Tag: 2.02

‘The Assassination of Gianni Versace’ Recap: Andrew Arrives in Miami

For the second episode of American Crime Story season 2, we’re going back two months to see what Andrew was doing in Miami before killing Gianni Versace, as well as what the FBI WASN’T doing. There are payoffs to things that were set-up in the first episode (the pawn shop and Max Greenfield’s Ronnie) and a lot of set-up for future episodes.

While Cunanan’s disturbing psychology is interesting and gives this episode a fantastic ending, the other storylines seem a little too trite. Gianni Versace continues to be portrayed as a saintly, flawless human being while the show emphasizes how many times his murder could’ve been prevented if not for bad FBI work, gay shame and loud club music.

Gianni’s Health Scare

The episode begins in March 1994 when Gianni visits a hospital and though it’s not made explicit, the implication is that he’s HIV positive and getting treatment. This leads to more details on the rift between Gianni’s sister Donatella and his partner Antonio. She blames him for Gianni’s illness because he sleeps around, but they agree to be civil for Gianni’s sake.

Antonio challenges Donatella by insisting that he’s not a villain and Gianni isn’t a saint. That’s almost laughable, because throughout these first two episodes Gianni Versace is depicted as being quite saintly, a flawless genius who is friendly to everyone and even complains about the models for his runway show being too thin. The show’s portrayal of Gianni Versace is more like the idealistic, romanticized version of him that exists in Andrew Cunanan’s mind.

After the murder in 1997, Gianni’s body is cremated and Donatella flies his remains back to Italy, lamenting the fact that he died like this after what he survived. The whole opening sequence is a little too on-the-nose, a bit sterile and forced as the show takes us through every little detail of the remains being boxed up.

Andrew Comes to Miami

In the episode’s third time jump, we’re in May of 1997, two months before the assassination. Andrew drives south in the red pick-up truck the cops found in the first episode. He hears a news report about how he’s the prime suspect in the murder of Lee Miglin (a tease for next week’s episode). 

Andrew goes to a hotel to get a room and turns on the charm and the lies, using a fake French passport and rambling on about being a fashion student hoping to talk to Gianni Versace. He gets his seedy room and goes right to Versace’s mansion, but the door is locked, naturally. He buys a camera and takes a ton of photos of the mansion, stalking his victim and obsession.

Andrew Makes a Friend

Andrew befriends another guest at the hotel, Ronnie (New Girl’s Max Greenfield), the guy we saw at the end of the premiere who denied knowing Andrew. Ronnie is an HIV positive drug addict who has lived a hard life and is just trying to enjoy his final years.

Andrew continues his habit of being whoever he needs to be with whoever he’s with, claiming he worked for an AIDS charity in California. He also reveals that both his best friend and the love of his life died earlier this year (again, a tease for future episodes).

While taking an outdoor shower after stripping down to skimpy pink briefs, Andrew waxes poetic about how Versace proposed to him, but he declined and they’re still friends. Andrew goes on and on about what a brilliant creator Versace is and how he’s the man that Andrew could’ve been. This is turning into Amadeus, if Salieri wasn’t a rival composer, but just some delusional nut job.

Andrew Makes Some Money

Andrew needs money, so he spies an old man looking at him on the beach and approaches him. They go back to the man’s hotel room and things get very disturbing. The man wants to be submissive, so Andrew wraps his entire head with duct tape, even his eyes and his mouth so the man can’t breathe.

Andrew dances around in his skimpy underwear, ordering the man to accept his helplessness as he struggles to tear off the tape to try and breathe. Once the man finally stops struggling, Andrew jams a pair of scissors into his mouth to make a hole in the tape so he can finally breathe.

In the aftermath, Andrew enjoys some room service as the man seems absolutely terrified for his life. When Andrew leaves the man locks the door and calls 911, but he looks at his wedding ring and doesn’t say anything. The shame of being a closeted homosexual prevents him from reporting Andrew’s clearly psychotic behavior.

With the money he earned, Andrew and Ronnie buy some drugs and get high. Ronnie fantasizes about starting a flower shop together while Andrew wraps his own head in duct tape, an obvious metaphor for his desire to completely obscure who he truly is.

The Manhunt

The show offers even more evidence that the FBI really dropped the ball on this investigation. Two months before the murder the FBI comes to Miami under the theory that Andrew , who has already killed four people and is on the 10 Most Wanted List, is heading there. The local detective (Orange Is the New Black’s Dascha Polanco, who we met last week) wants to canvas the gay bars and hand out flyers, but the FBI insists that the flyers aren’t ready and that Andrew’s M.O. is going after older, closeted gay men, so they shouldn’t waste their time on gay clubs.

The detective decides to photocopy the FBI’s flyer herself and hangs one up, but it’s mostly covered by the end of the episode. We also see Andrew going to the pawn shop from the first episode and cashing in a gold coin. The woman is suspicious of him and looks at her bulletin board of wanted posters, but those flyers are still in the FBI dude’s trunk.

These scenes really hammer home the idea that the local detective was a brilliant heroine who probably could’ve prevented Versace’s death if not for the FBI’s total incompetence. This season may be a lot of things, but subtle isn’t one of them.

“Life Is Precious”

A little over a week before the assassination, Versace has a runway show and he complains about how the models are too thin. Donatella criticizes him for not being cutting edge and modern, which is costing them magazine covers. Gianni, however, is simply happy to still be alive. He doesn’t want to make dark and morbid clothes like Donatella wants, he wants to celebrate the joy of life because it’s special.

At night Gianni sketches some new designs while Antonio has sex with another man in their bed right next to him. Antonio asks Gianni to join, but he just tells Antonio to have fun. The next morning Antonio says he doesn’t want to sleep with other guys anymore, he wants to marry Gianni. But Gianni thinks he only says this in the morning, not at night.

The Night Before

On the night before the assassination, Andrew is walking past the Versace mansion and sees Gianni. With proof that he’s there, Andrew rushes back to his hotel to grab his gun and all of his stuff, ready to commit the murder. Andrew runs off, but first he gives Ronnie some money and tells him that if anyone ever asks if they were friends, Ronnie will say “No.”

Andrew grabs some dinner, but the server recognizes him from America’s Most Wanted and calls the cops. In the funniest scene of the episode, this heroic bystander, who is black, describes Andrew as “the white guy who killed four other white guys.” Andrew flees just before the cops arrive.

Also that night, Gianni and Antonio go out to a gay club and Andrew shows up too once he sees that the lights are off in the Versace mansion. However, they don’t cross paths and when the couple leaves, Antonio still insists that he doesn’t want this anymore, he just wants to marry Gianni.

Back at the club, Andrew dances with a guy who asks what he does. “I’m a serial killer,” Andrew says, borrowing a line from American Psycho. The music is too loud so the guy doesn’t hear him.

“I said I’m a banker,” Andrew adds, the start of an epic delusional monologue. “I’m a stockbroker, I’m a shareholder, I’m a paperback writer, I’m a cop, I’m a Naval officer, sometimes I’m a spy. I build movie sets in Mexico and skyscrapers in Chicago. I sell propane in Minneapolis, I import pineapples from the Philippines. I’m the person least likely to be forgotten. I’m Andrew Cunanan.” For all of its flaws, that’s a brilliant way to end an episode.

‘The Assassination of Gianni Versace’ Recap: Andrew Arrives in Miami

The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story Addresses Versace’s HIV Status

There are a lot of deliberate ambiguities woven into the storyline of The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story, most of them related to Andrew Cunanan and the smooth, effortless lies he tells about himself. As I noted last week, it’s often unclear whether what we’re seeing is a) what actually happened in reality, b) what actually happened in the show’s fictionalized version of reality, or c) Cunanan’s self-aggrandizing, unreliable version of events. But the season’s second episode opens with a discussion of what has become the most controversial fact vs. fiction element of the show: Versace’s HIV status.

The Versace family has released a pair of statements denouncing the show as ““sad and reprehensible” and specifically taken issue with its depiction of a “medical condition.” In the source material for the series—the book Vulgar Favors, by Vanity Fair journalist Maureen Orth—it is reported that Versace was HIV positive at the time of his death, which the Versace family has always denied.

With that context established, let’s get into five talking points from tonight’s episode ‘Manhunt.’ Plus, keep track of this season of American Crime Story with this timeline of Andrew Cunanan’s murder spree.

1) According to the series, Versace had already come close to death—and miraculously cheated it—shortly before he was murdered.

“After everything he survived… to be killed like this?” Donatella says, quietly heartbroken, after we’ve seen flashbacks to Versace seeking treatment at a hospital, hiding behind sunglasses until a nurse reassures him, “there are no journalists here.” Though the terms HIV and AIDS are never used, the implication is clear: Versace has a condition which requires a cocktail of drugs, and he is determined to keep it secret at all costs. He’s become too sick to work, or even walk at a normal pace, and confesses to Antonio that he’s becoming bitter as a result.

2) The story of Andrew Cunanan’s rampage is being told in reverse.

This won’t remain strictly the case throughout the series, but last week depicted Cunanan killing Versace, and this week takes us back roughly two months to the day he first arrived in Miami to stalk Versace. At this point, Cunanan had already killed four people, landed a spot on the FBI’s Most Wanted list, and stole the red pickup truck he’s driving from his fourth victim, William Reese. On the subject of which… let’s talk about that singing scene.

Cunanan is utterly elated in the wake of all this bloodshed, and Darren Criss’s pure manic energy throughout this episode is breathtaking. As he cheerfully drives through South Carolina towards Florida, he turns on the car radio and flips right past a station that mentions his name as a suspect in the murder of Lee Miglin. He lands, instead, on a station playing Laura Branigan’s “Gloria,” a peppy disco fave whose lyrics are actually deeply disturbing if you listen closely:

Are the voices in your head calling, Gloria?
Gloria, don’t you think you’re fallin’?
If everybody wants you, why isn’t anybody callin’?

Can’t imagine why Cunanan would sing along to this with such gusto!

3) Versace’s illness brings out long-buried tensions between Donatella and Antonio.

In the aftermath of Versace’s death last week, it was clear that these two do not see eye to eye. This week—between Versace’s illness and the company’s struggle to stay relevant in a changing fashion landscape—exacerbates their differences. Antonio claims Donatella has never been supportive of his relationship with Gianni, despite how long they’ve been together, while Donatella clearly feels that Antonio has never been a real partner to her brother. “You’ve given him nothing,” she spits—not stability, not respect, not children—and though she doesn’t say this explicitly, it’s clear she blames Antonio for Versace’s inferred illness, in light of their proclivity for three-ways. I wish I were more engaged by Versace’s relationship with Antonio, but their scenes together feel strangely lifeless to me, and I think it’s because Ricky Martin is miscast in this role.

4) “We were friends. That was real, right?” “When someone asks you if we were friends, you’ll say no.”

It almost seemed like Cunanan might have made a friend in Ronnie, the wiry Miami Beach local played by New Girl’s Max Greenfield—if Cunanan were capable of feeling anything for anyone, which is highly debatable at this point in the story. The above dialogue exchange is heartbreaking because Ronnie is so vulnerable, but it’s actually one of Cunanan’s few honest moments: he knows, at this point, that he’s living on borrowed time and is going to be caught, and that Ronnie will eventually deny knowing him for his own good.

But that’s not the only moment where Cunanan is unexpectedly honest with Ronnie. Maybe he doesn’t consider Ronnie to be important or influential, so the stakes are low. When Cunanan’s just come back from an outing—which involved seducing, terrorizing and nearly suffocating an elderly man with masking tape—a justifiably nervous Ronnie asks a wide-eyed, jittery Cunanan "What did you do?” Cunanan’s reply: “Nothing. I did nothing. I’ve done nothing my whole life. That’s the truth.” That is the truth, and it might be the last time we hear it from Cunanan.

5) Watching Cunanan slip from one false identity to the next—sometimes within a single sentence—is dazzling.

I cannot say enough about the sharp, scary writing for Cunanan, nor about Criss’s flat-out terrifying performance. This is someone who practices in the mirror for everyday conversations and creates entire personas on the spot; when he checks into the beachside motel in Miami, he’s Kurt! He’s from Nice! He’s a fashion student who traveled all this way just for a few words with Versace! To Ronnie, Cunanan effortlessly describes his close personal friendship with Versace; to the elderly man he seduces, he waxes poetic about the lobster and cracked black pepper his mother used to bring to him for school lunches. Is any of this true? Who knows? It’s not even entirely clear that Cunanan knows, or that he cares.

This is all embodied so beautifully in a dizzying final nightclub scene where Cunanan, still high on the thrill of his crimes, is approached by a young man who asks what he does. “I’m a serial killer!” he says gleefully, the club music loud enough to drown out his confession, and then launches into a cheerful verbal breakdown, listing one fake profession after another: he’s a banker! He’s a writer! He imports pineapples from the Philippines—a reference to the story he told Versace last week about his father’s pineapple plantations. But most importantly? “I’m the person least likely to be forgotten.”

The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story Addresses Versace’s HIV Status

American Crime Story: What We Know About Gianni Versace’s Mysterious Illness

*Spoilers: Scene descriptions for episode 2 below

In the second episode of The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story, the fashion designer is shown in a Miami hospital in 1994, trying to hide his identity as he watches two sick men lie in bed next to each other in a room. He then speaks with a doctor, which is partially overlaid on a shot of blood being drawn, who tells Gianni that the drug therapies are complex and difficult. The show never comes right out and says what illness Gianni has been diagnosed with, and this is a major point of contention between the show’s version of events and what the Versace family claims is true.

The show seems to be implying that Versace was HIV positive, established by the shot of the two very gaunt men in their side-by-side hospital beds. But the family has always denied that was the case. Their explanation for Versace’s illness and recovery is always that he had cancer. In a 2006 interview with New York Magazine, younger sister Donatella said that Versace’s reclusiveness in the mid-1990s was because of ear cancer.

“He was sick with cancer in his ear before he was murdered. The last two years of his life, Gianni was hiding — hiding up in his apartment in Via Gesù — because his ear was so big,” said Donatella. “It was impossible to do a surgery because of the position, because to do a surgery, part of his face was supposed to drop… . But then it was declared cured six months before he was murdered. We celebrated; we drink Champagne and everything. Six months later, he was killed.”

However, in Maureen Orth’s book Vulgar Favors: Andrew Cunanan, Gianni Versace, and the Largest Failed Manhunt in U.S. History, on which the FX series is based, the author maintains that she was told on the record by a Miami Beach detective that Versace was HIV positive.

“I was told on the record by the lead detective on Miami Beach that he had heard from the medical examiner who did the blood work that he was [HIV positive],” Orth told The Hollywood Reporter. “And it also goes along with other people who told me that he was very weak at one time and he needed [partner] Antonio to help him walk, and they came over to his house when he was having breakfast and he had 27 bottles of pills in front of him. Now, does that mean they’re for HIV? But the blood thing from on record from the Miami Beach, that’s pretty [solid].”

But the Versace family said in a statement that Orth’s book is “a sensational story” full of “contradictions” and “hearsay.”

“In making her lurid claims, [Orth] ignores contrary information provided by members of Mr. Versace’s family, who … were in the best position to know the facts of his life… . Of all the possible portrayals of his life and legacy, it is sad and reprehensible that the producers have chosen to present the distorted and bogus version created by Maureen Orth,” the statement reads.

Either way, Tom Rob Smith, who wrote the scripts for The Assassination of Gianni Versace, says that the point isn’t what illness befell Versace; it’s that he recovered and was living life to the fullest when he was senselessly murdered.

“What I found most amazing about it is this is a guy that came so close to death and still clung on,” Smith told The Hollywood Reporter. “He really fought for life. Life was very important to him. Contrast it with someone who gave up and someone who was beaten by circumstance. And what’s interesting in some of the reactions was, ‘Oh, he’s the killer. He must have AIDS.’ Actually, Andrew [Cunanan] didn’t have it.”

American Crime Story: What We Know About Gianni Versace’s Mysterious Illness

The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story episode 2, Manhunt, advanced preview

Ryan Murphy’s The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story continues this Wednesday. Searching for a spoilery advanced preview of what to expect in episode 2? You came to the right place!

We have binged-watched the first eight episodes of the second season of American Crime Story to bring you an advanced preview each week of what to expect! Avoiding all spoilers? Turn away now!

The second episode of Versace: ACS takes us back three years before Gianni Versace’s assassination. Then, we flash-forward to the aftermath of the senseless killing, before the series settles back in the past again. It’s certainly a whiplash of a timeline, but an entertaining one nonetheless.

Here’s what else you can expect…

If the first episode wasn’t clear Donatella (Penelope Cruz) and Antonio (Ricky Martin) do not get along, episode 2, “Manhunt,” will do it. The two can’t be in the same room without bickering. And even though Antonio tries his best, Donatella is not here for it.

Dascha Polanco returns as Detective Lori aka the only one in her department who cares (and is doing something) to find Andrew Cunanan. Also back for more is Max Greenfield as Ronnie. We’ll see how he and Cunanan meet. And if you believe you can’t see Greenfield and not think of New Girl‘s Schmidt, you’re wrong. Greenfield completely transforms himself and is almost unrecognizable as Ronnie.

More spoilery bits:

  • Fan of Darren Criss? Then you’ll love all the dancing and singing that goes on in this episode.
  • There’s a scene that will give you serious American Horror Story vibes. This is definitely Ryan Murphy’s work.

The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story episode 2, Manhunt, advanced preview

A Closer Look at Two Key Relationships That Influence FX’s ‘Versace’

Wednesday’s second episode of FX’s The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story, “Manhunt,” tells the story of the hunt for Versace’s killer, Andrew Cunanan (Darren Criss). But it also shines a light on the loving relationship between the fashion designer (Edgar Ramirez) and his sister, Donatella Versace (Penelope Cruz), the one between Versace and his partner, Antonio D’Amico (Ricky Martin) and the final friendship Cunanan formed before Versace’s murder, with an HIV-positive Miami junkie named Ronnie (Max Greenfield of New Girl fame).

While many of the people Cunanan was close with in the final months of his life wound up victims of his killing spree, Ronnie had a different relationship with the serial killer.

“Andrew is a friend to him — or at least he really wants him to be,” Greenfield tells The Hollywood Reporter of his character. “It starts to dawn on him that something is off, and he really doesn’t want to believe it because he values the friendship more than what he feels like this might end up being.”

Although the Versace family has continued to deny that Versace was diagnosed with HIV before his death, the Ryan Murphy’s FX anthology (and Maureen Orth’s book Vulgar Favors, on which it is based) posits that he was — and contrasts Versace’s illness with Ronnie’s positive status. Greenfield said that meeting Ronnie, who had also recovered from his sickest days, helps bring context to the new lease on life many HIV-positive people faced at the time.

“Two years before, they had just come up with the medication that treated HIV, and you had these people who had accepted their own fate and had all of a sudden been given this new lease on life,” Greenfield said. “I’m sure a lot of them were lost, and had lost so many people, and didn’t understand why they, all of a sudden, were spared.”

The series jumps back and forth in time to depict Versace in the throes of his alleged illness, which caused him to lean heavily on his sister and on D’Amico. Ramirez told THR that though he and Cruz are Latinx and the Versaces are Italian, their cultures have two very important factors in common: their deep Catholic roots, and the fact that they’re comfortable with expressing emotion.

“That was something that was key to Gianni’s relationships in general, especially within his family, and that’s something that, based on all the accounts that I had access to — people who were close to him would tell me — he was very respectful; he was a generous guy; but passionate, and in touch with his emotions. So was Donatella, and so was the relationship. Penelope and I, we connected to that. We understood that well. Gianni used to say that the beautiful thing about working with family is that you would fight in the morning and then you would have dinner at night as if nothing had happened.”

As for Versace’s relationship with D’Amico, “they were very much in love … and we really wanted to pay tribute to what we think was a beautiful love story,” Ramirez said. “They were very close and they were real partners, not only in love but also in business and in creativity and in the enjoyment of life, and that was very important to them.”

But the relationship between Donatella and D’Amico was not nearly as close — their battle for Versace’s estate played out in newspapers and courts in the years following the designer’s death, and plays out on screen in Wednesday’s episode.

“You have to think of Gianni as an emperor, like the sun of a universe that would swirl an orbit around him,” he said. “So, of course when he was gone in such a horrible way and drastic way, no one was prepared for that and that whole universe collapsed. Without the sun, everyone spun out of control.”

A Closer Look at Two Key Relationships That Influence FX’s ‘Versace’