Tag: 2.07

American Crime Story: Versace Season 1 Episode 7 Review: Ascent

With only a few episodes left, this series is coming down the home stretch rather slowly.

American Crime Story: Versace Season 1 Episode 7 takes us even further back in time to the days before Andrew met David and even Norman. This is Andrew completely devoid of excess and merely working a 9-5 to make ends meet.

Oh and the Versace’s are back. It’s been awhile since they fully shared an hour with the Andrew Cunanan story.

Overall, while this series has been strong, there’s been world class installments and much weaker ones. This one, unfortunately, fell in the weaker category for me.

For starters, let’s talk about the Versace’s. During the premiere, I was so excited to see what they were going to show us about this family. The casting was out of this world and there’s so much meat to their story.

Yet, here we are with two episodes to go and Gianni and Donatella Versace feel like completely secondary characters. Everything is so Andrew Cunanan centric, that when I see the siblings it takes me awhile to even remember what has been going on with their storylines.

Donatella- This company is you, it’s not me.
Gianni- You have to make it yours. You have to take it. And you have to own it.

At this stage of the game, we’re back in 1992. Gianni is sick with a rare form of ear cancer and he and Donatella are struggling with their ideas of how she fits into the company.

For many of us now, we see Donatella as the face of Versace, so it’s very interesting to see the dynamics at play years before Gianni’s death. The confident and secure Donatella we saw shortly after Gianni passed, is not the Donatella we see here. She’s uneasy and unsure about where she stands.

It is Gianni that gives her the strength and motivation to believe in herself, her talents and her importance.

Seeing the siblings here, I feel robbed they we haven’t gotten more of them throughout the course of the series. Andrew is an obviously interesting case study in sociopathic behavior, but the heart of this story comes from the Versace’s.

At this point, it feels like I could rattle off a term paper about Andrew Cunanan’s entire life, yet I’m still wondering about so many things in regard to Gianni and Donatella.

For me, being told no is like being told I don’t exist. It’s like I disappeared or something. – Andrew [to Jeff]

But maybe I was naive to believe this would be a story that focused equally on Andrew and Gianni. This was always going to be about what lead to the assassination and that had everything to do with Mr. Cunanan.

As we continue traveling back in time, we finally stumble upon the Andrew that truly has nothing. Sure we’ve seen him at rock bottom, but have we seen Andrew truly have to work for anything?

One of the most intriguing things about Andrew is his sense of entitlement. He believes that he is owed everything. From ice cream, to an allowance, to a job.

And it’s this inflated sense of self-importance that ends up being one of his biggest downfalls.

Prior to Norman, there was another wealthy, older man in Andrew’s life and I had no idea how that story unfolded. The entire scene of Lincoln and the man he picked up in the bar sizing one another up, just felt off. Like it was apparent something was going to go wrong but I didn’t know what.

I have to wonder if that was Andrew’s first experience with death and if that had an effect on him. I mean, you have to assume it did. To witness a brutal murder and essentially escape death yourself has to impact you.

Norman: We fall sick, it’s our fault. We’re murdered, it’s our fault.
Andrew: You can rob us. You can beat us. You can kill us and get away with it.

Norman and Andrew’s conversation about Lincoln’s murder was fascinating. For one, we know that Andrew must have kept his encounter with the murderer and what he saw to himself. This alleged kiss between Lincoln and his killer never took place and Andrew is well aware of that.

So, why not tell the police? I would never presume to know what goes through the head of a narcissistic coward, but he must have thought it was better to for him to act unaware.

At this point in time, as Andrew and Norman stare out at the vast Pacific Ocean, you have to wonder why that just couldn’t be enough for Andrew. Money at his fingertips and the clout he believed he deserved.

But Andrew always wanted more. And he would have died before he walked around this Earth as a forgotten man.

Okay fanatics, what are your thoughts on “Ascent”? Were you hoping to see more of the Versace’s in this series? What else do you want to see before the finale?

American Crime Story: Versace Season 1 Episode 7 Review: Ascent

‘The Assassination of Gianni Versace’ Recap: How Did Andrew Ascend to a Lavish Lifestyle?

The backwards arc of Andrew Cunanan on The Assassination of Gianni Versace continues in the seventh episode, “Ascent.” It’s obviously the inverse of last week’s accurately-titled “Descent” because this time we see Andrew go from a poor pharmacy worker to living in a fancy estate with Norman.

His rise does include a few bumps, including a failed job interview, injuring his mother and witnessing a murder. But really, it’s Andrew’s preference in ice cream that may tell us the most about who he is.

This episode also brings back the Versaces, going back to 1992 to show us Donatella’s own ascent into stardom. At least that means Penelope Cruz is back. Whether you like the structure of this series or not, I hope we can all agree that casting an Oscar-winning actress, then giving her almost nothing to do for four episodes in a row, is not a great decision.

Andrew the Escort

The show goes way back in Andrew’s past to 1992 in San Diego when he was working at a pharmacy and living with his mom. He’s frustrated by his ordinary life, illustrated by his rage over the fact that his mom bought cheap, generic ice cream instead of Haagen-Dazs. Andrew’s lack of self-awareness is startling. He knows the full history of the makers of Haagen-Dazs, admitting that it’s a made-up name designed to sound fancy, and yet he wants it because he believes the corporate lie that it’s something special.

After a bad night at a gay bar, Andrew decides to chase his dreams of wealth by seeking employment at an escort agency. The woman who runs it is impressed with his intelligence, but she turns him down because her clients aren’t interested in arrogant Asians. I know that, like Andrew Cunanan, actor Darren Criss is half-Filipino, but I doubt any of the escort agency’s clients would complain about him being Asian.

Andrew decides to go off on his own, targeting rich old gay men and basically stalking them. He arranges a “coincidental” meeting with Norman at a play to seduce him with his charm. Andrew’s target takes the bait and he gets invited to dinner with Norman and his old pals, Lincoln and Gallo.

At the end of the night, Norman has to go home to Phoenix, but Andrew stays behind with Lincoln, who offers him $100 a night. Andrew counters with a weekly allowance and an expense account, offering to bring over his friends if Lincoln wants more variety.

Andrew and David’s First Date

Now that he has money, Andrew goes out to dinner with his friends and spies a cute blond sitting alone at the bar. It’s David Mdson and Andrew buys him a drink and invites him over. This is the beginning of that first date David talked to Andrew about in last week’s episode.

They go to Andrew’s fancy hotel room and David is intoxicated by the opulence. It’s not long before they share a first kiss while overlooking the San Francisco skyline and having shower sex. Afterwards David shares his simple dreams of a house with a two-car garage and a yard. It seems clear that Andrew is envious, not of David’s pedestrian dreams, but of his happiness and contentment with them.

The End of Lincoln

The date may have gone well, but Andrew ignored Lincoln’s calls and after seeing the bill for the hotel, Lincoln ends his arrangement with him. That proves to be a deadly mistake.

Lincoln goes out looking for another young man and meets a gruff guy named Kevin at the gay bar. Kevin says he’s straight and is very uneasy, but goes back to Lincoln’s place anyway. Lincoln promises he won’t do anything and offers to call him a cab, but when Lincoln takes his drink and their hands briefly touch, Kevin goes nuts and attacks him, bashing Lincoln’s skull in and killing him.

And at that same moment, Andrew comes over to talk to Lincoln and sees the whole thing, a bit of obvious foreshadowing as Andrew will eventually bash in the skulls of Jeff Trail and Lee Miglin. Kevin Andrew, who tells him to run.

Andrew’s New Life

In the aftermath, Andrew and Norman connect over the loss of Lincoln. It turns out the police arrested Kevin, but since he says he lost control when Lincoln tried to kiss him, that qualifies as self-defense back in the early ‘90s.

Andrew suggests that Norman should move to California and they can create a home and a new life together. He wins him over by telling him the same story David told Andrew, taking it as his own.

It works and Andrew is able to leave the apartment he lives in with his mom, telling her that he’s traveling the world assisting Gianni Versace. His mom thinks she’s going with him because he promised to take her away, but that’s obviously not an option. She begs him not to leave her alone and she gets so worked up that Andrew pushes her into the wall, fracturing her shoulder blade.

The House of Versace

In Italy in 1992, Gianni Versace gets into a fight with Donatella, but he’s simply trying to push her to be great. He’s sick and fears he’s dying, so he wants to groom her to take over the company when he’s gone.

At this point, I’m very confused by the timeline because the Versace storyline is infrequent and jumps around. The first episode was based around his death in July 1997. The second episode flashed back to him being diagnosed as HIV-positive in March 1994. Then he disappeared for two episodes and jumped forward to June 1995 in the fifth episode when he publically came out. Then he was gone again, but now we’re back in 1992. At least with Andrew his story is consistently moving backwards, but the Versace scenes are jumping all around and have no cohesive story.

Anyway, the Versaces design a dress together and Gianni convinces her to model it at Vogue’s 100th anniversary gala. She reluctantly does, but then becomes the toast of the town as all of the photographers lose their damn minds over Donatella in the dress. Just like that, Donatella is an overnight sensation.

Everyone may be talking about the dress, but no one is buying it. Donatella proposes the idea of two dresses with the same basic design: one high-end for runway shows and red carpets, but the other is more simplified and comfortable for woman to actually buy and wear. Gianni is furious about the idea, but it may be his growing illness as he melts down because he goes temporarily deaf.

Following this incident, Gianni and Antonio go to Miami, with Donatella claiming that he has a rare form of ear cancer and that she will take over the company in his absence.

Do you find the time-jumping confusing?

‘The Assassination of Gianni Versace’ Recap: How Did Andrew Ascend to a Lavish Lifestyle?

‘American Crime Story’ Recap: Gianni Urges Donatella To Take Control

It’s 1992 in Milan. Donatella is busy working on new Versace designs with her designers. “A dress is a weapon to get what she wants,” Donatella says. A new era of fashion is on the horizon. Her workers have been wondering what is wrong with Gianni since he’s been absent so much. When Gianni arrives, he immediately picks a fight with Donatella. He calls her out for taking a step back in designing. She pleads with him to tell her what he wants from her. “I want everything,” Gianni says. Donatella cries that she’s already given all of herself to him and this company. He says it’s not enough.

Antonio tells Gianni to apologize to Donatella for being so cruel. Gianni goes to his sister and tells her that they are going to design a dress together. “Soon it will be just you,” Gianni says, as if seeing the future and knowing he’s not going to be a part of it. “All of this will rest on you.” Donatella replies, “This company is you. It’s not me.”

“You have to make it yours,” Gianni tells her. “You have to take it. You have to own it.” When Gianni’s not around, Donatella will be in charge. She will be the face of Versace. “This dress is not my legacy,” he says to his beloved sister. “You are.”

An Ice Cream Tantrum

In San Diego, Andrew is working at a pharmacy. He comes home and finds a discount ice cream container in the freezer and throws it on the floor. He only wants “the best.” If it’s not Haagen-Dazs, he doesn’t want the ice cream at all. (*Rolls eyes*)

He meets Jeff Trail at a local gay bar. Andrew fears getting rejected by men. He finds himself lying to get attention. In the end, Jeff’s still the one who goes home with a guy at the end of the night. No matter what Andrew does, he’s just never good enough. He dreams of getting far away from San Diego and assures his mother that he’ll take her with him.

Andrew auditions to be an escort. Physical attributes are the only things that matter. “This is about being what people want,” the woman says. Andrew’s not the subject of fantasies. He’s turned away, but he’s not deterred. Andrew targets Norman Blachford, and the man falls right for it, as does Lincoln Aston.

The Dress

Gianni and Donatella design that black leather bondage dress, which sets the fashion label in a new direction. He convinces her to wear the dress to Vogue’s100th anniversary gala. When the brother and sister walk in together, the crowd goes wild. Later, Donatella sees that something is very wrong with her brother when he suddenly can’t hear anything. Gianni suffered from ear cancer before he died.

While out with friends, Andrew spots David Madson for the first time. He orders David a drink and takes him home. Andrew is immediately smitten. Andrew returns to see Lincoln and watches the man get brutally murdered by a stranger. He reconnects with Norman in the wake of Lincoln’s death. Norman welcomes him in with open arms. Andrew tells his mother that he’s going on vacation with Versace, and she freaks when she realizes that she’s not going. He’s really just going to live with Norman. Never trust a guy who doesn’t treat his mother right.

While Gianni recovers, Donatella steps in as head of the company. She easily slides into the role of a leader. Gianni always knew her greatness, and she’s now realizing it, too.

‘American Crime Story’ Recap: Gianni Urges Donatella To Take Control

‘The Assassination of Gianni Versace’ Episode 7: Asians With Attitude

Episode 7: ‘Ascent’

Genius has been an underlying theme of this series, the second season of FX’s “American Crime Story” — specifically, the creative genius of Gianni Versace (and to a lesser extent, the young architect David Madson) and the pathological genius of Andrew Cunanan, whose capacity for deceit and violence is rare.

Episode 7 of “The Assassination of Gianni Versace” reveals a different side of Versace’s genius — one that enabled him to build an institution and not just a brand. As this week’s episode relates, his genius was grounded in a gift for reading people, based on intuition and perception rather than on flashes of inspired brilliance.

In a series of flashbacks, we learn that Gianni, perhaps with a foretaste of his premature death, has begun to shore up his legacy by encouraging his most loyal helpmate — his sister, Donatella — to rise as his potential successor.

It is a kind of encouragement by tough love. As portrayed by Edgar Ramírez, Gianni has a fiery temperament and is prone to bursts of rage when he believes his exacting standards are not being met. “What are you?” he shouts at Donatella, played by a terrific Penélope Cruz, as he shoves aside a collection of drawings she has assembled for his review. “Are you a designer? No, what are you? Are you a collector of other people’s ideas?”

He fumes at her: “You have the opportunity to be great, and you choose to assist.”

Time is not on their side: Gianni is using a cane, and he is losing his hearing. The series has implied — as does “Vulgar Favors,” the book by the journalist Maureen Orth on which it is based — that Gianni is H.I.V.-positive. (The Versace family has disputed this.) After reconciling, Gianni tells a tearful Donatella that they will design a dress together, “as if it’s the last dress I will ever make.” He adds, with a touch of melodrama: “This dress is not my legacy. You are.”

Later, at the 1992 gala celebration in New York to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Vogue, Donatella unveils that bondage-themed dress, and it is an immediate sensation. The scene in which Gianni gently releases his sister’s hand, letting her inhabit the limelight alone as he moves to the side, is affecting.

It will be a five years until he is murdered in Miami Beach, but it is a premonition of what is to come.

Back in California, we learn more about Cunanan’s career as a rent boy in the years before the 1997 killings. In an unusually amusing scene in this fairly grim series, Andrew, played by Darren Criss, is working behind the counter at a Thrifty drugstore. (He tells a nonplused customer that he is holding down the job while completing a Ph.D. at the University of California, San Diego; in fact, he is a college dropout.)

Andrew’s boss, a man named Mr. Mercado, is an immigrant from the Philippines (like Andrew’s father, Modesto, whom we have not met), a map of which hangs in his sparsely furnished office. Mercado tells him to stop looking at Vogue while he’s on the clock.

“Does it ever bother you that the customers only know you as ‘That Helpful Man’?” Andrew asks Mercado. Mercado shrugs. Later, back at his mother’s apartment, Andrew reacts violently after discovering that she has bought a tub of Safeway ice cream rather than his preferred brand, Häagen-Dazs. His spite toward anything everyday — what in last week’s episode he derided as “ordinary” — is visceral and explosive. He slams the tub onto the kitchen floor, making a mess.

When his mother asks why it matters, Andrew tells her about Reuben Mattus, the brand’s founder, who made up its Danish-sounding name. It’s a brief but sad moment, one that reveals how consumer abundance, or the illusion of it, has made Andrew so petulant, childish and self-indulgent that he despises his own mother.

In the gay world, we soon learn, Andrew is more Safeway than Häagen-Dazs.

At a gay bar with his handsome friend Jeff, a Navy veteran, Andrew laments that he isn’t approached more by men; Jeff urges him to take the initiative, but Andrew fears rejection in the same way he fears getting his hands dirty. For him, it’s existential. “Being told no is like being told I don’t exist,” he says. “It’s like I’ve disappeared or something.”

People get rejected every day, and we may never truly understand why most move on with their lives while Andrew moved on to become a killer. But we’re learning more about just how pernicious his fear of invisibility is, even at this early stage. When Andrew visits an escort agency, its brusque manager wastes no time in informing Andrew about the customers’ preferences — another rejection. (“My clients never ask for Asians,” she says after asking him to drop his trousers. “And they never ask for Asians with attitude.”) Deciding he doesn’t need help finding a sugar daddy, he browses a local newspaper, studying the arts and philanthropy pages to identify suitable targets.

A target found, he stalks the La Jolla Playhouse for a performance of Marivaux’s 18th-century comic play “The Triumph of Love.” Just as planned, he catches the eye of Norman Blachford, a wealthy entrepreneur whose partner, as we know from last week’s episode, has recently died of AIDS. Andrew ends up becoming the kept man of Lincoln Aston, a friend of Norman’s.

It’s on Lincoln’s dime — purportedly to look into art acquisitions — that Andrew travels to San Francisco and buys a fateful drink for a handsome young man sitting alone at the bar. That man turns out to be David, the Minneapolis architect, who is visiting San Francisco for work. (Frustratingly, we never learn more about the friends with whom Andrew is dining.)

Up in Andrew’s suite, we get an inside look at that passionate night at the Mandarin Oriental — the one which meant so much to Andrew and, fatally, so much less to David. Dressed in their bathrobes after a steamy shower together, David tells Andrew about a childhood friend, Leah, who was tormented at school. He had promised to build her a house where they could escape from bullies. But later, when he told her he was gay, she never spoke to him again. “She must have felt betrayed,” he says.

Andrew looks as if he is ready to cry, and for the first time in this series, one sees traces of real empathy in him — an ability to take seriously the pain of others and to look beyond himself.

It is a fleeting moment. Back in San Diego, Lincoln is outraged to see a hotel bill that includes midnight Champagne. He cuts off the flow of funds.

Sadly, it was an unwise move: Lincoln returns to a gay bar, where he picks up a hustler and takes him home. The encounter does not end well: The man bludgeons Lincoln to death. Andrew, who was inside the apartment, evidently waiting for Lincoln, cowers in fear; the hustler, after a moment’s hesitation, does not attack him. “He tried to kiss me,” he tells Andrew, previewing the “gay panic” defense he will use to justify the attack.

Returning to Norman, Andrew feigns aggrievement over Lincoln’s gruesome death. “We fall sick, it’s our fault,” he says. “We’re murdered, it’s our fault. You can rob us, you can beat us, you can kill us and get away with it.”

But this moment of political awakening — if it can be called that — is short-lived. When Andrew tries to persuade Norman to come live with him in San Diego, it’s obvious he just wants the money. And the pool.

Loose Threads:

• According to Orth’s book, Lincoln Aston was, in fact, a wealthy gay man who was murdered in May 1995, after his relationship with Cunanan had cooled, but there is nothing to suggest that Cunanan was present for the crime. A man named Kevin Bond was convicted of the murder. The case was re-examined after Cunanan’s 1997 serial killings, but the police found no evidence that he was involved.

• Andrew tells his mother, MaryAnn, that he met Versace in San Francisco and now plans to travel the world with him. (We know from an early episode that the first part, at least, is true.) But when she begs Andrew to take her to Paris, she risks exposing his lies and clearly stokes his guilt. He lashes out, shoving her into a wall and fracturing her shoulder blade. It’s an ugly scene, and it reminds us just how dangerous Andrew’s hair-trigger temper is. He has a genius for rage, manipulation and deception, but not for basic human decency.

‘The Assassination of Gianni Versace’ Episode 7: Asians With Attitude

The Assassination of Gianni Versace Recap: Getting the Belt

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

I’ll just say it: This was my least favorite episode of the series so far. First of all, it looks so cheap. Versace’s Milan office looks like it was hastily assembled from a bunch of plywood and a rough coat of paint by four guys named Ted who do all the sets for regional productions of Brigadoon. And the dress that Donatella wears to the Vogue anniversary party? The original dress was dainty, chic, and had just a touch of the S&M about it. The one in “Ascent” looks like it was made out of a bunch of clearance belts that a someone in the wardrobe department scooped up at Marshall’s. This is probably because Gianni later throws a fit and chops it to bits, but also because the production couldn’t get access to the Versace archives. Still, everything that isn’t shot on location looks straight out of a Lifetime movie.

The real reason why this episode is boring is due to the show’s structure of telling the story backwards. Initially, this was a very interesting and original way for the series to play out, but now we’re so deep into it that we’ve intuited everything that we didn’t already know. We already knew that Andrew met David for one great night in San Francisco, took him to his suite at the Mandarin Oriental, and fell in love with him. Does it matter that he met him by calling him over at a fancy restaurant because he thought David was lonely? Not really. Do we need to see them getting busy in the shower? No, but I’m never going to tell attractive people to have less sex and be less naked on my television screen.

We also already knew that Andrew was working in a pharmacy in San Diego and that his mother was crazy and needy. Did we need to know that his mother thought she was going to travel around the world with him as he “assisted Signore Versace?” No. Did we need to know that he insisted she buy Häagen-Dazs and when she bought the cheap generic ice cream that comes in a tub so big that it has its own handle, he threw it on the ground in a fit of pique? Not really, even though it sure is fun to watch.

We also already knew that he stalked his sugar daddy Norman and convinced him to build a life for them both in San Diego. Do we need to know that it was at the La Jolla playhouse? Not really. Do we need to know that he was first with Norman’s friend Lincoln Aston, who was murdered by a piece of trade that he picked up at a local bar for hustlers? Actually, yeah, we do need to know that.

The few bright spots in the episode are the surprising details that we didn’t know at all. Lincoln being beaten to death by someone who had a case of “gay panic” actually happened (here’s a great article about it), but whether or not Andrew witnessed the crime and didn’t report it is up to interpretation. It certainly helps Andrew get what he wants, and it happened through violence and deceit, which seems to be Andrew’s M.O. But while Andrew and Norman say that they can get murdered and people get away with it, Lincoln’s killer went to prison for 15 years, so that seems a little blown out of proportion.

Lincoln’s murder and that conversation do set the tone for the gay community that Andrew was living in at the time. With the rise of AIDS and homophobia at its height, he was living in a time where fear and violence seeped into everything about the gay community, sometimes when they least expect it, like when Lincoln brought that man home. No wonder it managed to warp Andrew into thinking that was the only way he could get ahead. It was almost as if he was taking revenge for the way straight people were treating gay people, except his crimes were against those wouldn’t (or couldn’t) love him the way he wanted.

Another surprising and humiliating moment is when Andrew goes to the escort agency and the madam tells him that she can’t sell an Asian with a bad attitude, “even if he does have a big dick.” We already knew Andrew worked as an escort, but this scene reveals how hard it was for him to be seen as worthy, even as a sex worker. It also shows how he learned to manufacture his own identity and where those details came from — saying he was Portuguese rather than Filipino, for example.

The one bonus of the scene between Andrew and David at the hotel is that David tells Andrew the story of his friend Leah: She was always getting picked on, so David promised to build her a house that they could live in together. Andrew then takes that same story, embellishes and exaggerates the details, and uses it to sell Norman on a move from Phoenix to San Diego. It is a nice glimpse into how Andrew is always connecting the dots, grabbing the things that make him feel emotion and adjusting them to manipulate other people.

But even that’s something we’ve seen plenty of times on this show. As the story starts to come close to its end — or in this case, the beginning — it’s reaching a sort of anti-climax.

So, yeah, I found this chapter of the Versace story dreadfully boring and a total rehash. It also lacked the glamour and opulence of the first episode, when we got to see Gianni lolling around his villa in all of those very expensive fabrics. A lot of people have called for more Versace in this show that bears his name, but cutting their story out of this already bloated episode might have been what it needed to move along more briskly.

It’s just so much of the same. We already knew that Donatella was always going to be in charge of the business after Gianni was gone. We learn that the plans were put in motion before his assassination, but still, the plan was the plan. Maybe some of Dontella’s anger and resentment for her brother and his partner comes from thinking that she’d be in charge. She had that yanked away from her, only to have it return in such a tragic and unexpected way.

The one good thing about knowing the ending before the beginning is that it offers instances of dramatic irony. For instance, the only good part of Gianni and Donatella’s storyline is learning that, at one point, Diego actually stood up for Gianni’s sister. Sure, she would eventually come to despise him (and lock him out of the company), but initially he was her champion.

The ultimate instance of dramatic irony, however, comes at the end. Andrew is furnishing Norman’s house and says to him, like the old Carnival Cruise commercial, “If they could see me now.” Norman asks who “they” are. “Everybody,” Andrew says, thinking that he finally played being rich and sophisticated long enough that he achieved it. He actually faked it until he made it. But he’s staring off of the balcony not into a bright future, but a sad fall into drug addiction, obsession, and death.

The Assassination of Gianni Versace Recap: Getting the Belt

Darren Criss on the Vulnerable Moments, Lesbian Subplot, and Skeet Ulrich Role Cut from American Crime Story

Fans watching American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace will have noticed that the episode running times tend to fluctuate in length. This week’s episode, “Ascent,” clocked in at around 77 minutes with commercial breaks. Next week’s installment will be even longer. But in a wide-ranging interview with Richard Lawson on Vanity Fair’s weekly podcast Still Watching: Versace, series star Darren Criss reveals that, as is often the case, the first cut of each episode was initially much, much longer and entire subplots and characters wound up on the cutting-room floor. “I’d be curious to see the director’s cut because a lot of episodes ended up at 90, 100 minutes,” Criss explained. Whether or not viewers will ever see a director’s cut of the series, Criss shared a few of the gems audiences might be missing.

For one thing, there was an entire sequence involving Riverdale and Scream star Skeet Ulrich as a porn czar who rejected Andrew Cunanan’s attempts to find work in the industry. (According to Maureen Orth’s book Vulgar Favors: Andrew Cunanan, Gianni Versace, and the Largest Failed Manhunt in U.S. History, Cunanan was obsessed with pornography.) Criss explains:

There was this really interesting scene in the second episode where [Andrew’s] already on the lam. He hasn’t killed Gianni yet, but Andrew goes into—this happened, apparently—a small boutique porn studio … looking for work. Shout out to Skeet Ulrich, who got cut out of it. I really, really enjoyed his performance. He played this … porn Ziegfeld guy, producer dude, with his cigarette, sort of skeezy dude.

For more of what that Ulrich plot entailed—including Andrew going into a “berserk” rage that caused Criss to injure himself on set—you can listen to the complete interview. Though Ulrich mentioned having a part in American Crime Story, in interviews last year, the actor was snipped out of the marketing material for the show entirely. But Criss points out that you can see vestigial remains of some of the other cut storylines in trailers and promotional photos. Take, for example, this character portrait of Orange is the New Black star Dascha Polanco who played a Miami investigator in the first two episodes of the series and will likely return for the finale.

Though she’s captured here in a club scene, American Crime Story never reveals any information about Detective Lori Wieder outside of work. But according to Criss, there were lengthy scenes of Polanco’s character “going to the gay clubs and she was really kind of connecting the dots” in pursuit of Cunanan. “There’s huge sequences that we shot, huge parties and a lot of people, that took a long time that are just gone.” In the lengthier versions of the episodes, Polanco’s character’s familiarity with the gay scene in Miami came first hand: this more “prominent” version of her character was openly gay.

Critics and fans alike have noted the way The Assassination of Gianni Versace has broadened its scope far beyond the lives of slain designer Gianni Versace and his murderer Andrew Cunanan, to engage in a number of other themes and issues concerning the homosexual community in 90s America, including gays in the military, midwestern conservatism, the drug scene, H.I.V. survival guilt, and more. But for all the various male-gay-experiences represented in the series, American Crime Story is awfully light on any engagement with the lesbian community, despite the fact that several gay women orbited Cunanan’s social circle, and gave interviews to Maureen Orth.

As Criss laments, the dynamic between Polanco’s Detective Wieder and Will Chase’s Detective Paul Scrimshaw added a few more layers to those earlier episodes. Chase plays the “hardened straight-bro who is not necessarily homophobic, but just doesn’t really get it” while Polanco “had this whole thing of being this lesbian investigator that understood what was going on a little more.” Detectives Wieder and Scrimshaw are both characters named for real people who spoke to Orth, for her book, but in the context of the show act as composite characters.

Most of all, though, Criss says he misses a certain vulnerable scene between his character and Cody Fern’s David Madson. “You see [Andrew] with the phone in his hand and he’s saying, ‘David, I’m not the person that I said I was,‘ and there’s this real brutal, vulnerable moment of honesty, of unadulterated honesty that, as a viewer, you‘re like, ‘Oh. Oh, thank God. Oh, great,’ ” Criss recalls. “Then, it’s not real. Then, he finally calls David and he just says, like, ‘Hi. I had a great time. Bye,‘ and that’s it. It’s all those moments where you go, ‘Goddammit, no, man, you’re really … You were so close.‘”

These little missing scenes and characters are really just the tip of the iceberg of what Criss covered in nearly an hour of discussion with Still Watching: Versace. To find out more about the true story of Versace, Cunanan, and more, you can listen to the full interview with Criss—as well as past guests Maureen Orth, Ricky Martin, Max Greenfield, Judith Light, Cody Fern, Finn Wittrock, and more—by subscribing to Still Watching: Versace on Apple Podcasts or your podcast app of choice. New episodes of the podcast air every Wednesday night.

Darren Criss on the Vulnerable Moments, Lesbian Subplot, and Skeet Ulrich Role Cut from American Crime Story

How Donatella Versace Overcame Her Demons and Stepped Out From Her Brother’s Shadow

Those who tuned into American Crime Story’s current season, The Assassination of Gianni Versace, expecting episodes centered on the late fashion designer may have been disappointed to realize the drama does not hinge on Versace as much as on his murderer, Andrew Cunanan. But Wednesday’s episode, “Ascent,” takes audiences inside Versace’s empire, finally showcasing the fiery relationship between Gianni and sister Donatellathat preceded his 1997 death, and Donatella’s insecurity as a designer in the years when her brother was ill.

Deborah Ball’s 2010 book House of Versace: The Untold Story of Genius, Murder, and Survival shed additional light on the complicated power dynamic between Gianni and his 10-years-younger sister Donatella. Gianni had known as a child that fashion was his first love, studying from his dressmaker mother and treating Donatella as his doll—creating clothes for her, encouraging her to bleach her hair, and shaping her as the mascot of his brand. Donatella’s professional trajectory was less clear, so she allowed her brother to steer her in adulthood as he had in childhood. As Ball put it, “Donatella filled an indefinable role of muse, sounding board, and first assistant… . Donatella became Gianni’s shadow in the atelier [and] had a great knack for sizing up a dress or a pair of pants or a color palette and deciding whether it had that mysterious quality that would make it trendy.”

Donatella considered Gianni to be the creative genius and Gianni considered Donatella to be his gut. Their relationship was so enmeshed that Gianni had said, “I think if I were to marry I would look for a girl like Donatella. Our friendship was from when we were children. We were always together.” Meanwhile, Italian fashion journalist Giusi Ferre explained the sibling dynamic to Ball in another way: “She was his passport into the world of women. She was his female alter ego.”

Though she has always projected a larger-than-life aura given her exaggerated look—bleach-blonde hair, bronzed skin, heavy makeup, and audacious clothing—Ball wrote that Donatella “was a serial self-belittler, homing in on every last physical imperfection. She charmed people by betraying a bit of her vulnerability, but her insecurities unbalanced her.” Even by 2007, once she had righted her family’s fashion empire, the New Yorker’s Laura Collins noted that she critiqued herself often, peppering the conversation with statements like, “I am petrified,” “I get very anxious,” and “I have a major talent to lose things.”

During the years when Gianni was sick—whether with a form of ear cancer, as the family maintains, or with H.I.V., as Vanity Fair contributor Maureen Orth claimed—Donatella found herself reluctantly taking the reins of the company. She explained her role as intermediary in a 2006 interview with New York magazine: “I was going up into his apartment, showing him the work, getting the approval from him, but I ran the company because he wasn’t showing himself. It was like a year and a half I did everything … [That way of running the company was more] convenient for me, when I was next to Gianni, because Gianni was the one with all the responsibility, taking all the criticism. It was a more comfortable position.”

In spite of her experience shadow-directing the company when Gianni was alive, Donatella found herself ill-equipped to fully take over after her brother was murdered in 1997. And her self-critical nature spiraled to the point that she paralyzed herself with fear and anxiety.

“I realize[d] that all the eyes of the world were on top of me, and really, people didn’t believe I was going to pull through,” Donatella told New York in 2006. “All these people depending on me, their jobs on my shoulders, to live up to Gianni’s dream. I’m going to fuck up everything Gianni did?”

“Gianni’s death left Donatella, who was essentially an unprepared understudy, with awesome responsibility,” wrote the New Yorker. “She is charged with designing not only men’s and women’s clothing for four apparel brands (Versace, Versace Atelier, Versace Collection, and Versace Jeans Couture) but a host of lucrative ‘life-style products’ (among them perfume, watches, belts, couches, dishes, eyeglasses, shoes, bags, and scarves). For the Versace line alone, Donatella produces twelve collections a year.”

Before Versace’s first fashion show after Gianni’s death, Donatella warned press to lower their expectations, telling them,“I would like to be judged for what I am doing, not compared to him. If you compare me to him, I can only fall short.’”

“The thing that killed me the most was to show this strong façade in front of everybody because I wasn’t strong at all,” Donatella told New York. “I was going home and crying tears.” The designer confessed to The Guardian, “For the first five years [after Gianni’s death] I was lost. I made a lot of mistakes.” One of which was numbing her tremendous pain with drugs.

“When you use cocaine every day, your brain doesn’t work anymore,” Donatella told Vogue in 2005. “I was crying, laughing, crying, sleeping—I couldn’t understand when I was talking; people couldn’t understand me…I was aggressive; my voice was always high. I was scaring [my family] to death; my children were petrified of me.” Her professional decisions were as erratic as her personal ones—and the Versace brand identity wavered. The company posted losses of $7.1 million in 2002.

In 2004—seven years after her brother’s death—Donatella’s good friend Elton John, daughter Allegra, and son Daniel staged an intervention, and persuaded the designer to get treatment for her addiction. After she was sober, Donatella turned around her company by installing a new C.E.O., Giancarlo Di Risio, who returned the brand to profitability, and finally trusting her voice.

“I had been listening to everyone else, and then I realized, who was the person my brother listened to? Me,” Donatella told The Guardian in 2017, looking back on her professional turning point. “I worked with him every day. I was much more than a muse. It was a dialogue between us. We discussed everything.”

She told the same outlet that if she were to give her younger self any advice in those year’s following her brother’s murder, it would be simple: “Be strong, and stay true to yourself…But most of all, follow your own instincts, and don’t try to be Gianni.”

How Donatella Versace Overcame Her Demons and Stepped Out From Her Brother’s Shadow

Donatella Finally Shines in the Latest Episode of ‘The Assassination of Gianni Versace’

Given that Gianni Versace has ended up as a supporting character in the series named after him, it’s perhaps inevitable that Donatella Versace has felt like a guest star at best. But Penelope Cruz finally gets her spotlight moment in tonight’s episode, as Gianni persuades Donatella to model a daring new Versace dress she co-designed. Later, Donatella is forced to take over the company as her brother’s health declines.

Meanwhile, we see more from Andrew Cunanan’s origin story, starting with Cunanan working as a humble drugstore clerk but dreaming of a more glamorous life—one he successfully cons his way into by the end of the episode.

Here are five talking points from Episode 7 of The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story, “Ascent.”

1) Donatella really did wear that iconic dress in 1993.

Donatella has a vision of “a dress as a weapon”—making literal the idea that women wield fashion in order to get what they want—and she and Gianni create a stunning dress that incorporates steel and harness motifs to reflect this idea. The siblings working together has an extra layer of poignancy, because at this stage, Gianni is very sick, and believes that this dress may be the last one he ever makes.

Determined to push Donatella to grow into more than an assistant role, Gianni insists that she should be the one to debut it at the gala. “This is perfect for Naomi,” she exclaims, referring to supermodel Naomi Campbell. But Gianni insists Donatella wear it, and even though she’s convinced she’ll look absurd, she absolutely kills it at the event. The dramatic moment of her posing in the dress with Gianni generates a huge amount of buzz for the brand and draws attention away from Gianni’s declining health. And even though there’s some snarky coverage, Donatella is thrilled.

2) Versace’s HIV status is once again addressed without being fully addressed.

As was the case in Episode 2, this episode walks a very fine line in its dialogue about Versace’s health. Maureen Orth claims in her book, Vulgar Favors, that Versace was HIV positive, but the Versace family has always vigorously denied that. Here, Gianni is in a foul mood, flying into fits of rage at the drop of a hat, and it soon transpires that he believes he’s dying—and he’s understandably furious. Though his disease is never named, it’s clear it’s something without an easy cure; after he’s been especially vicious to Donatella, Antonio tells him, “You don’t have time to be cruel.” Later in the episode, Gianni struggles to hear anything during a sales meeting. He ends up taking a leave of absence from the company because he’s become so sick, and Donatella explains to her concerned employees that Gianni has developed a rare form of ear cancer (which was also referred to in Episode 2).

3) Long before he’d had a taste of the high life, Andrew Cunanan was obsessed with getting the best of everything.

Andrew is still living at home at this point, and his poor, unstable mother makes the mistake of buying store-brand vanilla ice cream instead of the Häagen-Dazs he likes. This prompts a full-blown tantrum, and a lengthy explanation of why that Danish-sounding name was made up by the company’s American founders. Clearly, Andrew’s already taking mental notes on how easy it is to win through branding and subterfuge.

There is some love in this mother-son dynamic; she clearly adores him, and he’s affectionate to her too, promising that he will take her with him when he ascends to greatness. But when he actually claims to have hit the big time, and makes plans to leave home to travel the world with Gianni Versace, he tells her she can’t come with him. She won’t let it drop—it seems like Andrew got some of his relentless pushiness from her—and in the end, he pushes her against a wall and injures her in a horrifying scene.

In other news, when Mrs. Cunanan asks Andrew whether he’s drunk, he responds: “Drunk on dreams,” which is a great response that I will certainly be using myself in the future.

4) Andrew’s greatest fear is being rejected.

“For me, being told ‘no’ is like being told I don’t exist,” Andrew reveals to Jeff Trail—who’s still his good friend at this point in time—in a self-reflective moment. Ironically, we then see him summarily rejected by an escort agency. The no-nonsense owner unceremoniously asks Andrew for his attributes, his measurements, and his ethnicity—and balks when he gives the honest answer that he is Filipino-American. “This is about being what people want,” she says flatly. “I can’t sell a clever Filipino, even one with a big dick.” Stung but undeterred, Andrew tells her he’ll sell himself in that case—and does so pretty successfully.

5) Andrew meets both the love of his life—and the sugar daddy of his life—in this episode.

There’s a lot happening here. Andrew gets dressed up in a tux and goes to the theater by himself, where he successfully draws the attention of Norman Blachford, the sugar daddy whose relationship with Andrew we saw souring in last week’s episode. But at this early stage, it’s actually Norman’s friend Lincoln Aston whom Andrew ends up in a “relationship" with. In exchange for effectively being a 24/7 callboy who will hook Norman up with the San Diego gay social scene, Andrew demands a weekly allowance and an expense account.

But Lincoln tires of this arrangement pretty fast and cuts Andrew off—and shortly afterwards, Lincoln is murdered by a drifter he picks up in a gay bar. While Lincoln’s murder and the alleged circumstances are all true to life, Andrew witnessing the murder and allowing the killer to escape are clearly a fictionalization. But if you’re looking at this incredibly grisly scene in which Lincoln is beaten to death with an obelisk and thinking “hmm, this seems familiar,” some people did draw a comparison between the manner of Lincoln’s murder and that of Jeff Trail’s in real life. But Andrew was never a suspect in Lincoln’s murder, and the killer later confessed.

This is also the episode in which we finally see Andrew’s first meeting with David Madson, which was described in Episode 4. Andrew and his high-society friends are dining at a very ritzy San Diego bar, where David is drinking alone until Andrew invites him to join them. From there, the attraction seems instant, and David is just as bowled over by Andrew’s suite at the Mandarin Oriental—and the free slippers—as he said he was in that Episode 4 diner scene. This show really is unique in a number of ways, especially since it’s rare to watch a meet-cute where you’ve already seen the romance end in grisly murder.

Donatella Finally Shines in the Latest Episode of ‘The Assassination of Gianni Versace’