Tag: 2.07

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ACS S2E7 – “Ascent”

The People … have mixed feelings on the latest episode of ACS: Versace. We’re nearing the end of American Crime Story, and this week left us feeling …“meh”. Natalie and Maren discuss Gianni’s ear cancer, Donatella’s iconic Vogue Gala dress, Andrew’s Häagen-Dazs fit, and as always – read your comments! | 11 March 2018

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Are you doing everything you can to live up to your fullest potential? Andrew Cunanan thought he was. Instead of putting in the hours at Rite Aid or staying in school, Cunanan connives and schemes, moving his way up through a ladder of sugar daddies.

Meanwhile, Donatella is afraid. She has the opportunity to be her brother’s successor, but she doesn’t have the confidence to shine. She holds herself back by passing off someone else’s work as her own.

Luckily, realizing Versace’s ailing health, Donatella knows it’s time and steps out on the red carpet wearing a collaboration by her and Gianni, an iconic bondage-inspired black leather dress. The photographers eat it up and Donatella is firmly in the spotlight. But, she clashes again with Versace. She suggests a more wearable version of the dress to sell and Gianni, ill and angry, flips out. But she’s not wrong. He can’t have it both ways – if she is truly the future of the brand, he’s got to let go.

Donatella’s struggle is so relatable – we might not be working on one of the biggest high-fashion brands, but do we always seize every opportunity with gusto? When we try to step up to the next level, especially as women, is it always welcomed? Donatella is going to have to fight for her place, even if both she and Versace know it has to happen.

Then there’s Andrew, who lives in his dreamland, believing his best gifts are his charm and his impeccable taste. He is clearly very smart and can hold his own in a crowd, but he’s got no substance, no work ethic and resents those who have a lot, no matter how hard they have worked. As he moves from rich guy to rich guy, Cunanan becomes a professional leech. He makes good arm candy and all he requires are the finest things in life.

When Cunanan’s rejected by Sugar Daddy #1, Lincoln Aston, he seems genuinely shocked. It’s a pattern that we saw last week with Sugar Daddy #2, Norman Blanchford, friend of Aston’s. All Cunanan did was use Aston’s money to romance another guy in an expensive hotel room. What’s the problem, he wonders? He feels entitled to a hefty allowance he can use however he wishes because he’s so alluring.

Am I being too hard on Cunanan? After all, he’s just using the gifts that come naturally to him. I think I judge because I know he’s clearly capable of so much more. Whereas Donatella might be lacking some of the talent of Versace, she still tries. Cunanan settles for hustling because he’s either too lazy or too vain to do anything but flirt. What a waste of a life, in so many ways.

This doesn’t seem shocking, knowing all the bad things Cunanan is capable of, that he didn’t have anything to do with Aston’s murder, especially knowing he just got dumped by Aston. Drifter Kevin Bond confessed and served time, but it’s veeeeerrrrry suspicious. It seems that no matter where Cunanan goes, blood follows.

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Sex, Lies, And A Disturbing Bludgeoning In ‘American Crime Story: Versace’ (Ep. 7)

Both Episode 6 and 7 of American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace were directed by Gwyneth Horder-Payton. The two episodes, titled “Descent” and “Ascent,” form a neat diptych depicting the imagined suffering of Cunanan, whose inability to seperate fact from fiction led him into increasingly dangerous proclivities. To what extent he is the product of pure evil or a series of misfortunes is a question begged by the show.

Episode 7 starts in Milan, Italy in 1992. Donatella appears to have taken a creative lead in the design process as Gianni’s health deteriorates (amidst denials of his condition). The siblings argue over the future of the company — can Donatella handle the pressure of their line after Gianni’s imminent demise?

This marks the return of the eponymous family to the series, who had been conspicuously absent for much of the show — considering the program’s title.

In San Diego at the same time: Cunanan is working in a convenience store. He continues telling lies to customers about his future prospects as a PhD candidate. He lives with his mother, embroiled in a constant, semi-incestuous battle with her.

Later, Andrew and Trail head to a gay bar where Cunanan continues to create elaborate lies about his past, his family, his income. An older gentleman approaches him with his phone number, implying that his needs could be taken care of.

The next day, as if inspired by the events of the night before, Cunanan finds himself interviewing at an escort service. Despite his superior wit, the interviewer is unimpressed with his racial identity and demeanor. He decides to sell himself.

Back to the Versaces. Gianni and Donatella are working on a masterpiece together. Gianni thinks Donatella should be the model for his piece de resistance in his next collection. Donatella demures at first, but gives in. The cameras eat up their fetish-y design.

Meanwhile, Cunanan begins tracking high-profile charity events and operas in order to scope out potential older suitors. He zones in on one gentleman, Norman Blachford, and immediately begins seducing him (and his friends), saying “Let’s discuss your wants and my terms.”

Donatella is met with celebration at her studio — but despite the publicity, sales are down. Donatella conceives of designing a more ready-to-wear version of her bondage look. Gianni is furious, feeling like his artistic integrity is being compromised. His health is obviously deteriorating — he suddenly goes deaf.

Andrew shows off his newfound wealth with friends. He buys a drink for an attractive young blonde at the bar: it’s Madson.

Smitten, Madson returns to Cunanan’s hotel room. The two bond over stories of lost love, coming out, past melancholies.

Cunanan’s patron, Lincoln Aston, sees the itemized bill from the night and cuts him off.

The next night, Cunanan bizarrely witnesses Aston murdered by someone he was attempting to seduce — specifically, bludgeoned to death in a shockingly graphic scene. Cunanan lets the killer slip by without calling the police. The next day, Andrew meets with his older suitor and explains that police let the murderer go on a gay panic defense.

“I’ve been living through this my whole life. We fall sick, it’s our fault. We’re murdered, it’s our fault,” says the suitor.

“You can rob us, you can beat us, you can kill us — and get away with it,” replies Andrew.

The next day, Andrew recounts one of Madson’s stories to Norman — as if the events had happened to him.

Andrew announces to his mother that he’ll be traveling the world (with Versace — another lie). His mother begs Andrew to let her come with him. Andrew refuses before their argument gets physical. He pushes her into a wall and breaks her shoulder blade. She lies to doctors about what happened.

Donatella tells the Versace employees that Gianni is suffering from a rare form of ear cancer. She announces she will be taking over the operations of the business.

Andrew and Norman purchase a house together.

“If they could see me now…” muses Andrew.

“Who?” asks Norman.

“Everyone.” replies Andrew.

The show’s writer, Tom Rob Smith, has discussed his portrayal of Andrew in this duo of episodes.

“I think it’s wrong to think of him as the ‘Talented Mr. Ripley,’” said Smith to Vanity Fair. “Mr. Ripley is someone who is always hustling and is aware that he’s angling things… . I think Andrew thought he was a husband or a partner in his own right. I don’t think he understood that he was a hustler, otherwise he would’ve been happy with his lot.”

Andrew’s deception in the face of a particularly cruel social milieu has become the show’s central throughline: but the extent to which Andrew was deceiving himself remains a large, perhaps unanswerable question. By juxtaposing Andrew with his most famous victim, Murphy’s team appears to be commenting, once again, on the lies queer people need(ed) to be legible to society. Blachland’s resignation in the face of his friend’s murder shows the necessity of those lies, which are used like armor to protect from the indifference of the straight world.

Sex, Lies, And A Disturbing Bludgeoning In ‘American Crime Story: Versace’ (Ep. 7)

American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace: S02E07: Ascent

Season two’s hot streak comes to an end with an average episode

American Crime Story has a Versace problem. This isn’t anything new, the show has struggled to make the famous designer, his sister, and his lover essential characters apart from the aftermath of his murder. This season is unabashedly about Andrew Cunanan, his friends, lovers, and family feel more layered due to the time, detail, and truly brilliant performances that permeate this one-sided show. Ascent tries to address this imbalance by giving Gianni and Donatella an honest to god plot of their own. Where previous episodes have used these two characters to underline themes that prop up Andrew’s story, Ascent feels a lot more balanced as each plot informs the other.

The problem with this is that I’m still struggling to care about the Versace’s. I’m not a fashion expert, which didn’t stop from knowing who they are, at least, but I’ve no basis on who Gianni Versace is without Edgar Ramirez’ performance. Said performance is all performance, big emotions that swing from light to dark, and it’s becoming a little one note. As I write this I realise that I’m being unfair to Ramirez, it’s not his fault that the show hasn’t given him anywhere near enough screen time to show us anything but broad strokes. It’s also true that Versace took his public personae incredibly seriously, he is still intrinsically connected and visible within his company’s legacy 21 years after his death, even after Donatella took over. This confirms my theory that this is a fault of American Crime Story itself, as they are still relying on Versace’s status as Andrew’s most famous victim without becoming as full a character as Jeff Trial or David Madson.

Thank the TV gods, or the American Crime story casting director, for Penelope Cruz. As frustrating as the unfulfilled potential of Gianni as a character, it’s even more frustrating to see a brilliant actress like Penelope Cruz on the side-lines for so many episodes. For the way that Andrew’s murder spree has been structured, and American Crime Story’s habit of fully characterising the victims (something that is severely lacking in most crime shows), there is a brilliant opportunity to put Donatella front and centre of the aftermath of Andrew’s fatal action. Why cast Penelope Cruz if you aren’t going to use her?

Ascent doesn’t go this way. Instead this episode portrays the rise to success by completely different means of both Andrew and Donatella. It’s horrible to say, although this show is all about the investigating the horrible truth, but Donatella wouldn’t be what she is today without the death of her brother. Ascent smartly explores this success by focusing on the first time Donatella thought she would have to take her brother’s place due to his battle with a rare form of ear cancer. With Gianni staring down the barrel of his own mortality (my gun reference was unintentional, but oddly telling) the pressure is on Donatella as she must get her head around the idea of one day leading the company that she helped her brother build.

Through some tough love, Gianni is trying to develop Donatella into his successor. His main method is emotional abuse, something he gets away with thanks to his medical condition, as he berates Donatella for taking credit for other people’s ideas. Although, this isn’t exactly true. Donatella, as shown in the beginning of the episode, that she has her own vision that she isn’t quite comfortable telling her brother about. Instead, Gianni proposes that they work on a dress together, a dress that becomes a major success when Donatella wears it herself. It’s in the after math of this that Donatella’s true strength as a business woman comes to the fore. Put simply, she is a shrewd business woman, who can read the market in a way her brother can’t because of, let’s call the creative differences with the bottom line.

Unlike Donatella, Andrew’s success isn’t hard earned, although his obsessive research for sugar daddy’s show him at his most productive. While Descent shows us Andrew at his lowest point before the murders, Ascent shows him as a young man with a narcissistic need for a better life. Again, this is nothing new for the show, but we see that Andrew was always like this. What’s different is that this is the part of the story where everyone still believes his bullshit stories. Jeff still loves him, he finds success as an independent escort, and he spends a perfect romantic night with David. Except he is still a fiction who goes by the name of Andrew De Silva. He has a mentally ill mother living in an apartment that she can only afford with his help that he has promised will be taken to the top along with him. Andrew is a liar, instead he fractures his mother’s shoulder, leaving her at the same point in the previous episode when he came back to her.

7/10 – Ascent is a solid episode of American Crime Story, but it’s missing the style and spark of the last four episodes. Direction that felt stylish and visceral last week feels a little sterile, although a decent into madness is always more visually interesting than a success story. Even so, this particular crime story is far to interesting to be really bad, though I think it’s time for us to fast-forward back to the biggest failed manhunt in American history.

American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace: S02E07: Ascent

ACS: Versace Recap: “Ascent” Puts The Spotlight On Donatella

After last week’s episode, Andrew Cunanan’s motive for being the way he is was hinted at but this week, we finally saw real truth as we delved even further back into Cunanan’s backstory and went back another year.

We also got the return of Gianni as he and Donatella shared quite the moment as his illness was making it difficult for him to work, and she was in a state of panic at trying to imagine a future without her big brother.

Gather ’round and let’s discuss “Ascent”.

Two Worlds, Same Struggle: Cunanan and Donatella are both struggling in their own ways. Cunanan is working at a dead end job in a pharmacy while Donatella is struggling to become the new face of Versace with her brother’s illness starting to take over. Donatella has Gianni in her corner: Even as her sketch becomes instantly sidelined in a meeting with designers, when she retreats to her brother, he fights for her. He knows she wants more and that she will have to become more in order to keep the brand afloat after he’s gone.

As for Cunanan, we get an early glimpse at how easily young Cunanan lies while at his job. Later on,  while flirting at a bar, he doesn’t do as well with the younger, hotter gay crowd as Jeffrey does, and it’s an older man who sidles up next to him at the bar. Cunanan ends up going home with the man, which worries his mother when he finally returns to her.

A Mother’s Mercy: Cunanan’s mother is the unexplored tragic figure in this show so far, so painfully pathetic and willing to indulge all of her son’s narcissism for the fantasy that he might achieve the better life he dreams of. He, in turn, treats her like garbage and even abuses her over some ice cream, which she accepts.

Sex For Money: Cunanan later takes it upon himself to try to become an escort, which fails at first for him. The woman in charge of the agency told him that people wouldn’t want to sleep with him because he’s Asian. Cunanan was shocked by that, which ultimately resulted him going out on his own and bagging his own clients.

All Eyes On House Versace: Meanwhile, Gianni is dressing Donatella, almost erotically, in the dress they designed, a dress that will finally allow her to take center stage. And when it’s finally revealed, on the red carpet of the 1996 Met Gala, all eyes are on her, the star for the first time. Donatella and Gianni’s victory over their dress and red carpet walk is short lived; the dress is too outrageous for women to wear off a runway, which leads to a fight between them. But their fight ends with mysterious, panicked hearing loss. Gianni has ear cancer. He has to leave Versace to recover in Miami, and Donatella has to take over the day-to-day operations of the company, ready or not.

The Ultimate Goal: Like Norman alluded to in a previous episode, Cunanan researched him like a mark, showing up at a French play in La Jolla because he knew he’d be there. When Norman meets Cunanan, he’s a young, charming theater lover with a Portuguese last name. Cunanan gets what he wants out of Norman and other clients in the end: a stipend and an expense account. The money is good enough that Cunanan can go back to his friends like a king, treating them all to dinner and drinks and then acting every part the philanthropic millionaire to a young David Madson, alone at the bar. Cunanan only returns home to get his things, with his mother begging to go with him, which leads him to hurt her.

A Life Changing Moment: Cunanan does end messing up though as his current sugar daddy Lincoln  breaks up with him over catching him with David, but when Cunanan comes to his home to protest in person, he sees he has already brought someone else home — a boy from the gay bar who claimed to be straight. When Lincoln reaches to reclaim the drink from the man’s hand, the man lunges and beats Lincoln to death with a nearby statue. The killer sees Cunanan. “He tried to kiss me!” the guy sputters. “I know,” Cunanan answers comfortably.

This leads him to reuniting with Norman, honoring Lincoln’s memory. Using a story David told him about wanting to build a home for his bullied friend in high school, Cunanan promises Norman he will build him a beautiful home where they can live together and be happy.

Quote of the night:

“This dress is not my legacy. You are.” – Gianni

ACS: Versace Recap: “Ascent” Puts The Spotlight On Donatella