I’m back! After taking a mental health break (those are good for you), yours truly is here to cover this week’s chilling episode of The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story. Before I get started, a million thanks are due to Clare Sidoti for covering last week’s heartbreaking episode for me.

We all need a mental health break every now and then, and perhaps if Andrew Cunanan had taken one, maybe he wouldn’t have become the murdering psychopath that he was. Who am I kidding though? The man was totally born that way, and a lot of people figured that out quickly while some did not and by the time they did, it was too late for them.

I am, of course, referring to Jeff Trail, who met an untimely death last week. This week’s episode focused on his backstory, which mirrored a bit of Gianni’s life at roughly the same time as far as the events and things that mattered to them both goes.

Gather ’round and let’s discuss “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

A Brave Choice: Gianni Versace is still alive in this episode (thanks flashbacks),  and as always, he was arguing with Donatella about his decision to do an interview with Advocate magazine in which he will openly say that he’s gay. But Donatella is against him and fears a backlash since homophobia is still very much a thing. They compare Versace to Perry Ellis, the designer who walked his final runway show weakened by what was believed to be AIDS shortly before succumbing to the disease; Gianni sees it as the most important show of his career, Donatella as the moment people stopped buying his clothes sadly. Antonio also wants openness and shares his thoughts about the whole situation: For 13 years he’s been mistaken for Gianni’s assistant, and he wants their relationship to be public, which Donatella hates . She sees Antonio as a climber and a leech; the family business should concern only family.

A Man Obsessed: As for our serial killer, Cunanan has having his own crisis, albeit a less glamorous one: He’s on the phone with American Express, asking them if they can expand his credit so he can book a flight to Minneapolis. He has two friends there, he explains, and they owe him money, which will help pay off the card and its new limit, he claims. After getting his yes, Cunanan injects heroin between his toes, and we’re afforded a wider view into his private life: a miserable, bleak apartment, a closet full of well-pressed clothes and a collage of Gianni Versace, including that inevitable Advocate interview. Life isn’t going so well for the unhinged killer as it seems.

Back From The Dead:  Shortly after, Cunanan is met at the airport by both David and Gulf War Navy veteran Jeffrey Trail as the series of events in this episode happened before their tragic deaths. Trail explains his leaving the Navy as his choice but there was something else going on with his discharge, and as soon as he links up with David in the airport he makes his feelings for Cunanan clear. “Everything he’s told you about his life is a lie,” Trail says. David feels sorry for him, but Trail has nothing but anger and a debt to pay. Cunanan had “accidentally” tried to out Trail to his father with a postcard signed, “Love, Drew, kiss kiss,” but Trail says he still owes Cunanan, at least enough to let him use his apartment for the weekend so long as they don’t have to interact. Big mistake.

A Surprising Proposal: When Cunanan comes home with David, David finally sees what Trails sees in Cunanan, which is nothing good. Then Cunanan pulls a fast one on David and proposes to him with a $10,000 watch, mind you. Unfortunately for Cunanan, David reacts with shame and pity and humiliation for both of them, which Cunanan ignores and tells him to think about. David does give him an answer later when they meet up with Linda (the same woman who will find Trail’s body, and who will tell the police about Cunanan). David says he’ll never marry him, that their relationship isn’t real. “It’s just another story,” he says, giving the watch back. Cunanan heads back to Trail’s apparent and ends viewing a tape of Trail giving some kind of interview about gays in the military.

Jeff’s Story: We are then taken back to two years earlier to see Trail in the Navy, and witness firsthand the incident he spoke about in the interview, where he saved a gay sailor’s life and it cost him his anonymity as someone mentioned to him about being able to identify gay men by tattoos. Sadly Trail tries, in a panic, to take a knife to the ink on his kneecap. With seemingly no way out, he begins to hang himself in the bathroom, until he changes his mind, gasping for breath, and goes another way: to a gay bar, where he meets Andrew Cunanan. The two become close, close enough that Cunanan tries to talk Trail out of doing the anonymous interview with CBS. But Trail knows: It’s just something he has to do. It’s the same sentiment echoed by Versace: a shared, quiet bravery that makes their deaths all the more aching.

A Tragic End: On the day of his murder, Trail finally has it out with Cunanan. He sees Cunanan for what he is: a selfish fraud. Cunanan tries to say he did a lot of him and gave him his life meaning. “Everything you gave me,” he says, “It means nothing. You have no honor.” Cunanan says he saved him. “You destroyed me!” Trail fires back. Cunanan tells him he loves him, and Trail answers, “No one wants your love.” From there,  everything that happened in the previous episode and the events leading up to it add up. Cunanan brings Trail’s gun to David’s house and tells Trail to come and get it. While David goes downstairs to let Trail up to the apartment, Cunanan grabs a hammer.  The episode ends with Trail’s sister and her parents leaving a message for him, not knowing that no one will get it.

Quote of the Night:

“You’ve never believed in anyone but yourself.” Trail

American Crime Story: Versace Recap: “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” Gives Life To One Man And Death To Another

Emmy is out this week so you are stuck with me as your recapper. Luckily for you all, she’ll be back next week.

Last week we delved further into the state of mind our killer Andrew Cunanan was in in the lead up to his final murder, that of Gianni Versace in July 1997. We met his third and fourth victims, Chicago real estate developer Lee Miglin and New Jersey cemetery caretaker William Reese and saw just a few of the mistakes the FBI and local law enforcement made that could have stopped Cunanan before he hit Miami and murdered Versace, and possibly even spared William Reese. This week we move back to the start of his killing spree, heading to Minnesota and the “House by the Lake”.

The First Murder: Following a tourist bureau ad for Minneapolis, we discover that it’s April 27, 1997 and a week before the murder of Lee Miglin. Andrew is visiting for the weekend with his friend David Madson (Cody Fern). Things are a bit tense between the pair as Andrew has asked David to marry him, telling him that he is the love of his life. David refused using the fact that same-sex marriage was not legal in the US to get out of truly answering him. However, it is implied that David has actually started up a relationship with Jeffrey Trail (Finn Wittrock) and that is the real reason for his refusal, well among other things.

Andrew has somehow cotton-on to the fact that there’s something between David and Jeff and has invited Jeff over. Jeff arrives and Andrew tells David to go and bring him up to the loft spitting out that it will “Give you a chance to talk about me”. Which they do, light-heartedly laughing about how strange Andrew is, but that they know he’s a liar. They enter the loft and see David’s dog whining, tied up to a table. David rushes over to the dog. Meanwhile Andrew has come up behind them, slams the door shut and then proceeds to bludgeon Jeff to death with a hammer, striking him 27 times in the head (and yes I screamed at the TV in shock and horror again, thank you very much Darren Criss).

Needless to say it’s a bit of a bloodbath in the loft, so Andrew takes David into the bathroom to clean them both up. After the shower, he gets out David’s collection of porno mags and sex toys, leaving them scattered over David’s bed. He also cleans up the murder scene a bit – rolling Jeff’s body up in a rug and hiding it behind a table.

Using his charm and a gun tucked into his waistband, Andrew manages to convince David not to call the cops, telling him “When the police open the door, they’ll see two suspects, not two victims,” that they’ll lock him up too, he’ll be hated for being gay, and that he can’t tell his Dad because then he’ll have to turn David in and you don’t want your Dad to have to do that. Cunanan does promise though that “No one else will get hurt as long as you’re by my side.”

The cops arrive: When David fails to show up at work the next day, they become concerned, as he never misses a day of work. A co-worker and David’s building manager knocks on his door but only hear his dog barking. Andrew and David, hearing the couple leave to go get keys to get into the loft, make a run for it. The couple come back and find the loft empty and the dead body. The cops arrive, find out David was gay, see the sex paraphernalia and make the assumption it was sex play gone wrong. It’s only on discovering that David was blonde and the murder victim was black-haired that they believe Andrew had been murdered and that David had fled. Realising they are now in the home of a suspect not a victim and without search warrants or permission to be there, the cops make a hasty retreat wanting to ensure the investigation is “by the book”, waiting for the proper paperwork and clearance to come back.

Men on the run: Having oh so calmly escaped, Andrew informs David of his plan for them to be together. He has a good friend in Chicago, Lee Miglin, who’s rich and owes Andrew some favours so would be willing to help out. They can then escape to Mexico and live the life he’s always dreamed of for them together. David meanwhile is in an obvious state of shock and fear for his life and merely acting on autopilot.

They’ve got the wrong man: The cops are back at David’s apartment and searching for clues. Jeff’s body has been taken away and they are beginning the autopsy on him when they discover that the body does not belong to Andrew Cunanan, but to Jeffrey Trail. They still believe that David is the killer and pay his parent’s a particularly hard visit, questioning them on how well do they truly know their son.

A chance for escape: Andrew continues on, apparently completely unaffected by the whole thing, planning this wonderful life with just him and David and no one else to bother them. David is starting to lose it though, fearing people are looking at him suspecting him of murder, when really its just their homophobia surfacing as the murder has not hit the news yet. They pull into bar (with a lovely cameo by Aimee Mann) and David excuses himself to the bathroom. Seeing an opportunity to escape, he smashes the bathroom window.

Back at the table Andrew is listening intently to the cover of “Drive” when he finally drops his façade and breaks down. It is such an intense moment of vulnerability from Andrew (and Criss) where you start to feel the beginning of sympathy for him. He really is just a little lost boy, wanting to be loved and thought of as someone special and extraordinary. In one of the many big mistakes David makes, instead of jumping out the window to freedom, he returns to Andrew and the table. The next morning marks another possibility of escape when David wakes alone in the car in the middle of wooded area. He jumps out and starts walking trying to make his escape, only to come across Andrew wielding his gun – if only he went in the opposite direction from the car.

The truth comes out: Later that day, Andrew and David are in a diner reminiscing about the night they met. David talks about how he so wanted to be just like Andrew: rich, suave, popular, charming, the whole world at his feet. However, he also reveals that he knows that that whole of his is all a lie. That Andrew is a master manipulator and that he just can’t stop lying. He accuses Andrew of killing Jeff because he was in love with Jeff but that not only did Jeff not return his feelings, but he had discovered just who Andrew was: a fraud.

The second murder: Following a tense car ride in which Andrew doesn’t want to talk about anything, David tries to veer them off the road and make an escape that way. He fails. He ends up off road, next to a lake pleading with Andrew for his life and a life for them together. He doesn’t succeed. Reminiscent of an earlier flashback scene where he remembers sitting in a house by the lake with his father drinking coffee after a failed hunting expedition, David dreams of opening the house door and finding his father offering him coffee once again. Instead, he’s outside the house bleeding out after Andrew shot him.

On the run again: Having spent some time cuddled up with David’s dead body, Andrew gets up, gets back in the car and heads off – presumably to Chicago and Lee Miglin.

Instant Reactions:

Where the hell is the Darren Criss I know and love??!!! He is unbelievable in embodying Cunanan. He’s charming, he’s creepy, he’s sinister, and yet he’s also oh so tragic and this episode more than any before it showed a real vulnerability and a sense that even he can see things are starting to spiral out of control. Week after week Criss blows me away with his performance and this week’s ep just had everything.

OMG David, why didn’t you escape?? There were so many opportunities – at least how it was portrayed here and given both David and Andrew are dead, we’ll never know exactly what took place over the period of time leading up to Jeff’s death to David’s death – and yet he kept going back to Andrew. Cody Fern was amazing and another great Ryan Murphy find. His ability to shut down and still be completely present in his scenes was so painful, yet great to watch.

I need more Finn Wittrock. We can’t just have that short opening scene! Luckily the preview for next week’s ep guarantees us more Jeff.

Wow another ep without the Versace’s and their storyline – I have to admit, I didn’t even realise they were missing until well after watching the ep, I was that caught up in the drama of Andrew’s story. They do return next week though.

Versace Recap: We Go Back To The Start Of Cunanan’s Murder Spree In “House By The Lake”

After last week’s chilling episode where more of Andrew Cunanan’s state of mind was revealed, including his affinity to duct tape and Phil Collins, one would think that would be it for the creep factor. As it turns out, Cunanan’s depravity is limitless.

This week’s episode took us back to May 1997 and introduced us to one of the men that Cunanan had murdered prior to Gianni Versace, Lee Miglin. For many, Miglin’s murder seemed like a random choice but as we learned during this episode, there was so such more to it.

The setting moves the series to Chicago, with top notch guest performances by Judith Light and Mike Farrell as Marilyn and Lee Miglin. She’s a cosmetics maven with a home-shopping TV high profile and a “perfect husband” in Lee, a well-connected real-estate tycoon who’s also a closeted gay of a certain age, making him vulnerable to the narcissistic and murderous predations of Cunanan.

Though this episode may be a Versace-less one, it packs quite the punch and fills us with dread as it makes the fate that befalls Versace even more harrowing.

Gather ’round and let’s discuss “A Random Killing”.

A Wife Always Knows: The episode begins with Marilyn coming home from a trip, expecting Lee to be there to pick her up, but he isn’t. So instead she takes a cab, and returns home to eerie silence and the unmistakable sense that something isn’t right. Marilyn gets the neighbors and calls the police, who tell her what she already knew: Lee is dead.

The Perfect Sham: We are then taken back to a week earlier when Lee and Marilyn were at a fundraiser for Illinois governor Jim Edgar. Marilyn introduces her husband as the guest of honor, and we are given a glimpse of their married life and relationship. He and Marilyn were a partnership, working together to grow their individual careers. They appeared to be the perfect couple until they got home, and the truth comes to light as this isn’t a marriage of convenience, but it’s not one of passion either. Marilyn then leaves for work, which gives Lee the opportunity to invite Andrew over, who just arrived unexpectedly in Chicago.

A Moment of Joy Becomes A Moment of Horror: The second Andrew arrives, it is immediately revealed that the two men had a semi-regular thing going on, though Andrew’s latest visit came as a welcome surprise to Lee. Lee starts their visit off by making Andrew a sandwich and showing off architectural plans for a magnum opus, a skyscraper that would be the Tallest Building in the World. “You’re trying to impress me,” says Andrew as he points out how Lee is pretending “that there’s a genuine attraction between us.” “You can pretend too,” says Lee before Andrew kisses him deeply. “You’ve never been kissed like that, have you?” he teases. “How did it feel?” Lee, exultant: “Feels like I’m alive.”

That moment of exultation doesn’t last long though as Andrew takes Lee into the garage. The beginning of the end for Lee begins with a consensual BDSM encounter until it becomes terrifyingly obvious that Andrew has something god awful in mind. Once Lee is fully bound, with duct tape around his face and cords around his ankles, Andrew punches him hard enough in the face to break his nose (!!!) and reveals to a devastated Lee that he’s killed two men already, and that not only does he plan on killing him but also leaving his body in women’s underwear, surrounded by gay porn. “What terrifies you more, death or being disgraced?”, Andrew taunts the dying man.

Lee doesn’t get the chance to respond unfortunately as Andrew proceeds to crush him with a bag of concrete before stabbing him with a gardening tool.

A Wife’s Heartbreak: The police arrive when Marilyn calls, and when they find the body, they understand that the situation surrounding the murder makes the case more sensitive than most. The death leaves Marilyn in a state of besieged grief: Devastated by her loss, devastated by how society itself is assaulting her marriage. She and her son are staunch in their approach that this was just a random killing, and that Andrew Cunanan had no relationship with her husband aside from being the stranger who took his life.

The Chase Begins: We follow Andrew across state lines into his most random killing as he becomes aware that the police are onto him thanks to the radio leaking the news of their trace; all he wanted was a truck. He stalks some would-be victims at a rest stop, waiting until he sees a man driving a red pickup truck. When the man starts driving away, Andrew follows him, shadowing him through a graveyard where he is the caretaker. Finally, the man arrives at his office, and Andrew follows with a gun drawn. “Stay calm,” Andrew says. “No one’s going to get hurt. I’m here to steal your truck.”

Unfortunately, that isn’t all that happens, as the man gives Andrew his keys and goes down to the basement so Andrew can lock him down there. The man starts to tell Andrew about his wife and their son. “I’m a married man,” he says. “We have a son, Troy. I’d very much like to see them again.” Andrew then shoots him, point blank, in the head.

The final moments of the episode are given back to Marilyn Miglin, back on the air, talking about how much her husband meant to her.

Instant Reactions/Questions:

Mike Farrell is heartbreaking in the scenes with Darren Criss, and it made me hate Criss in those moments, which is a testament to how well Criss is doing in this role.

If you still had any sympathy or affection left for Andrew, this episode should have stripped that away entirely.

As much as I missed Versace in this episode, this spotlight was greatly needed to further reinforce how merciless and cruel Andrew is.

Quote of the Night:

“That’s all I’ll allow that man to steal from me. I won’t let him steal my good name. Our good name.” – Marilyn

American Crime Story: Versace Recap: “A Random Killing” Leads To Heartbreaking Devastation