning a person, when everyone else sees a “legend.”
Surprisingly, the matriarchs of “Love Story” collectively form the show’s emotional architecture, and the series is at its best when it focuses on them.
Zimmer’s turn in that scene deserves its own recognition. She brings a mother’s raw anguish to a character who exists largely on the margins of the series. This is a testament to what a skilled character actor can accomplish with limited screen time. Similarly, veteran Jessica Harper brings a lived-in dignity to Ethel Kennedy, and Naomi Watts commands every scene she occupies as Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis with a regal and heartbreaking embodiment of the famed widow. All ladies could see their names appear on an Emmy nomination list.
Series creator Connor Hines, who penned the finale, and director Anthony Hemingway resist the urge to exploit the crash itself (thank God). Their final moments are rendered with Kennedy seemingly losing control of the aircraft, and Carolyn offering reassurance with a simple line, “John, just breathe.” That, in itself, becomes the best and most heartfelt display of the couple thanks to leads Sarah Pidgeon and Paul Anthony Kelly’s committed turns.
“Love Story” is the fifth installment in Ryan Murphy’s American Story franchise. His track record in the Emmy space has been fairly consistent, beginning with his “The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story,” which took home nine Emmy Awards and recalibrated what scripted true crime could achieve on television. This outing could be embraced similarly depending on how the competition shakes out.
The Emmy conversation for supporting actress (limited) will be crowded (It always is). But Gummer has delivered something genuinely rare with a showcase so carefully controlled that its impact sneaks up on you, and by the time you feel it, it has already changed the shape of how you perceived the character. That has been her mother’s gift, but it is now, entirely also, her own.
Television Academy, act accordingly, because Grace Gummer obviously is.
