We go way back and are squarely situation in the 80s for this foundational episode of the Assassination of Gianni Versace. There’s no death, but plenty of destruction, as breadcrumbs are dropped, the hints of all of Andrew’s traits to come. His love of clothing, from his father’s enormous closet. His penchant for lying and swindling, also from his father. And of course the beginning of his history of violence, as he watched his father manipulate his mother, threaten her, and ring her neck. Dating much older men, receiving lavish gifts, manipulating them like he does with this man, pretending he thought they could go to the party together so he can get the gift and his night back, still spending it how he pleases.
The episode, which features the rise and fall of Modesto Cunanan’s American Dream, benefits greatly from an 80s-inspired soundtrack, including Devo and a great Jefferson Airplane cover. Andrew seems confident in a health way, and while his father obviously favors him, he hasn’t quite done a full psychological number on him yet. But Andrew’s still a mix of utter confidence and intense self-consciousness, and you better believe that yearbook pic, and the superlative “Most Likely to be Remembered,” are both real.
There have been a lot of shots of Andrew dancing throughout this series. Dancing at clubs, sure, but the best ones so far have been solo and incongruous, like jamming out alone in a car after murdering someone. But this sequence, two long, back to back shots of Andrew from exiting his lover’s car, ripping off the trench coat to unveil the white boy jazzercise instructor version of Eddie Murphy’s red leather outfit underneath, and a runway walk that Miss J would approve as he enters the party to his wrist-inflected entrance directly onto the dance floor, puts them all to shame.
It’s sort of like reverse-engineering a puzzle. We see the nervous blond friend, the man from the first episode who called out Andrew’s dishonesty about his sexuality. Wearing a fantastic 80s sweater (that’s what we’re calling them now instead of Cosby sweaters, right?) he wants to ask Andrew out, and we already know he’ll be disappointed. He’s far too earnest and normal for Andrew. He also meets Lizzie, the friend who has flitted in and out of his life since the first episode of the series. It’s easy to see how someone like Andrew would intrigue her, with his attention, lavish lifestyle, and au courrant sensibility. And of course, she’s friends with the da Silvas (!) who own the house.
Modesto is clearly abusive in many ways – physically, emotionally, and perhaps he’s even drugging his wife. At minimum he’s gaslighting her. At one point, after Modesto flees and Andrew wants to chase after him, it looks like Andrew might hit her, but he covers her mouth instead. He’s not that man yet. But he will be.
For most of the episode Andrew seems innocent, like he still believes in good things happening to good people. He clearly idolizes his father, who helped him stay innocent much longer than his older siblings, who seem to hold no illusions about their father’s favoritism and violent tendencies. Andrew bristles at being mocked for being gay, but he doesn’t back down. He could be any gay kid, or someone with less money than their peers, just trying to fit in. He wants to seek out his heroes, mostly LGBTQ and gender-bending icons like Basquiat, Patty Smith, Keith Herring and who else, but Versace.
Viewers looking for more Versace will once again be disappointed. The vignette here is informative, and tracks with Cunanan’s cruel, taunting schoolmates, but once again Versace’s story is in service to Cunanan’s, not the other way around. Even without factoring in screen time, which really speaks for itself when it comes to priorities, the Gianni story is used to make greater meaning for Andrew’s, episode after episode. One wonders why Gianni hasn’t been afforded the same humanity as Andrew’s other victims, with the dedicated episode(s) for Lee Miglin, David Madsen, and Jeff Trails.
I’d love to know more about the woman at work who twice warns Andrew’s father. Was that a sign of AAPI or Filipino camaraderie, was there something going on between them, or was it something else?
Village life, with its mosquito nets and exposed light bulbs, is not how Andrew wanted to see his father. He honestly seems more horrified by what he perceives as squalor than by his father’s apparent crimes, or the fact that his mother is afraid of him.
Again, Andrew seems to learn the wrong lesson, as does his father. While M says his mistake was stealing too little, Andrew learns from his father’s failed thievery that lying and stealing. His father turns on him, on a dime, like Andrew will one day turn on so many other people. And then his father does something that is at once unbelievable and completely credible, coming from the man who raised the person Andrew will one day become: he challenges his son to be a man and stab him.
While I had assumed that this episode had the tallest order to fill, the one going back furthest in Cunanan’s past, it’s far more successful than the previous episode. Perhaps that’s because this one contains all of the ingredients for who Cunanan will one day be. We see the violence, the lying, and the self-hatred. All of these seeds are planted, and rather than drawing weak connections between dots, like “Ascent” did, “Creator/Destroyer” allows us to imagine ourselves how a hard working boy who sees his father steal, abandon him, and pay no price for his actions, could then go on to live a life that seems deliberately fashioned to generate the appearance of vast wealth, with as little work as possible.
There have been a lot of visually and emotionally beautiful episodes of The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story, but few are more important than “Creator / Destroyer.” For hours and weeks now, the Ryan Murphyshow has explored the lives Andrew Cunanan has ruined, but in its final two episodes, the series has shifted its focus to finally land on the killer himself. At the center of this heartfelt and disturbing examination of a serial killer is Matt Bomer in his directorial debut.
Though Bomer is likely best known for portraying Neal Caffrey on White Collar, the Magic Mike and Chuck actor actually has a fairly long history working with Murphy. In 2014 he starred in HBO‘s The Normal Heart, a TV movie that followed a writer and activist as he sought to expose the truth about the emerging AIDs crisis. Bomer starred as Felix Turner, the love interest of Mark Ruffalo‘s Ned Weeks. However, his journey through Murphy’s many projects was far from over. Later that year Bomer starred as the prostitute Andy in American Horror Story: Freak Show, and the next year he made an extremely memorable appearance in American Horror Story: Hotel when he was raped to death by a demon with a drillbit dildo. Based on those appearances, you may assume that the Bomer-directed episode of American Crime Story would be just as flashy as those past roles. You would be wrong.
“Creator / Destroyer” is packed with disappointment, a theme the show has played with but has never really embraced until this point. The hour starts on a young Gianni Versace (Wolf Fleetwood-Ross) as he follows his seamstress mother around. During a particularly emotional moment, Gianni’s mother tells him that though she was told she could never pursue her dreams, things would be different for him. If he wants to learn how to sew, she will teach him.
The episode then jumps decades ahead into the future where it follows two other parents set on giving their child the world — Mary Ann (Joanna Adler) and Modesto (Jon Jon Briones) Cunanan. From Modesto commanding a young Andrew (Edouard Holdener) to say goodbye to his home to the tears our murderous protagonist sheds over getting into his dream school, the episode is immediately established to inspire failure. It lives up to those down-facing expectations time and time again. It’s not just Andrew (Darren Criss) who fails to live up to the pedestal of his parents’ expectations. At the end of the episode, Modesto is just as much of a failure in his son’s eyes.
These themes are wonderfully highlighted through Bomer’s direction. When the camera focuses on Mary Ann or Modesto’s tenser scenes, it’s more active, echoing their anxieties about barely achieving the aspirations they have for themselves. However, when the camera is on Andrew, its steady, sweeping angles are even more anxiety-inducing. When Modesto first shows his son the master bedroom that is destined to belong to him, there’s a sense of pride that’s not unlike when Mufasa first showed Simba everything that the light touches. However, we already know how this story ends. Everyone is going to be deeply disappointed.
That is nothing to say of the episode’s excellent use of color. In an interview with Nina Jacobson and Brad Simpson, the executive producers told Decider that using pinks was very important to the creative direction of the show. The warm color palette was supposed to represent homosexuality and opulence while echoing the colors of Miami. In contrast, “Creator / Destroyer” dwells almost exclusively in radioactive greens and harsh, office-lit yellows. It’s a decidedly mundane and borderline gross-looking episode in an otherwise breathtakingly gorgeous show. And that’s the point.
For seven episodes now, The Assassination of Gianni Versace has hinted at this idea that Gianni Versace and Andrew Cunanan were never really so different. However, it’s “Creator / Destroyer” that quite literally spells out that relationship. Both men came from fairly humble beginnings. Both seemed to have loving parents who wanted what was best for them. Both were gay men during a time when that was still culturally taboo, and yet one man inspired joy, made art, and built an empire while the other took the lives of five innocent men. To fully understand the horrors of the Andrew Cunanan case, we have to eventually try to understand Andrew Cunanan. In Versace‘s second to last episode, Bomer has captured the frustration, disappointment, and shock attached to this historical figure in a way that’s emotional while capturing Murphy’s signature camp at just the right moments.
As we near the end of this series, we finally get to see a young Andrew Cunanan. A child born into an extremely dysfunctional family.
Within the first few minutes of the episode, it’s abundantly clear where Andrew’s sense of entitlement came from. Who gives their 10 year old child the master bedroom? Who gives that same child a car after they get into a stuffy private school?
Modesto has an unhealthy obsession with his youngest son. We don’t see enough of the older Cunanan children to see why they were unable to take the top spot in their father’s heart, but we do see that Andrew is every bit the smart and cunning person we know him to be as an adult.
Teacher: Andrew if you could have one wish, just one wish, what would it be? Andrew: To be special.
From a young age, Modesto starts grooming Andrew to believe that he is more important than everyone around him. He’s more important than his siblings. More important than his peers. Heck, he wants him to feel like he’s more important than his own mother.
It’s strongly hinted at that Modesto may be abusing Andrew both mentally and physically, adding another layer to the case study that is Andrew Cunanan. There was no one in those early days to protect him.
Modesto was an abusive, abrasive jerk and he was of the belief that he was owed something from this world. He came to America and wanted to work, but on his own terms. And he instilled those beliefs into his offspring.
Just like all the many ‘what ifs’ we’ve asked ourselves along the way, one has to wonder had Andrew not grown up in that household, what man he could have become? Free from a father who was almost co-dependent, would Andrew have been the same person?
This is of course something we will never know, but it’s interesting to think about. Every single thing that happens in Andrew’s life, leads him to the moment he shows up at Gianni’s doorstep to kill him.
By the time Andrew gets to high school, he acts a lot more like the Andrew we’ve come to know. He’s arrogant, talkative and bold. He’s the man that walks into a party demanding that all eyes be on him.
I kept wondering throughout the hour at what point would Modesto leave. We already know that Andrew is left to take care of his mother by himself, but it’s never clear what happens to his father, as he tells a different tale to everyone he meets.
Turns out Modesto stuck around until Andrew was in high shool and then at the first sign of trouble he fled. Abruptly and selfishly, Modesto was gone.
Don’t believe a word they say.
– Modesto [to Andrew]
Of all the events in his life, the trip to Manila may have been the moment that defined the path Andrew was destined to take. It was there that Andrew realized he did not want to be like his father.
His father was nothing. A shell of the man he once knew who had power and money and influence. He looked at this man living in the oppressive heat, with very little money to his name and saw someone who was no longer special.
It’s a tough realization to come to and yet as Andrew vows to never become someone like him, we all know what’s going to happen. Andrew is going to become a better liar than Modesto ever was. A better con artist. A better manipulator.
He will be the monster his father never believed he could be.
Okay guys, with only one episode to go, I need to know what you’re hoping to see on the finale and what you thought about ‘Creator/Destroyer’. Although this was another entry that was heavy on Andrew, we did get a brief scene of a young Versace in Italy.
There was a major contrast between Gianni’s relationship with his mother and the relationship between Andrew and his parents. I was hoping we’d see more Gianni as we’re so close to the end, but we did not. My hope for the finale is more Gianni and the Versace’s in general.
After the inertness of last week’s mostly-meandering “Ascent,” this week’s “Creator/Destroyer” is comparatively more interesting and has a clearer focus. And though Assassination is still into shoehorning in parallels between various characters, it works better here (and confined to the cold open) than it did with Donatella. A young Versace, in 1957 Italy, shows an interest in fashion design but is deemed a “pervert” by a teacher and a “pansy” by a classmate. At home, however, he finds encouragement from his mother to pursue his dreams which eventually led to, as we know, him becoming a success. A young Andrew, in 1980 California, is given special treatment (and a master bedroom!) by his father, and he’s explicitly told to always remember he is special because “when you feel special, success will follow.”
These similarities between younger Andrew and Versace—knowing they stand out, having interests that outside the norm of “typical” boyhoods (and being made fun of for it), the parental emphasis on encouragement and success, etc.—are displayed so we can take note of how the two diverged into entirely different paths (and ask why; Assassination has a lot to say about parents!): of how one became a murderer and the other his unfortunate victim. So, yes, some of this is certainly retreading well-worn territory (the season’s biggest problem) but it generally works this time, as “Creator/Destroyer” almost functions as a origin story, pulling us into the depths of Andrew’s adolescence. It’s the episode that paints the most sympathetic portrait of Andrew, but the reverse timeline engineering of the series has—fortunately—ensured that we can’t commit to the sympathy.
What’s also pretty compelling about “Creator/Destroyer” is its depiction of an immigrant’s story—parts of which may feel a little familiar to other children of immigrants, as it did to me—through Andrew’s father, Modesto “Pete” Cunanan. Modesto has that specific patriotism of someone who was born elsewhere (Philippines) and came here with the explicit purpose to make money, make a better life, support his family without stress, and provide his children (or, really, just Andrew) with the sort of life he never had for himself growing up. He served in the Navy, dealing with paltry paychecks just so he could be in the United States. He’s obsessed with success and with looking the part—an obsession that that is partly born from needing to assimilate with the privileged white men he’s surrounded by. There’s a neat juxtaposition of him and Andrew, first side-by-side putting on their suits in a giant mirror and then interviewing: Modesto for a fancy job at Merrill Lynch, Andrew for a spot at the prestigious Bishop school. Both are men who are aiming for much higher than what they have, and both are men who are willing to take the easier, cheating route to get there—which is why it’s no surprise when we learn that Modesto is wanted for embezzlement.
The Assassination Of Gianni Versace hasn’t been shy about its assertion that Andrew wasn’t simply born a murderer—he wasn’t some childhood animal killer who just snapped one day, which is the narrative that is often told around serial/spree killers (though a few experts have said he likely suffered from an antisocial personality disorder)—but that he was sort of created, molded, and shaped into one due to a combination of his upbringing, his family, homophobia (both internalized and otherwise), class, lack of opportunities, desperation, and so on. “Creator/Destroyer” hones in on this view as it relates to his adolescence and family, largely through the lens of Modesto. Modesto pulls the old pretending-I-didn’t-get-the-job sitcom routine but becomes actually pissed off when his wife, Mary Anne, believes it—even basically threatening her with going back to the mental hospital.
Modesto sets up the family as adversaries: Modesto and Andrew vs. Mary Anne (and Andrew’s siblings, who rarely appear); the soon-to-be-successful dreamers vs. the stale realists; the “special” Cunanans vs. the ordinary ones. (And, as we’ve learned through Andrew, there’s not much worse than being ordinary.) Modesto not only uses Mary Anne’s mental illness (depression, and maybe specifically postpartum after Andrew was born) against her by bringing it up as a means to shut her up or scare her into complying, but he also uses it as a way to bring Andrew closer to his side, effectively widening the gap between Andrew and his mother. After Modesto buys a car for Andrew (before he can even drive, and ignoring his older siblings), he basically warns Andrew about his own mother, saying she has “weak mind,” and that Modesto is tasked with making sure Andrew doesn’t end up the same way. He speaks about Mary Anne’s time in the hospital as a time when Modesto was both Andrew’s mother and father, as if wanting to make sure Andrew knows which one to take sides with. Modesto is also, unsurprisingly, abusive to his wife on more than one occasion, and in front of Andrew, which puts Andrew’s later sudden abuse to his mother in a different context: It’s what he saw growing up.
Turns out, Modesto does desperately need someone on his side because it isn’t long after the FBI show up on his front door, forcing Modesto to flee all the way back to the Philippines, leaving his family with nothing—no money, no security, not even the house. “Don’t believe a word they say,” he tells Andrew who takes it to heart enough to also leave the country and track him down. The scene in Manila is the most tense as the two essentially confront each other. It turns out the two were stuck in a cycle that Andrew didn’t know about: Modesto lied and cheated to get money for the family, Andrew bragged about Modesto’s success and needed the money to keep up appearances, Modesto fulfilled Andrew’s demand for money and appearances by lying and cheating, and Andrew would brag and, well, you get it. Andrew’s concerns seem to mostly be about how he’s going to keep on being Andrew—“If you’re a lie, then I’m a lie, and I can’t be a lie. I can’t”—which Modesto quickly seizes, retorting “You’re not upset that I stole. You’re upset because I stopped.”
The conversation quickly grows more contentious, with Modesto calling Andrew a “sissy kid with a sissy mind,” literally spitting on him, and smacking his son. It’s this violence—and Modesto explicitly saying “I’m ashamed of you”—that seems to flick a switch in Andrew, who grabs a knife (almost instinctively) but ends up only cutting into his own palm. It’s interesting to note the difference in how Andrew deals with these insults throughout the episode, depending on where they’re coming from: when a classmate calls him a “fag,” Andrew runs with it (“If being a fag means being different, then sign me up!”) and turns it into an opportunity to demand attention; when his father calls him a “sissy,” Andrew turns cold, quiet, and eyes violence.
The end of “Creator/Destroyer,” which is tasked with setting us up for the final episode, finds Andrew with his tail between his legs and applying for a job at the pharmacy. When he’s asked about his father by a fellow Filipino, Andrew lies to make Modesto seem better than he is—and we know that he hasn’t stopped lying since—which is a little neat. But “Creator/Destroyer” also leaves us in a weird spot: Where does the show go for the season finale? I’m assuming/hoping it’ll jump forward again, bringing us to Andrew’s end, but it seems like one hell of a leap.
Stray observations
Hey, it’s Magic Mike’s Matt Bomer’s directorial debut! Pretty solid job, if nothing too special, but he’ll likely expand his on-screen relationship with Ryan Murphy’s shows to behind-the-scenes as well.
Variety has an interview with Bomer about the experience that’s a neat read. I didn’t check it out until way after I finished writing this but this point has stuck with me since: “I wanted that to give you the sense that if Andrew could’ve just killed his dad, he wouldn’t have killed anybody else. That was a big part of the dynamic I was trying to create in the story.”
Also in this episode: Andrew meeting Lizzie for the first time, learning the name DiSilvia which he’ll later adopt for his own, and that admittedly-fantastic red jumpsuit.
That was a pretty drastic jump from
Some key songs: “Hazy Shade Of Winter” by The Bangles, “Touch Me (I Want Your Body” by Samantha Fox, and, of course, “Whip It” by Devo.
All season long, The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story has filled in blanks. Why did Andrew Cunanan (played by Darren Criss) become a spree killer? Why did he kill Gianni Versace (Edgar Ramirez)? Why did he kill David Madson (Cody Fern)? Creator Ryan Murphy and writer Tom Rob Smith have used a blend of what we know and some fiction to weave a compelling narrative — one that gave us a much more challenging series than we first expected.
But The Assassination of Gianni Versace hasn’t contented itself with examining Cunanan as a killer; it’s also fascinated by Andrew the gay man, and all that led to how he became himself. Wednesday’s penultimate episode of the season took that train of thought to its organic conclusion, introducing us to Andrew’s father, Modesto Cunanan (Jon Jon Briones).
Modesto, like his son, is an impressively persuasive fabulist. He talks his way into a high-powered job on a lack of experience and a lot of charm. He moves his family into a neighborhood and home beyond their means, convinced he can build them the American Dream he (an immigrant from the Philippines) so desperately craves.
For a while, it works, just like we’ve seen Andrew’s plans briefly succeed. But soon enough, Modesto is committing major fraud crimes just to keep his American Dream afloat. When it all comes crashing down on him, instead of owning his errors, he flees, leaving his wife and children to deal with the consequences of his actions.
Briones is nothing short of fantastic as Modesto, winning the audience over just as much as he does the people he meets in the show. He’s so damn determined and positive, you can’t help but put faith in his mission. It helps that he’s crazy about Andrew, supporting him and making him feel loved.
Then you see Modesto verbally abuse his wife, and ignore his other kids to fully pin his hopes on Andrew. You see him take the cowardly way out after he’s discovered. And you see him later in life, when Andrew goes to meet him in the Philippines as a teenager, expressing no remorse but plenty of anger. It’s in that moment that you can feel the Andrew Cunanan we know now being formed. His father, perhaps the only man who truly expressed love for Andrew, can’t take responsibility for his crimes, and instead rages out at his son for daring to question him.
Maybe there was no saving Andrew Cunanan, no decision in his life that could have stopped what was coming. Maybe this is all a fable American Crime Story is telling us to feel like our lives are more in our control than they actually are. But in that moment, it feels like Modesto could have stopped what came after by teaching his son a lesson: that pathological lying and deceiving people have consequences. But he didn’t.
There’s a terror in the relatability of Andrew Cunanan’s story. A complicated relationship with his father. A need to feel validated by the world. A thirst for the fabulous things in life. An insecurity with the things we actually have. A desperation to be loved for how we look to the world because we’re too ashamed of who we are. Murphy and Smith’s greatest trick with this season was making a spree killer’s story strike so close to home for gay men.
I’ve not seen the finale of this miniseries — it was the only episode not furnished for critics ahead of the season premiere — but I find myself both eager and nervous to find out how this story ends. Not because I don’t know what happens; the hunt for Cunanan will end, as will Cunanan’s life. There’s no surprise in the straightforward narrative of it, which is perhaps why Murphy and Smith presented Cunanan’s life in reverse, to give viewers the feeling of unwrapping a package versus taking a road trip to an obvious destination.
Despite that lack of suspense, I want to know how this story, in this particular presentation, comes to a close. I want to see the full realization of The Assassination of Gianni Versace’s thesis. I want to feel some measure of closure with Cunanan, to walk away from this miniseries enlightened not just about his motives, but about how he became the man he was.
Judging from everything we’ve seen thus far, the finale should be a devastating experience. But hopefully, it will also be an enlightening one.
ACS news 