The Assassination Of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story (FX)
The Assassination Of Gianni Versace didn’t seize the zeitgeist the way its predecessor did, but it still made for a focused tragedy told in novel fashion a visual flair fit for the late fashion icon of its title. Played with tremendous warmth by Édgar Ramírez, Versace is ultimately a supporting character here, the spotlight falling on Darren Criss, doing the best work of his career as Versace’s murderer, Andrew Cunanan. At turns magnetic and terrifying, Criss plays Andrew as a creature of pathological confidence and need, forged from the pressures of the American dream and an internalized homophobia whose external manifestations allowed his crimes to go overlooked and under-investigated for months. In the mixed-up chronology of Tom Rob Smith’s scripts, The Assassination Of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story shows not how the monster was once a man, but how the man always had some bit of monstrousness impressed upon him, an ugliness that festered in Cunanan and claimed the lives of others, until it snuffed out one of the world’s true champions of beauty. [Erik Adams]