Tag: 2.06

Recapping ‘Versace’: Episode 6, ‘Descent’

**MAJOR SPOILERS FOR EPISDOE 6**

As we enter the back half of “The Assassination of Gianni Versace,” it’s becoming clear that this is the Andrew Cunanan story. The show is less an examination of how the fashion designer was murdered but why he was murdered, putting the spotlight on his killer, marvelously portrayed by the dynamic Darren Criss. This is another week where we don’t see the Versace crew, including Penelope Cruz, Edgar Ramirez (Ramirez’s Gianni does appear in one scene but as a figment of Andrew’s imagination) and Ricky Martin.

In the sixth episode of the season “Descent,” directed by Gwyneth Horder-Payton and written by Tom Rob Smith, the show travels further back in time – a year before Andrew went on his cross-country murdering spree. The episode opens with Andrew celebrating his birthday in San Diego where he’s living with an older, wealthy man named Norman (Michael Nouri) in a fabulous seaside house. But it’s all a show, an attempt to woo and impress David Madson (Cody Fern). Andrew explains to his best friend Elizabeth Cote (the wonderful Annaleigh Ashford), that he’s staying with Norma “curating” his home and designing its decor. Andrew goes on to say he sees a “future” with David and that he’s trying to be “someone he can love.”

Also at the birthday party is Jeff Trail (Finn Wittrock), dressed in blue jeans and sneakers. Andrew hands Jeff a pair of fancy loafers to wear for the party. Jeff has brought a gift for Andrew, but Andrew gives him another gift to pass him in its place.

“I want [David] to see I have really good friends,” Andrew tells Jeff. “…I need you to look the part.”

“What does a good friend look like?” Jeff asks. “How is this going to help?”

“I need him to know [that you love me],” Andrew says.

Jeff finally agrees but before Andrew tells him that he told David he is still serving in the Navy. He reluctantly agrees.

As the episode goes on, it continues to dig into Andrew’s compulsive lying as well as his drug addiction. Not only does he lead David to believe Norman’s house is actually his, but he tells him he used to design clothes with Gianni Versace. Later in the episode, we see Andrew doing hard drugs.

“We’ll have a house like this one day. Maybe this very one,” he tells David. Shortly after, Jeff hands Andrew the gift Andrew gave him, which turn out to be a pair of Ferragamo shoes.

That’s when Jeff and David meet for the first time – and seemingly make a connection, upsetting Andrew.

“Descent” also features one of the few characters in the series who acts as a direct foil to Andrew. One of Norman’s friends, played by “Saturday Night Live” alum Terry Sweeney, is fully aware of Andrew’s lies and act, giving him a hard time throughout the episode, letting Andrew know he’s on to him.

“I have a birthday present for you, it’s a piece of advice. You think Norman is the lucky one. You’re wrong, you’re the lucky one,” he tells Andrew. “Norman is a conservative old queer… most men would make it clear you’re an employee, but he wants you to feel like you’re an equal. But you’re not an equal.”

He goes on to say Norman was vulnerable when he met Andrew and that his partner died of AIDS, suggesting Andrew preyed on his friend during a difficult time.

“What a mix you are,” he tells Andrew. “Too lazy to work, too proud to be kept.”

“I need to get back to my party that room is full of people who love me,” Andrew says.

“Then that room is full of people who don’t know you,” Norman’s friend responds.

As the party continues, Andrew grows more concerned about Jeff and David getting closer and he attempts to balance out his lies. Later on, Lee Miglin (Mike Farrell) shows up at the party, adding to the episode’s fever dream quality – like at the end of “Alice in Wonderland,” where Alice confronts all the characters she’s met throughout her bizarre journey.

After the party, Norman confronts Andrew about his lies, his past, and his current behavior. He says he won’t be taken for a fool, and if Andrew can’t share his life with him then he has to leave Norman’s multi-million-dollar home. This upsets Andrew, who smashes Norman’s glass table with a chair and announces he’s leaving but “expect[s Norman] to call me.”

Andrew indeed leaves, moving into a crummy studio apartment. Jeff then visits Andrew, and the two fight about Andrew sending Jeff’s father a postcard that suggested Jeff is gay. During their argument, Jeff tells Andrew he’s moving because he’s unhappy, and Andrew contributed to that unhappiness.

Andrew then invites David to Los Angeles, where he arranges a five-star hotel stay, rents a sports car and wines and dines David, continuing his unhealthy, lying lifestyle. Despite all his attempts to impress David, which includes buying him a new suit, David still isn’t connecting with Andrew and tells him so.

A desperate Andrew tries to impress David even more but it doesn’t work and David says the two can’t take the next step in their relationship. He says he wants to get to know the real Andrew and get to the truth. But Andrew can’t help himself and he continues to lie about his family, saying his dad was a wealthy stockbroker and his mother ran a successful publishing house. David, however, sees through Andrew’s lies; an excellent Cody Fern plays the moment so well you can see David’s face drooping in disappointment.

“David, I’m a good person, who wants to be good to you,” Andrew says.

“One day you’re going to make someone very happy. I know you will,” David responds.

After things dissolve with David, Andrew is left feeling helpless and spiraling out of control. Parts of “The Assassination of Versace” have had a dreamlike quality, as writer Tom Rob Smith had to create a number of moments. “Descent” features one of the most vibrant and creepy scenes in the series, where a drugged-out Andrew envisions himself meeting Gianni Versace; the scene is cloaked in a crimson red glow as Andrew debates with Gianni about the life he should have had and that Gianni stole it from him.

“People have taken from me and taken from me… now I’m spent,” he tells Gianni, as he measures him for a suit. “This world has wasted me while it has turned you, Mr. Versace, into a star.”

“You think you’re better than me? You’re not better than me. We’re the same – the only difference is you got lucky,” Andrew adds.

“It’s not the only difference, sir,” Gianni says.

“What else you got?” Andrew asks.

“I have love,” the designer responds.

After the nightmare, Andrew, disheveled, high and desperate, tries to break into Norman’s house late at night, pleading with him to take him back. Of course, Norman doesn’t and threatens to call the police.

The next morning, Andrew goes to his mother’s home, who lives in a sad one-bedroom apartment. The end of “Decent” is completely devastating, as it’s the first time we see Mary Ann Cunanan (Joanna P. Adler), who is a sad and unhinged woman.

“I’m unhappy,” Andrew tells his mother, who ignores him and launches into a story about how she ran into a friend and bragged about Andrew working with Versace, traveling the world – of course, none of this is true and only adds to Andrew’s self-hate in the moment.

“I wish you could stay with me,” Andrew’s mother says, holding her son. “But I have to share you with the world.”

As Andrew leaves, he tells his mother he is going to visit Minneapolis – where David lives and where Jeff eventually moves.

“Descent” gives more context to Andrew and why he is the way he is, but it’s only scratching the surface of what’s to come.

Recapping ‘Versace’: Episode 6, ‘Descent’

This Real Benefactor May Have Inspired Andrew Cunanan’s Obsession With Gianni Versace

As American Crime Story Season 2 continues its backward trajectory through time, another strange chapter in its subject’s life will be put under the microscope. Andrew Cunanan’s relationship with Norman Blachford is The Asassination Of Gianni Versace’s next focus, in the Feb. 28 episode, titled “Descent.” For those fans wondering what the show would be about now that the entirety of Cunanan’s allleged cross-country killing spree has been depicted, don’t worry: there’s still plenty of tragic material left in Cunanan’s life to examine in the season’s final four episodes. Spoilers ahead.

What was Andrew Cunanan doing before he flew to Minnesota, murdered Jeff Trail, and abducted David Madson? That’s the subject of “Descent,” which presents the show’s version of Cunanan’s time in San Diego, and his relationship with an older, wealthy man, played by Michael Nouri. Viewers have already gotten to know Cunanan’s habit for lying about his extravagant lifestyle; but for a while those lies were true. Per the episode, he lived large off the dime of Norman Blachford, a retired millionaire in his 60s, and enjoyed all the excesses and privilege that he so envied Gianni Versace for. But how accurate is this plot?

According to an article in the San Diego Reader published after the first four murders but before his assassination of Versace, Cunanan met Blachford in Scottsdale, AZ, which is typically filled in the winter with citizens of La Jolla, an affluent San Diego neighborhood. In Maureen Orth’s 1997 Vanity Fair article “The Killer’s Trail” — which would go on to become her 1999 non-fiction book Vulgar Favors, on which Versace is based — she states that Cunanan began accompanying Blachford everywhere under the pretense of being his “decorator.”

Blachford himself was a member of Gamma Mu, an “extremely private fraternity of about 700 very rich, mostly Republican, and often closeted gay men,” as Orth describes. In 1995, Cunanan convinced Blachford to move permanently to La Jolla (citing “allergies he encountered in [Arizona],” according to the Reader), and enjoyed a lavish allowance given to him by his older consort. Orth reported that Blachford gave Cunanan “$2,000 a month, and provided him with a 1996 Infiniti I30T to tool around in.” She added that they traveled to the South of France and Paris in June of 1996 and also to New York City to see shows.

During his time with Blachford, many of the older man’s friends and associates seemed to notice Cunanan’s penchant for spinning elaborate lies — but the young man was charming enough to get away with it. “He was young and attractive, entertaining, good company — what’s not to like?” Orth quoted one acquaintance as saying. But Cunanan was also “sad on two levels: He’s got a lot going for him, I thought. He doesn’t need all this sham. He was also a young man ultimately with no career ambitions in any direction. He pretty much said he was interested in older men for their financial situations. He made no bones about that, and he would say it in front of Norman.”

Eventually not even Blachford’s level of extravagance was enough for Cunanan. The young man moved out of Blachford’s home, complaining to his friend Tom Eads that his patron was “too cheap,” and he was tired of his “nickel-and-diming,” according to Orth’s article. She also reported that Cunanan wanted an even nicer car, to fly first class more often, and to repaint all the rooms in Blachford’s La Jolla home. When he moved out, “Cunanan was astonished that Blachford would let him go,” she wrote.

Ultimately, his separation from Blachford may have been a contributing factor to Cunanan’s subsequent downward spiral. It was after this breakup that Cunanan grew even more obsessed with Jeff Trail, becoming the ex-Navy man’s “constant companion,” according to another article in the San Diego reader published a week after the first.

“I asked Jeff how Andrew was making ends meet after being frozen out by Blachford,” the article quoted Michael Williams, a friend of Trail’s, as remembering. “Jeff said, ‘You know, I think Norman was giving him an allowance for a while, but I know that he’s back to his old profession.’ And I said, ‘Profession? Why? What was his old profession?’ And Jeff said, ‘Oh, well, he sold drugs.’ Cocaine. Crystal meth, ecstasy. And I think that that affected Jeff a lot. I think that if Jeff suspected that, he didn’t want anything to do with it. And there became a huge distance between the two at that point, the end of last year.” Of course, viewers will already know how that strained relationship allegedly ended.

There is one other interesting wrinkle in Cunanan’s story introduced by his relationship with Blachford. According to Orth, the La Jolla house that he convinced Blachford to buy previously belonged to Lincoln Aston, another wealthy elderly friend of Cunanan, who was found bludgeoned to death in his home in 1995 — the same manner of death in which Trail was killed, only this time with a stone obelisk instead of a hammer. Eventually, a young drifter named Kevin Bond pled guilty to the murder, and San Diego police remain “satisfied with his confession,” according to the Reader. But some people have their doubts, including someone who was close to Cunanan.

“I do think it’s a possibility,” Williams told the Reader. “I think it’s very odd that the man was killed in that fashion, and Jeff was killed in that fashion. And Jeff told me Andrew told him he — Andrew — was the one who found [Aston’s] body.” We may never know whether Cunanan had anything to do with this sixth death… but the question itself is yet another reason why Cunanan’s story remains so fascinating 20 years later.

This Real Benefactor May Have Inspired Andrew Cunanan’s Obsession With Gianni Versace

‘Assassination of Gianni Versace’ fact vs. fiction: What Episode 6 got right

**SPOILERS FOR NEXT WEEK’S EPISODE**

The Assassination of Gianni Versace episode six, “Descent,” takes place one year before Andrew Cunanan (played by Darren Criss) began the killing spree that ended with the murder of the titular designer on July 15, 1997. There are no murders in this chapter, but plenty of tension and suspense, along with the usual blurring of facts.

Here’s what “Descent” got right—and where series writer Tom Rob Smith and director Gwyneth Horder-Payton took creative liberties.

Norman Blachford

The episode opens in 1996 in La Jolla, California. Cunanan is living in a beautiful seaside condo with his wealthy male friend, Norman Blachford (played by Flashdance star Michael Nouri). Cunanan has designed and decorated the home and is paid with room and board, though we soon learn there is more to the arrangement.

The real Blachford was a San Diego businessman who made a fortune producing insulation for cars. He did support the future killer for nearly a year, beginning in 1995, in his La Jolla home. According to a May 1997 report from the San Diego Reader (after Cunanan became wanted by the FBI for the murders of Jeff Trail, David Madson, Lee Miglin and William Reese), Blachford was thought to be in his 60s when he got involved with the 26-year-old Cunanan.

Journalist Maureen Orth, whose 1999 book Vulgar Favors is the basis for the FX show, backs up this account, adding that Blachford afforded Cunanan a $2,000 a month allowance and a 1996 Infiniti I30T—the car we see Criss driving in the opening shot of the episode. Several reports mention that Blachford—and briefly Cunanan—were members of Gamma Mu, then a private fraternity and social club for closeted gay men. The Assassination of Gianni Versace leaves Gamma Mu out of its American Crime Story, perhaps because the fraternity is now openly supportive of its LGBT members.

Whether or not the real Cunanan did design Blachford’s home is unknown. One Gamma Mu member told Orth he assumed “Andrew was hired to be Mr. Blachford’s decorator.”

In the episode, Cunanan leaves Blachford after the older man refuses him lavish gifts, and moves into this own place. In reality, he crashed with a couple he knew, Erik Greenman and Tom Eads, a waiter and restaurant manager in San Diego. It was Eads who told Orth that Cunanan requested a Mercedes 500SL and first-class flights from Blachford. Criss’s Cunanan presents a similar list of demands on the show, with an extra request: to be written into Blachford’s will. There is no evidence of the latter request.

In the episode, Nouri’s Blachford accuses Cunanan of manufacturing their "accidental” meeting. This is based in fact. A 1997 Washington Post profile noted that Cunanan was “a multilingual sophisticate who knew exactly which older men he wanted to meet.” Friends said he would spy on his conquests, gathering intelligence about their interests. Nicole Ramirez-Murray, a columnist for the San Diego Gay and Lesbian Times, said that if an older man was interested in orchids, “Cunanan would go out and buy every book available on orchids and soon he would be talking about the subject as if he had studied it all of his life.”

The birthday party

According to Orth, at Cunanan’s 27th birthday party, hosted at Blachford’s estate, he coerced his friend Jeff Trail (the ex-Navy officer played by Finn Wittrock), into giving him a gift that he had selected; on the show it’s a pair of Ferragamo shoes, though Orth didn’t specify the gift in her 1997 Vanity Fair article.

The real Cunanan also instructed Trail to introduce himself as an instructor at the California Highway Patrol, as a way to impress Blachford. This plays out in the epsiode, with some variation. Cunanan tells Trail to say he’s a Navy officer (this was after Trail had left the Navy) not to impress Blachford, but his new romantic interest, David Madson (murdered in episode four).

Orth does not mention whether or not Madson attended that California birthday party, as happens in the episode. It’s even less likely that Lee Miglin, the real estate tycoon from Chicago and Cunanan’s third victim, showed up, as Mike Farrell does in “Descent.” And though it makes for a very dramatic moment, no picture exists of Cunanan with three of his five victims, as the episode claims.

Cunanan’s friend Lizzy

In the episode, one of the guests at the birthday party is a young woman named Lizzy, who Cunanan calls his “best friend from San Francisco.” The character (played by Masters of Sex’s Annaleigh Ashford), is based on Elizabeth Cotes, who, according to Orth, was Cunanan’s close friend from junior high school. (Viewers may recall meeting her briefly in the first episode; Cunanan brags to her about meeting Versace.)

It’s true that Cunanan was the godfather of Cote’s children. Before he killed himself, a month before his 28th birthday, the real Cote and her children recorded a videotape, pleading with him to end his killing spree. They were prompted to do so by the FBI, but the message never reached Cunanan in time: On July 23, 1997, he put a gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger.

Andrew DeSilva

“Your name is not Andrew DeSilva, it’s Andrew Cunanan,” accuses Nouri’s Blachford, midway through the episode. “Andrew DeSilva” was the pseudonym Cunanan used in the San Diego LGBT scene. According to Orth’s reporting, the stories he told acquaintances using that name bordered on the absurd. Some made their way into American Crime Story.

At one point on the show, Cunanan tries to tell Blachford he has a Ph.D. According to Orth, the real Cunanan told his friends he had gone to Choate, dropped out of Yale and transferred to Bennington. In fact, he quit after one year at the University of California, San Diego, where he majored in history. (Orth reported that Cunanan spent two years at the college, but a 2001 Time article states he quit after freshman year.)

David Madson’s LA visit

While there’s no evidence that the real Madson visited La Jolla, he did let Cunanan pay for him to visit Los Angeles, as we see in “Descent.” Orth reports that on Easter weekend in 1997—a month before the killing began—Cunanan bought two $395 hotel rooms at the Chateau Marmont, one for himself and Madson, and one for Madson’s San Francisco friends Karen Lapinski and Evan Wallit, who were engaged. Lapinski and Wallit are omitted from the episode. Police said that Cunanan told Lapinski he’d pay for her wedding reception. Cunanan did buy Madson a new suit, as we see on the show.

Reportedly, the real Madson and Cunanan fought that weekend, after Madson refused Cunanan’s romantic advances. American Crime Story turns the advances into a proposal. Who knows if that actually happened, but the real Cunanan did once call Madson “the man I want to marry,” according to friends who spoke to Orth.

Family lies

The tales Cunanan spins about his parents are pulled from the testimonies of acquaintances. Perhaps he never told Madson that his father retired a rich stockbroker to run a pineapple plantation in the Philippines, but according to Time, Cunanan did often say he was the son of wealthy Philippine sugar-plantation owner. (In reality, his father fled to the Philippines after he was accused of embezzling, abandoning his family—more on that in episode eight.)

In that same scene, Cunanan tells Madson his parents gave him the master bedroom growing up. This is reportedly true. Cunanan’s sister Elena said as much to journalist Diane Sawyer in an a 1997 interview on ABC. “He got everything that he needed,” she said. “My dad gave him a sports car. He had the master bedroom. He had his own bath and everything.” (American Crime Story delves deeper into Cunanan’s childhood in future episodes.)

Cunanan also tells Madson he’s in the movie business, another favorite of his lies. Madson’s friend Lapinski reportedly told the F.B.I. that Cunanan once said he was making movie sets with a friend named Duke Miglin (the name of Lee Miglin’s son). The real history of Cunanan’s relationship with Miglin is unknown; the Miglin family continues to insist that there was no prior relationship before Lee was murdered, but American Crime Story implies it began before the episode’s birthday party.

Using and dealing

The episode’s titular moment is Cunanan’s descent into drug use after Madson refuses his proposal. The real Cunanan was a drug user and dealer. According to a 1997 Washington Post profile, he became addicted to Vicodin while selling prescription drugs to his friends. And testimonies from San Diego bartenders who spoke to Orth say that by April 1997—the month he murdered Trail—Cunanan was drinking Merlot "like there was no tomorrow.”

Orth also reported that Cunanan wanted Trail to help him with a cocaine deal, which Trail wanted nothing to do with. She even cited it as the reason Trail left San Diego and moved to Minneapolis. But there is no mention of that in the episode; rather, Trail says he’s leaving because he’s unhappy.

At the height of his drug spiral on the show, Cunanan begs Blachford to let him back into his home, after they have broken up. Blachford says no and calls the police. There is no evidence of that this occurred.

The Versace fitting

The scene where Versace takes Cunanan’s measurements is a drugged-out hallucination (obviously). It’s also actor Édgar Ramírez’s only screentime in this episode.

The idea that Cunanan was jealous of Versace’s glamorous life as a gay man, as Criss’s short speech in the scene suggests, was a popular theory among journalists after the murder. But as a 1997 Post article revealed, investigators never nailed down a precise motivation.

Cunanan’s mother

In the final minutes of "Descent,” Cunanan returns to his childhood home, where we meet his mother, MayAnn Schillaci-Cunanan (played by Joanna Adler). The show presents a woman who is clearly unstable—she sniffs her son while bathing him, declaring he smells wrong, and begins scrubbing him vigorously.

Not much is known about the real women, other than her name and that she was Italian-American. Orth described her as “a devout Catholic, a bright but emotionally fragile woman.” Several online obituaries list her death as April 15, 2012. Time reported that she legally separated from Cunanan’s father, Modesto, after he fled to the Philippines and then lived on welfare and food stamps.

There’s no evidence that Cunanan visited his mother before he took off for Minneapolis, and American Crime Story undoubtedly took liberties with her personality. Drama demands creative license.

‘Assassination of Gianni Versace’ fact vs. fiction: What Episode 6 got right

The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story episode 6, Descent, advanced preview

The sixth episode of American Crime Story season two is titled “Descent,” and the official synopsis from FX is: Andrew Cunanan celebrates his birthday in San Diego as his life starts to fall apart.

Audiences go back in time this Wednesday to a year before the senseless murders of Jeff Trail, David Madson, Lee Miglin, William Reese, and Gianni Versace. We’ll be welcomed to a very lavish birthday celebration, hosted by Cunanan’s former-boyfriend-lover-sugar daddy (it’s complicated), Norman.

So what can you expect? We’ve screened the first eight episodes of the season to bring you an advanced preview each week of what you’ll see! Avoiding all spoilers? This is your last chance to turn away now!

What drove Cunanan mad enough to commit murder? Not that there is ever an excuse, but episode 6, “Descend,” features Cunanan’s breakdown as his web of lies become too great to escape from. We’ll watch as Cunanan’s life begins to fall apart the day of his birthday.

Lizzie, who we met in the pilot episode, is back. She seems to be the only one who cares for Cunanan. She helps him lie, supports him, and loves the gossip! Lizzie genuinely seems sweet, though, so it’s possible she doesn’t know the harm she is doing by going along with Cunanan’s tall tales.

Also invited to Andrew Cunanan’s birthday bash are Jeff Trail and David Madson. Trail arrives first, and Cunanan quickly asks him for a set of favors. We won’t spoil the details, but to sum it up, the favor is to lie about pretty much everything. This will be the first time Trail and Madson meet, and unfortunately for Cunanan, the two get along. Finally, also present at the party, but unwanted and, by the looks of it, not even invited, is Lee Miglin. All of Cunanan’s victims are front and center, they all even take a group photo together.

In true Cunanan fashion, everything is over the top. Oh, and we’ll be seeing Versace again! But don’t get your hopes up, it’s not the way you think.

Lines to look out for, can you guess who delivers them?

  • “Too lazy to work and too proud to be kept.”
  • “You want me to pretend that that’s my gift to you?”
  • “A list of requirements, if we’re going to stay together.”
  • “Did you send my dad a post card?”
  • “The truth. Your parents, who are they?”
  • “Andrew I’m not THE one, I’m sorry.”

The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story episode 6, Descent, advanced preview