Love Story’s “Exit Strategy” Is a Haunting Bottle Episode Exploring John & Carolyn’s Emotional Disconnect

Critic’s Rating: 4.5 / 5.0

4.5

What a powerful episode.

The love story of Love Story was on the line as Carolyn ostracized herself, and John felt abandoned. Neither of them realized how similarly they actually felt.

And who expected a bottle episode in a nine-episode anthology series? Not me, but it worked on every level and proved how Sarah Pidgeon and Paul Anthony Kelly are the series’s lynchpins as Carolyn and John. 

“Life is for the living,” John told Carolyn at the beginning of “Exit Strategy.”

Carolyn was letting the media control her life, and it was threatening her marriage. Neither of them knew how to deal with it.

And then Princess Diana’s death, the paparazzi’s involvement, and the way it reminded John of his father’s death shook up what they were experiencing as a couple to the point they imploded.

I’m not exactly in the same position as Carolyn Bessette, but I’m public-facing enough to imagine what it might feel like to be under a microscope. 

It wouldn’t feel good. 

I’ve fled Twitter before when I got pummeled by readers who disagreed with me. But it was short-lived, and it didn’t take long for me to get obstinate and angry, deciding that nobody would make me feel I had to hide.

I was in control of my life, nobody else. But I’m no Carolyn Bessette Kennedy!

So I can also imagine that when the pressure comes from every direction, as Carolyn experienced with the public and the Kennedy family, you might want to tell them all to get stuffed. 

But what would that look like? In Carolyn’s case, she disappeared into herself. Conceptually, it worked in a cutting-off-your-nose-to-spite-your-face kind of way. “I’ll show them,” she probably thought. “I won’t play into their hands!”

The result was that everyone, herself included, suffered.

Carolyn was already spiraling when Princess Diana died, which seemed to prove Carolyn’s point that the world was too dangerous for someone in her shoes and, worse, that it was out to get her.

After all, if Diana, the most beloved woman in the world, died tragically, how would she fare? Carolyn saw Diana as following the rules, giving herself to the masses, and still losing the race.

The timing of it is a tragedy in itself. With time, Carolyn may have seen Diana as an inspiration. Her innate ability to thrive despite the public was truly admirable. 

For Carolyn, Diana’s death just solidified everything horrible she was feeling. She felt vindicated in her desire to withdraw. 

But Love Story Season 1 Episode 8 also showed that it affected John. He fell in love with the woman who “used to walk into a room and just own it,” and then, he couldn’t get her to leave one.

Beginning with his little freak-out at the dishwasher, every new nitpick made them seem like every other married couple just trying to find their way in a new marriage. Carolyn’s just sitting on her ass all day, and she can’t even remember to run the dishwasher?

But if she were at his side, going to events and being his partner in public as well as at home, John probably wouldn’t have been as quick to point out little things like that.

They had been letting things simmer between them, and it all boiled over in the penultimate episode of Love Story Season 1. 

It hurt watching it, so if they ever had a conversation like the one we saw on-screen, it’s hard to imagine how much it hurt John and Carolyn to have it.

As Carolyn reacted to Diana’s death from Diana’s perspective, John reacted from William and Harry’s.

His recollection of his father’s death wasn’t losing his dad at all. He remembers losing his mother. He was a little boy longing for his mother, who slipped away before his eyes after his father was murdered,

Paul Anthony Kelly did a tremendous job with that particular scene. He personified that little boy in a man’s body, and it was one of the few moments of the hour that Carolyn remembered he wasn’t her enemy but the man she loved.

You’d think seeing that pain would have pulled Carolyn out of her stupor. But all she really wanted was for John to give her the space to feel lost and overwhelmed with her new life.

If you think about it, women throughout history have pivoted with marriage. From name changes to moving in with their spouse to having children, women’s lives change almost entirely when they get married. 

That doesn’t mean it’s easy. And it sure doesn’t make it better to be doing it with an audience.

And, my gosh, did the claws come out when they argued. “You don’t know how lucky you are that I never introduced you to my mother because she never would have encouraged this — us,” John shouted.

Then, after the beautiful connection John and Ann shared on Love Story Season 1 Episode 6, Carolyn told him that her mom had warned her away from John just hours before they said I do.

John had no factual basis for his comment about Jackie. She never got to meet Carolyn. He was just letting his pain drive his commentary. But Ann did know John, so sharing that she didn’t approve of him was a low blow.

How they both felt should have brought them together, but it was tearing them apart.

Carolyn thought she was being vulnerable. John thought she was distant. With each new accusation, they seemed more alike than different, which is probably why they could hurt each other the way they did.

But while they may have been more alike than they realized, how they dealt with those feelings couldn’t have been more different.

They both struggled with being abandoned. John by tragedy and Carolyn by choice. So when Carolyn screamed, “There is nothing you can say that would hurt me more than you walking out that door,” she was begging him to see how her father’s choice to leave scarred her.

John saw that with his own lens of tragedy, with himself as the center. He imagined doing something that would make things worse, and the only way he knew how to stop it was to remove himself from the equation.

He grew up seeing himself as the keystone of his tragedy. Everyone who experiences multiple tragedies must understand that. You are the common denominator. 

As he prepared to walk out the door, Carolyn fell apart, crying, “What happened to ‘not us?’” That links back to the conversation they had on Love Story Season 1 Episode 6 when she said that everything ends, and he assured her, “not us.”

For Carolyn, John walked out the door, taking their happy ending with him. For John, his exit strategy was saving their marriage.

Spoiler alert, this episode takes place almost two years before their own tragic ending, so they will pick up the pieces on Love Story Season 1 Episode 9. But I have no idea how they will fit two years’ worth of their lives into one episode. 

As we’ve heard in interviews, the show focuses on pivotal moments in the timeline. My hope is that we get some context of those years before they fly off, never to return. 

How did this one hit you? Could you understand where they were both coming from? Did one side resonate more than the other? 

Are you prepared to say goodbye? I’m not. And coming from the anti-Ryan Murphy gal, that’s high praise.