July 15, 1997. Andrew Cunanan slo-mos down the just-rained-on sidewalks of Miami Beach, accompanied by Ultravox’s “Vienna.” He passes people in friendly conversation; he passes a pair of beat cops. He comes upon Gianni Versace’s mansion, the sun now shining, and as Midge Ure wails, “It means nothing to me / this means nothing to me,” we see Cunanan draw on and murder Gianni again. Gianni’s fingers twitch again. Cunanan looms into the sun and blocks it out to look down Starman-ishly on Gianni’s body.

Later, Cunanan waits to cross the street, smugly watching cop cars scream past him before hustling over to the houseboat on the other side. Looking strangely apprehensive given everything else he’s done with it, he grips the gun barrel and uses the butt to break the houseboat door’s lock, then lets himself in and creeps towards the kitchen in the dark. More confident now that he’s established nobody’s there, he browses the cabinets, then helps himself to a bottle of champagne with an entitled puss on, typically dropping the detritus from the bottle neck onto the floor without a second thought. He switches the countertop TV on to enjoy Dan Rather’s somber report on Gianni’s death, then leaps over the back of a deep white couch to keep watching on the big TV in the living room (flanked, hilariously, by gold sphinxes). He hasn’t quite settled in when the champagne, shaken up by its journey, self-pops on the table and scares the shit out of Cunanan.

He flops back on the couch, laughing at himself, but sits forward again when the broadcast shows side-by-side pictures of Gianni and the prime suspect in Gianni’s murder – himself (Criss, Photoshopped relatively poorly for this production onto one of the real photos often used in the wanted posters). “Oh my god,” he murmurs, not stricken or fearful but almost surprised that it happened at all, much less because of him, then repeats, almost triumphantly, “Oh my god!” As the broadcast continues in VO, Cunanan climbs to the rooftop balcony of the houseboat, a curtain (I think) slung around his neck like a tuxedo scarf, drunk and turned on by his own infamy as he watches helicopters search the streets farther down the shore. He slumps into a lounge chair and swigs champers with a contented smile.

Tampa. Marilyn Miglin is packing her case before a broadcast when there’s a heavy knock at her hotel room door. It’s the FBI. “Is it that man?” she asks, then confirms that her children are safe before letting them inside. The agents explain that they believe Cunanan shot Gianni. Shaken, she sits down, wondering almost to herself, “When will this end?” Then she repeats it, more firmly, before proceeding to clock them for not catching Cunanan in the two months since he murdered her husband – how many more people will die? how much more pain do they think she can take? what has Cunanan been up to all this time? “We don’t know yet,” the lead agent is obliged to admit, as well as that Cunanan “evaded capture” in Miami. Marilyn’s are-you-fucking-kidding-me face

is particularly impressive work from Judith Light given that her fake lashes in this scene have their own congressman, post office, and vegan bakery.

The Republic Of Lashistan is decidedly unimpressed with the agent’s suggestion that, given Tampa’s proximity to Miami, she should leave Florida. (As am I; it’s nearly 300 miles, and whatever else you might say about Cunanan’s state of mind at this point, the idea that he would double back to kill a spouse, whom he would likely find at a television studio, is a non-starter.) A tear rolls down Marilyn’s cheek, but she’s like, incompetent says what? They want her to run, to hide “from him,” but she’s never missed a broadcast and she won’t start today, so they can provide whatever security they want to: on with the show. On the set, Marilyn marches up to the display, chuckling forcedly about her ability to break sales records under pressure. Her co-host gently tells her she’s sorry. “I need it to stop,” Marilyn grits.

The next morning, Cunanan wakes up to a news broadcast describing him as a “male prostitute” serving “an affluent clientele.” He puts on his glasses as the VO continues that he’s articulate, well-dressed, armed and extremely dangerous, and the newest member of the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List. He peers expressionlessly at the Wanted card on the TV screen, then pads into the owner’s walk-in closet to shop for an outfit, settling on an all-yellow number as, in the next room, Marilyn’s voice talks about Lee as “a man who exemplified courage, honor, and dignity.” Cunanan doesn’t seem to hear this as he looks in the mirror, smirking. “We had a fairytale marriage,” Marilyn tells the press, faltering just slightly. “He was…my prince.” I don’t know why it’s here that I find myself thinking about those lost two months between when Cunanan murdered Miglin, then William Reese, and when he fetched up outside La Palazzo Versace and killed Gianni. American Crime Story really hasn’t dealt with them at all, unless you count the Ronnie interlude, which only seemed to last a day or two at the end, and it’s not that I think the show should have tried to fill in that gap, or that anything particularly noteworthy happened, or might have. Perhaps the Orth book has more insight, although my sense is that nobody really knows what Cunanan got up to during that time. But ACS did a great job imagining Cunanan’s time with David Madson after the killing of Jeff Trail, and Darren Criss and others have said that some episodes started out twice as long as what we see on broadcast…I don’t know. If there’s ever a director’s cut of the season, I’ll certainly watch it, whether or not it contains a theory or fantasia on the missing weeks.

Anyway: back to what is covered. Cunanan heads out in his sunny ensemble, complete with yellow ball cap, and reads the L.A. Times coverage of Gianni’s murder while waiting for an unsuspecting driver to drop her keys into an easily heistable purse, which she does. He tails her to an outdoor café and lifts the bag easily, walking past a wanted poster with himself on it in the café window and helping himself to her Mercedes. He’s listening to, and giggling delightedly at, radio coverage bemoaning the instinct to blame the murder of a prominent Italian on the Mafia when he’s forced to stop for a police checkpoint. When it’s clear the cops are taking more than a cursory glance at the cars ahead of him, Cunanan U-turns it on outta there, cursing. He’s parked on a side street, perusing a map, when an older guy comes out from between two houses and says Cunanan looks lost. He is; does the older guy know any way off the island besides the causeways? They seem really crowded. Older Guy sighs that every road off the island has police checkpoints at the moment. Riiiight, right, Cunanan acts: “Andrew Cunanan. It’s terrible, I hope they catch him.” Bold move. Older Guy asks, “What’s your name, young man?” Cunanan gives the Kurt DuMars alias, then bustles as casually as he can manage back into the front seat, thanking Older Guy for his help. Older Guy watches him go.

Cunanan, in a snit, parks the Benz under one of the causeways, pitches the keys into the water, and bellows in frustration.

Back in San Diego, Mary Ann Cunanan is hunched under a blanket she’s draped over the TV, I guess to hide her smoking, although she doesn’t seem to have cared about that before? In any case, the effect is of a twisted ritual of prayer, especially with the saints candles and crosses on the same table.

She’s creepily stroking the TV screen when there’s a knock on the door. It’s the cops. She unfastens the chain slowly, then opens the door to clasp one officer’s shoulder and ask, “Have you killed my son?”

Cunanan, limping back to the houseboat, comes across a wanted poster altered to show him with lipstick, and with lipstick and a blonde wig.

Back at the houseboat, he peels off his shirt and slings it over a chair, then guzzles a Coke and continues to marinate in the coverage of his misdeeds.

What’s more American than Coca-Cola and gun violence. Sigh. He’s admiring the wanted posters of himself he’s apparently collected when the coverage changes to footage of Mary Ann getting taken out of her apartment under the same blanket as before. She deer-in-headlightses at the jostling news crews and photo flashes before she’s eased into the back of a cruiser. Cunanan watches, taken aback.

At the Normandy, Detectives Lori and George roust Ronnie, accusing him of lying to them about knowing Cunanan – he stayed there, and he and Ronnie were friends. Ronnie lies again that Cunanan told him his name was Kurt, and he only just now saw Cunanan on the news; he was totally just going to call them. Det. George is like, cute; you can come with us. As he’s led out of his room, Ronnie grumps to Det. Lori, “We weren’t friends.”

In an interrogation room, Det. Lori continues to nope Ronnie’s version of events, saying Cunanan had been hiding in Miami for two months. Ronnie snorts that he wasn’t hiding, “he was partying,” and Lori’s like, great. Where? She lists a few gay clubs, and Ronnie snarks that ohhh, okay, “the only lez on the force” must have been looking for Cunanan. Lori pulls one of her patented “bye bitch” faces

as Ronnie sarcastically muses that the other cops, they didn’t care so much about finding Cunanan when he’d only killed a handful of “no-name gays.” Why might that be? George snaps that they have over 400 people looking for him, and Ronnie’s like, yeah, now you do, now that he’s offed a celebrity. There’s a little more salty back-and-forth, with Ronnie not having Lori’s bluff that he’s an accessory to murder and George not having Ronnie’s contention that they don’t really care about catching Cunanan, before George asks if he never mentioned Versace. Ronnie takes a swig of coffee and says he did nothing but, then muses that “we all” talked about Versace, about what it must be like to be so rich and powerful “that it doesn’t matter that you’re gay.” He adds that “you were disgusted by him long before he became disgusting,” which is true, and a good line, but like the rest of this speech not super-credible despite Max Greenfield’s estimable efforts. Ronnie goes on that George et al. would prefer “them” to stay in the shadows, “and most of us, we oblige.” People like him just drift away…get sick, nobody cares…"but Andrew was vain.“ He wanted to be heard, wanted people to feel his pain, "wanted you to know about being born…a lie.” Lori flinches a little, possibly at the clumsiness of this writing compared with the subtler work we’ve gotten the rest of the season, as Ronnie concludes that Andrew isn’t hiding. “He’s trying to be seen.”

Well, metaphorically. Literally, he’s trying to get out of town, but his next effort – breaking onto a boat at the marina in the hopes of sneaking out of Miami by sea – is stymied when a dock “neighbor,” mistaking him for the owner, comes onboard looking for “Guillermo.” He’s in the head, gun cocked, as the neighbor comes below decks calling for Guillermo, and when she pushes on the door and it’s pushed forcefully closed in response, she knows something’s hinky and hurries away. He exhales, then grabs his gear and bails, hopping from bow to bow as he tries to get out of the marina.

Which he does manage to do, and by the time he returns to the houseboat, the neighbor is leading Dets. Lori and Luke to the boat he tried to take, as he sees through a pair of binoculars. No time to feel truly trapped yet, though, as he can hear Lizzie Coté delivering a statement on the bedroom TV. She’s addressing herself directly to him and saying she knows he’s not the “despicable” person portrayed in news reports. He sinks to his knees, staring plaintively at her, as she goes on that she knows who he really is and loves him, “unconditionally.” The Cunanan she knows isn’t a violent person. “I know that the most important thing to you in the world is what others think of you,” she adds (emphasis hers); he still has a chance to show everyone else what she “and your godchildren” know. It’s time to end this, “peacefully.” We go to the ad break on Cunanan’s furrowed brow.

When we return, it’s another news show, this one about Jeff Trail and David Madson, the voice-over wondering a little too pruriently, “What did these two men do in their days on the road?” This is an understated dig at the salacious coverage, and investigative judgments, that a so-called gay serial killer received – that, somehow, the possibility that anal intercourse occurred is the most important thing to suggest and the chief aggravating factor in the case – and is completely in line with the tone of the reporting at that time. When I say that Ronnie’s dialogue speaks the truth but lands with a thud, I’m contrasting it with material like this, which is used perfectly whether it’s contemporaneous footage or a bone-dry recreation. The newsmag goes on to interview Madson Sr., who defends his son as a victim, not an accomplice, as Cunanan sits and listens, sweating. It doesn’t take long before Cunanan can’t hear anymore, and begins lunging at the various television sets to turn them off. He stops before switching off the last one, though, to look at a picture of David that’s now onscreen.

As with the Lizzie presser, and with Mary Ann as she watched footage of him, it’s as though they’re there with him, speaking to him. It’s the only companionship he can really manage, an idea of it, a picture of it that he can turn off. And when Madson Sr. says his son is a good man – was a good man – that’s just what Cunanan does, kicking at the off switch to silence a version of life and manhood he can’t access.

Later, he sits on the beach, alone, listening to the hectic sounds of nightlife on the boardwalk, before returning to the now-emptied fridge at the houseboat. He goes through the trash and makes sure he’s gotten every last blob of yogurt from a discarded cup, then spots some dog food. The attempt fails, as he can’t hold down a single spoonful before horking it back up, onto the wanted posters on the counter. He’s scraping his tongue with a paper towel (which he then throws on the floor, where he’s also left the upended garbage) when Marilyn Miglin’s segment comes on the home-shopping channel he’s got on. Marilyn tells a sweet story about the perfume she’s hawking, about how she wanted to go back in time and give her mother one of the luxuries she couldn’t afford, working so hard after Marilyn’s father died and putting every penny towards their room and board. Cunanan pulls up a chair and stares at the screen, ensorcelled by Marilyn’s tale of her wonderful dad and his early death, of her wishing she could go back in time and give her mother this thing she made…"as a way of saying how special you are.“

Now Cunanan’s at a pay phone, calling Modesto. A cousin brings Modesto the cordless; Modesto, an array of articles about his son on his desk, wonders how much he should charge for an interview "this time,” and looks horrified to hear who’s actually on the phone. The second he hears Modesto’s voice, Cunanan starts bawling like a child.

Modesto reminds him that “men don’t cry, remember?” Cunanan tries to ignore this, sobbing that he’s in trouble; he needs Modesto to come get him. Modesto says without hesitation that he’ll fly right over, and to hell with the charges still pending against him. Cunanan tells Modesto where he is in Miami. Modesto repeats that he’s coming, and when he does, “I will find you. And I will hug you. And I will hold you in my arms, like I used to. And it will all be okay.” Cunanan leans his head against the top of the pay phone wistfully, then asks, “You promise?” Of course Modesto promises! Cunanan is to pack some clothes and get ready to go as soon as Modesto arrives. The operator breaks in to ask for more money, and Cunanan, nodding, so eager to believe his salvation is nigh, burbles that he’s out of time. Modesto says again that he’ll be there soon.

Cunanan puts a cassette in and packs: clothes, books, a French passport. Not sure what the music is – sounds like Gershwin; could be Debussy; let me know in the comments, as Shazam didn’t come through for me here – but whatever the case, Cunanan is dreamy and hopeful as he lies in bed, watching the water’s reflection play with the fan on the ceiling, then as he puts his backpack and a stolen garment bag by the houseboat’s front door the next morning, and settles in next to them to read.

That night. No Modesto. Cunanan checks the water; he checks the entrance; nothing. Coming back in the house, he hears Modesto – giving a TV interview in which he first and foremost denies that his son is gay, then brags about Cunanan evading the cops, then claims they’ve discussed the rights to Cunanan’s story and Modesto is acting as the broker for those rights. As he’s blathering about the life-story title that Cunanan and Modesto agreed upon – “A Name To Be Remembered By” – Cunanan goes from pained to angry to just…dark.

That title is really bad, almost as bad as Modesto is a parent/person, and Cunanan shoots the living-room TV rather than listen to Modesto BSing that the charges keeping him out of the U.S. “are bogus,” or any other of Modesto’s horseshit that probably smells a lot like Cunanan’s own, even to him. And while I’m up, man has Darren Criss killed it in this role.

July 22, the day of Gianni’s funeral. Waiting uncomfortably in a salon, Donatella grouses to Antonio that Gianni should be alive, that “if everybody had done their job,” he would be. Antonio takes a beat, then tells her he heard the shots, and he knew – because his heart stopped. Donatella looks down, briefly shamed in her attempt to put Gianni’s death on Antonio, as he goes on that he knows her heart is broken too, but she and Santo have each other. Antonio had Gianni, only Gianni. Donatella doesn’t apologize or return the sentiment, just asks what he’ll do now. Antonio sighs that he’ll stay in Lake Como; as Donatella knows, Gianni set it up so Antonio could stay in “one of the houses,” and he just wants to stay close to Gianni. Donatella frowns, but is clearly not quite unhappy to inform Antonio that Gianni no longer owns any of the houses – he “spent too much money,” so the company had to take control of all the properties. The board of Versace now governs them. Antonio regards her with a dull “this bitch” stare until she finally meets his eye again, pulls a “…what?” face, and tells him to go to Lake Como and recuperate for a while. “And after that?” Antonio grunts. She non-answers that today is the day to say goodbye, and then both of them will start a new life. This expert “now isn’t the time”-ing is too much for Antonio, whose eyes fill with tears as he says he guesses that’s it, then; Donatella can just throw him aside like a piece of trash. Ricky Martin loses control of the accent, regrettably, as he pleadingly says he loved Gianni, Gianni was his life, and suddenly he doesn’t matter? Donatella’s look is hard to read, but I suspect she’s thinking, “Not ‘suddenly’ for me, no,” as Antonio says he has no home, no rights, nothing. She comes back toward him, saying firmly that the houses and the finances are controlled by the board. “You have a say,” he presses, but he’s not getting shit. “I’m sorry for your loss. I’m sorry for all of us!” She leaves the room in tears, not one of which is for Antonio.

The houseboat. Cunanan is kicking back with a can of dog food on the kitchen floor. Still the trash is scattered about. A huge roach scuttles across the floor, no doubt attracted to the sty-ish conditions currently prevailing, and Cunanan traps it under his drinking glass and picks it up to examine it as it sits on his palm under the glass. Little too pointed as survivor symbology goes, but Cunanan’s soon enough distracted by footage of Gianni’s memorial service, and all the glittery guests in their mourning attire. He hauls a huge projection system into the living room so he can watch it writ large (and because he shot the TV that was in there earlier). He projects it on the great-room wall above the doors, obliging him to look up at it, a supplicant, a worshipper, one of the congregation.

As Cunanan watches Princess Diana and Elton John dabbing at tears, Antonio numbly follows Donatella and the rest of the blood relatives into the family pew. The priest does not mention him along with the other family or loved ones, and snubs him after blessing the others in the pew; at the houseboat, as a boy soprano begins the 23rd Psalm and Antonio rises belatedly with the rest of thatcongregation, Cunanan crosses himself and kneels before the simulcast, singing along and weeping at the lines “yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death / I will fear no evil.” Rain sprinkles the floral tributes outside Gianni’s house, and the wanted posters of Cunanan tucked between the mailbox and its flag.

Cunanan buzzes his hair short, like a penitent, while elsewhere, a caretaker (I assume?) tells someone on the phone that he’ll take care of it and writes down the houseboat’s address. Not sure if he’s responding to a complaint about the bugs or what, but he grabs some keys and a gun holster and heads out. Cunanan is napping next to a magazine with a Versace ad on the back when he hears the caretaker let himself in, the broken lock falling clean out of its housing. The caretaker creeps in gun-first, calling, “Is anybody here?” The only voices come from the TV, still on in the living room. “I am armed!” the caretaker calls. Cunanan appears in the hallway upstairs, also armed, and withdraws behind a wall, then fires a shot into the ceiling. The caretaker’s not about sticking around, and tuck-and-rolls out of there.

Det. Luke is having a smoke when the police radio comes on with an “occupied burglary” call for all units. He and Det. Lori head over. SWAT gears up and moves out. Cunanan comes downstairs to hear a breaking-news update on “the siege at Indian Creek,” which is a siege of…him. As the anchor describes the perimeter set up by the FBI and Miami police, Cunanan, coated in sweat, gawps at the screen.

After the commercial, more news reports. The cockroach, still under the drinking glass, is now dead. Cunanan sits primly on the couch in his underpants, watching the chopper shots of the houseboat from the outside, and the rattling of a close pass of a helicopter right overhead seems to make him only curious, not afraid – but when the phone starts ringing, and the hostage negotiator outside gets on a bullhorn and tells him they only want to talk, he starts freaking out for real. The team leader outside, flanked by Dets. Luke and Lori, tells everyone to hold positions, as we see sniper set-ups, news vans behind the perimeter, and the houseboat and its fountain looking very small.

In the Philippines, Modesto crouches, childlike, in front of his TV as a newscaster notes that efforts to draw Cunanan out have failed. Cunanan locks himself in the bedroom, panting, and turns to see his younger self on the bed. If any recent narrative could hope to get away with this pasteurized processed trope food, it’s ACS, but when you co-host a Beverly Hills, 90210 podcast, all you can think about is Dylan and his gooberama inner child at his father’s funeral.

I know it’s unfair to ACS, this reference, but you can see why it’s tough for me to take this visual cliché seriously. It’s nicely acted by both Darren Criss and Edouard Holdener – with the TV calling Cunanan “a known gigolo; a man who loved the spotlight,” Li’l Cunanan looks pleased with the attention, regardless of its origin; Grownanan is staring at his younger self with a mixture of confusion and fear, with perhaps a bit of relief mixed in – but we certainly did get it without this provol-onsense. The broadcast talks about Cunanan’s schoolmates voting him Most Likely To Be Remembered, and Grownanan beams at his boy self,

but when the broadcast returns to the police tape around the houseboat, Li’l Cunanan vanishes, and a light goes out in Cunanan. He’s utterly alone; he doesn’t even have himself. There’s no there there.

Outside, it’s decided that if Cunanan were going to come out, he would have. “Cut the power,” the team leader says. The TV goes off inside, and the fans. The SWAT team sends a handful of smoke bombs in ahead of themselves, and breaks the door down. Cunanan scootches up to the headboard and sits in that prim way of his, officiously removing his glasses. He cocks the gun and puts it in his mouth, far back, his lips not an inch from the trigger. He’s wearing no expression, but something makes him look over at himself in the mirrored sliding doors beside the bed. I took a screenshot of the moment, which is profoundly unsettling along a number of axes – the deadness of the eyes, the way the barrel of the gun pushes his face out of shape, the visual nod to fellatio and the Möbius of self-loathing and despair then implied, in this case, at this time; the grotesqueness of this last thing Cunanan saw, which was himself – but it felt wrong to use it. Not to mention that Cunanan in fact shot himself in the temple, but in any case, let’s leave it at Cunanan finally killing himself while staring into the camera and the bang coinciding with a smash cut to Cunanan and Gianni’s night at the opera, Cunanan saying in voice-over, “I’m so happy right now.”

Gianni is taking his leave of Cunanan. He chucks him flirtily on the chin and starts to make his way down the stairs from the stage when Cunanan asks, “What if – you had a dream your whole life that you were someone special? But no one believed it…not really.” Gianni looks at him with compassion as Cunanan goes on about persuading people he’d do something great. Gianni tells him gently that it’s not about the persuading people; it’s about the doing of that great something. Cunanan should finish his novel. “Or something else!” Cunanan Manson-lampses. “Do you think I could be a designer?” Gianni’s like, uhhhhh, so Cunanan adds that he knows “literally everything there is to know about fashion.” Maybe he could assist Gianni, or be his protégé? Gianni isn’t looking for that, but Cunanan feels that his being there, “like this, with you,” is destiny. Can’t Gianni feel it? When an answer isn’t forthcoming, Cunanan tries to kiss him, and is put aside – sweetly, as Gianni strokes Cunanan’s cheekbone and says it’s not that he isn’t attractive; he’s a “very interesting young man.” But he wanted Cunanan to take inspiration, nourishment from the opera, and if they kiss, it’s not about that anymore. Cunanan is still selling, offering dinner the next night, club-hopping…Gianni can’t, he’s too busy with work before he leaves town. “Another night. Another stage. Yes?” Cunanan is almost physically crushed by this courteous rejection as Gianni heads down into the orchestra pit, and the lights go out on Cunanan with a pointed thrunk.

Dets. Lori and Luke ID Cunanan’s body. Luke asks if he’s what Lori expected. “He’s just a boy,” she says. Cunanan’s body is loaded into a medical examiner’s van, and Lori watches sadly.

Marilyn Miglin is packing up from her broadcast when she’s informed by the FBI agents that Cunanan has taken his own life. “Good,” she says. “It’s over.” But it isn’t, quite; her co-host comes upon her reading letters from viewers, letters about Lee and his acts of generosity towards them, paying their bills, career mentoring. Lee never told her “about any of it. Why…didn’t he ever tell me?” Without waiting for an answer, because she doesn’t want to think too closely on Lee’s things not told, Marilyn says she answers all the letters, and tells the authors Lee is alive in their correspondence. She beams at a photo of him on her dressing-room vanity, adding that she’s so very proud of him.

Lake Como. Santo stares out at the water, then goes in to tell Donatella the lawyers have come. Before the meeting, she has to confess to Santo that, the day Gianni died, he called her about a show she was putting together in Rome, and he had a lot of questions, and she got annoyed that he didn’t trust her judgment – so when he called back a half hour later, she didn’t answer. She begins to ugly-cry. The Albinoni from the first episode of the season begins.

Antonio pours a bunch of pills onto a plate and looks at them sadly.

Bodyguards escort Donatella onto a balcony, an umbrella held over her, in slo-mo. At the edge of the balcony, she takes the umbrella without a word and heads towards a small mausoleum at the end of the property.

A metalworker brushes a brass nameplate, and polishes it with a cloth.

Antonio jams all the pills into his mouth and washes them down with wine, which we see from below, reflected in the mirrored tray holding the wineglass.

Donatella lights a candle before a photo of Gianni, under the box holding his cremains.

Antonio holds an item of Gianni’s clothing to his face, then subsides into bed to wait for death.

The cemetery worker takes his bag of tools into a crypt and screws the nameplate – which appears to belong to Cunanan – onto the front of one of the marble cells.

A maid comes upon Antonio on the floor. “No, no no no,” she gasps, shaking him and patting his face. He opens his eyes, and seems destroyed by having survived.

Donatella puts her hand flat on the box, as if to gather power from it. She looks into the etched mirror above the urn, whose design cuts her face into pieces and pulls it out of shape.

A close-up on the nameplate, which is indeed Cunanan’s, pulls away, then down the long silent hall of the crypt. It keeps pulling further back, further back.

Dozens of others interred here, hundreds perhaps, behind featureless marble, with identical nameplates. Cunanan’s gets smaller and smaller. The light at the end of the hallway gets further and further away. And then it’s over, and then it’s gone.

And so is American Crime Story’s second season. It didn’t work for everyone, but despite a couple of occasional quibbles, I liked it a great deal; I admire its ambition and I think that ambition is mostly realized. Fantastic performances all around, and a dimensioned meditation on what is born and what is made, on how much is destroyed when a destroyer is created.

Thanks so much for coming on this journey with me, and for supporting Previously.TV’s Epic Old-School Recaps. I’ll see you in the forums. Ciao, bellas.

American Crime Story Is Out Of Time | Previously.TV

1957, Calabria. Gianni Versace’s mother fits a dress to a client as, in a corner of the shop, little Gianni watches and works on a sketch of the dress. After the client leaves, Mama confronts Gianni: she sees him observing her, and “there is no need to hide.” She asks to see his notebook; seeing the drawings inside, she smiles fondly and tells him – in English, idiotically the language in which this and the other Italian scenes take place, leavened only with the occasional “ciao” and a handful of offensive Chef Boyardee pronunciations, which we will get to – that as a girl, she hoped to become a doctor. Her father told her that’s not a job for a woman, so she became a dressmaker, and promised herself she would never tell her children what job they should do. Gianni should do what he loves, what he feels in his heart. Not how I think parents talked to their kids about their future careers in the fifties, but okay. She goes on that it will take hard work, practice, educating himself about sewing and the fabrics…she’ll teach him if he wants her to. Gianni nods happily.

In a classroom, a teacher is reviewing Latin verb conjugations, and naturally she’s using the verb “to love,” which is both the standard and on the nose. Less standard, again, is that a language lesson in an Italian classroom would be conducted in English, which might explain why young Gianni is doing another dress drawing instead of paying attention. Walking the rows of desks, the teacher spots Gianni’s sketch and snatches it up, Super-Mario-ing, “What arrrre you, a perrrrverrrt?” Fuck’s sake, show. “Not a pervert, miss – a pansy!” another kid chimes in, because we could have assumed a pervasive homophobia and claustrophobic gendering of everything in this time period, but sure, underline it, if only to distract us from the Hey Mambo caricature of Italian accents. The teacher tears his sketch in four and puts it on his schoolbook as the class continues droning the plurals. “We love; you love; they love.”

At home, Mama gets Gianni to admit that he’s downcast because the teacher called him a pervert. Mama sternly reassembles his drawing, tells him it’s beautiful, and hands him a piece of patterning chalk: “We make it for real, yes?” He starts to trace, then stops, saying it’s too hard. Mama takes his shoulders and gives him the Jimmy Dugan “the hard is what makes it great” speech from A League Of Their Own, basically, the script emphasizing that success is special because it comes from hard work to point up the contrast between the lessons Gianni learned as a child and the lessons we’ll see Andrew Cunanan learning. …Just in case you didn’t get it, which I’m sure you did, because the whole scene was in English. Mama tells Gianni to try again. He does, with more confidence this time.

1980, San Diego. Modesto “Pete” Cunanan is presiding over the family’s move out of a modest house on the edge of town, and by “presiding” I mean he’s expounding on how they can save five hundred bucks doing it themselves, a five hundred he can turn into ten thousand, while his older children heave items into a truck and roll their eyes at him. Mary Ann and her mom jeans chuckle indulgently. Pete asks where Andrew is.

Andrew and his teddy bear have parked it in a lawn chair in his room to read Brideshead Revisited. Very interesting choice, given what I remember of the Waugh, including but not limited to a barely subtextual relationship between Charles and Sebastian; the narrator on the outside looking in, at a family, at a system of inherited influence, and feeling like he could, and also must, belong to it; Sebastian’s teddy bear. It’s been a long time; mostly the beautifully evocative prose stayed with me, so if you’ve never read any Waugh, quit hanging around my workmanlike shit and go get you some Decline And Fall. Andrew finally responds to his father’s calls, marching out of the room with that odd Starman gait – the casting of Edouard Holdener as young Cunanan is stellar, and Holdener and episode director Matt Bomer have done a great job capturing certain bits of Darren Criss’s portrayal, but just enough of them – and is told to say goodbye to their squatty home. “This is not for you.”

The rest of the family is then closed into the back of the truck. Andrew and his Izod shorts and his bear get to ride shotgun with Pete.

The truck pulls up at a noticeably grander home, Benzes arrayed on the street out front. Pete takes Andrew’s hand and leads him upstairs as, outside, the others haul their belongings off the truck. Mary Ann wonders where Pete is. “With Prince Andrew,” Christopher snarks. “He’s being given the tour,” Elena adds (she’s played by Isa Briones, daughter of Jon Jon, the longtime Miss Saigon actor playing Pete here). Mary Ann’s smile fades, but she only urges the other kids to keep unpacking. Upstairs, Pete is introducing Andrew to the biggest bedroom, the master bedroom – his new room. It’s his because he’s special. Pete wants him to remember that he’s special every night before he goes to sleep, and every morning when he wakes up. If he feels special, “success will follow.” Pete will need the closet “for all [his] suits,” but otherwise, it’s all Andrew’s. The camera moves to a ground-level shot to show them surveying it in all its empty, beige-wall-to-walled glory.

Nighttime. The other kids sleep crammed head-to-foot in another, tiny bedroom. Mary Ann, kneeling by a twin bed in a spartan room, says a rosary (I think? she’s holding one, in any case), then cries. Alone in his king-size bed in his king-size room, Andrew sits waiting, then clambers down to investigate a noise: Pete, raising the American flag in front of the house, up a pole lit by little spotlights. I was under the impression that this was Not Done, but according to a quick Google, it’s okay to display the flag after sunset if it is lit, which it is. Pete spots Andrew watching him and salutes. Andrew salutes back. A breeze picks up the flag and blows it out straight, in reverse, obscuring Andrew from view. Nice shot comp, Bomer. I see you.

After the title card, we find father and son laying out their suits, then carefully armoring up with jacket, fancy cufflinks, neatly tied neckties, and suspenders. They’re both en route to interviews, Andrew at the Bishop’s School, Pete at Merrill Lynch. We cut back and forth between the paternal and filial hustles, Pete taking in the founders’ wall of photos, Andrew the case of athletic trophies; Andrew contemplating his hopeful future classmates, Pete the forbidding row of dark-suited white dudes who want the same job he does. Mary Ann covers Andrew’s hand with hers, though he doesn’t really respond. Pete corrects his interviewers on his name, the Americanized “Pete” and not the other-sounding (and inaccurate) “Modesto”; he’s told they don’t call in many prospective hires like him, night-school bootstrap-pullers. As Andrew’s called in for his interview, Pete says he knows there’s a long line of Ivy Leaguers waiting to talk to them, but he’s unique in that he came from nothing.

Andrew’s asked why he wants to come to Bishop’s. He chirps that it’s the best school in the state, one of the best in the country. “Who told you that?”, one of his interviewers asks skeptically. “My father.”

Said father isn’t trying to hear the interviewer who wants to talk more about business and less about his biography. Business is biography, Pete slicks, starting a showy self-selling monologue with, “My life is a tale told in dollars.” Good line, but that’s what it is, and he goes on about his poor upbringing in the Philippines, serving in the Navy so he could live and work in the U.S., etc. The interviewers suppress eye-rolls and thank him, as they clearly feel cornered into doing, for his service, but Pete’s all, nooooo, I thank this great country, and talks about going from a 12K house to an 80K one: “Now, is that biography? Or business?” It’s boring and studied, is what it is, but Pete goes on about growing investors’ money and taking it to new lands.

Meanwhile, his equally studied son answers a question about what he’d do with one wish. A house with an ocean view, two Mercedes, four “beautiful children,” three “beautiful dogs,” and a good relationship with God. The ladies interviewing him know that smell.

“Is that one wish or five?” one of them asks gently. Andrew immediately asks if he made a mistake. No, not at all; she’ll give him another crack at it. It doesn’t take him long to come up with a single wish, which he delivers with that signature arrogant chin tilt. “To be special.”

Andrew and Mary Ann come home, Mary Ann teaching Andrew some rudimentary Italian, to find Pete scowling at a pizza. Mary Ann’s confused that he heard so soon, and says she’s sorry, and Pete whips around, glares at each of them briefly, then busts out a scary ringmaster smile to say that he’s joking – he did get hired. It’s Andrew he hugs, congratulating himself on his arrival in corporate America and bragging about his salary. He unveils a luxurious spread, including lobster, and announces that every night from now on, “we eat like kings.” Mary Ann is also celebrating, but Pete’s ignoring her to serve Andrew. Well, until a couple of the other kids wander in to ask what the commotion is and Mary Ann yodels that Pete got the job. Then Pete’s like, but you didn’t think I did. You believed my joke. There’s no right thing to say here, which Mary Ann clearly understands, but she tries to put her hands to his face and say how happy she is. Pete swats her away and continues setting the table for Andrew, saying Andrew knew, before Pete even played his “joke.” He sits down and begins loading Andrew’s plate, wondering if maybe he shouldn’t check Mary Ann’s medication again, “see if your thoughts are confused.” They don’t want her going back into the hospital, do they? “Modesto,” she says, and takes a breath. The older kids watch nervously. Mary Ann settles on “let’s celebrate,” waving the other kids towards the table and grabbing plates for everyone else outside the charmed circle. “Like kings, just like you said,” Mary Ann says breathlessly. Andrew studies his father.

At bedtime, Pete resumes reading to Andrew from Amy Vanderbilt’s Complete Book Of Etiquette. Andrew asks if they have to read the whole thing. Yes, Pete tells him. “It’s not enough to be smart. You need to fit in.” He begins to read about the art of conversation – “there are two types of conversation: polite, and real” – but Andrew blurts, “What happens if I don’t get accepted to Bishop’s School?” Don’t be ridiculous, Pete says, adding that they moved to that house so Andrew could be close to Bishop’s, so of course he’s going to get in. This failure-is-not-an-option answer isn’t comforting, and Andrew stares into the middle distance as Pete digs into the topic of polite conversation.

Andrew does get in, but only after a typically self-absorbed display of snatching the mail from the letter carrier, dumping items not addressed to him on the floor, and ripping the envelope open like an animal. He’s so relieved to have gotten accepted that he’s weeping, a reaction Mary Ann somehow doesn’t understand despite the abuse Pete’s evidently heaped on her for years now. Pete comes in, snatches the letter from her, reads it, and breaks down in an unsettling mixture of victorious laughter and tears, and kneels to kiss Andrew’s feet, literally. Andrew tolerates this, expressionlessly, a tear still clinging to his cheek.

Pete comes onto the trading floor at Merrill; he’s feeling the pressure, having beaten out 500 other guys for the job, but feigns cockiness to a colleague. It doesn’t translate to his sales call, which is more of the same hitting the Navy-service button, then following up with a self-help money-management book cliché, to wit: if the customer feels comfortable about a stock, it’s probably one everyone already knows about. The customer’s like, good point, but no thanks, and hangs up. Pete pretends he still on the line and performatively bellows over the din of the floor about needing to get started with the customer’s financial information, a “HEY LOOK LOOK AT ME NOT FAILING” look we’ve seen on his son many times in the series to date. Nobody hears the ernh ernh ernh of the disconnected line in Pete’s ear, but then, nobody pays Pete much mind at all.

To self-soothe, Pete comes in to undermine Mary Ann’s authority while she’s helping Andrew with homework, and to show Andrew the gold Datsun ZX he’s bought the prince. Andrew is still a tween in these scenes, mind you, but is notably not terribly surprised that his father has bought him a car. Mary Ann’s like, fuck out of here with that, he’s like eleven, and Pete grits that he’s “not an idiot,” he knows Andrew can’t drive it but he can learn to dream, which is just as important. “You can’t give him a car!” Mary Ann exasps. Pete advances on her; she backs away, babbling that he should think of Elena and Chris, who are old enough to drive. Focus pull to Andrew watching from the driver’s seat as Pete ask-snarls if Mary Ann has gone mad again; when she makes the mistake of asking what the car is a gift for, that getting into Bishop’s is a beginning, not a goal, Pete grabs her around the neck and tells her he’s trying to make sure Andrew doesn’t end up like her. He releases her with a shove, and she falls between a couple of hedges. “Don’t overreact,” he mutters, then turns back to Andrew with his customary showman’s grin.

He hops into the passenger seat all, “Let’s play!” Neither of them acknowledges what just happened. Pete muses that, while he loves the other kids, they aren’t special like Andrew, who is the best friend Pete ever had. Andrew blinks, discomfited, and if this is what it was between them, it goes a long way to explaining how Andrew became what he did: inordinate pressure to live up to his father’s ideals, no ability to manage normal setbacks or disappointments, set against/apart from the siblings who could otherwise integrate his expectations but understandably have little use for the little one-percenter in their midst, and taught that the way to meet any challenge to your version of reality is to cow the challenger, not to adjust your own thinking. Pete is still talking, poisoning Andrew with tales of Mary Ann’s post-partum depression cast as a “weak mind.” Pete looked after him when he was an infant. “I was your mother and your father.” He fiddles smugly with the radio as Mary Ann comes around to Andrew’s side of the car and rests her hands on the windowsill. Without looking at his mother, Andrew rolls up the window against her, nearly catching her fingers in the mechanism.

At bedtime, Andrew works a Rubik’s cube – a comparatively unsubtle signifier, for this show – and asks if Pete always wanted to become a stockbroker. Pete half-answers that he took the opportunities that came his way; he’s “the world’s greatest opportunist.” It’s the only way to get ahead, he says mostly to himself, taking off his pants. Andrew says he likes reading, and stories: “Maybe I could write books!” Pete snorts that if someone gives him a million dollars to write a book, that’s one thing; otherwise, no. He turns off a bedside lamp and sits in his underwear beside Andrew, whose grip on the Rubik’s cube has tightened. Pete pries it out of his hands and croons that, when Andrew was little, he burned his foot on a heater. “I picked you up, and kissed you better. And you didn’t make a sound.” Pete reaches for the other lamp’s switch. “Not a sound.” Click; darkness.

If the implication is that Pete molested Andrew, a theory I haven’t seen elsewhere (although some sources suggest Andrew was assaulted by a priest, during his time as an altar boy), I’m even happier than I’d otherwise be to linger on the next shot, a mouth-watering row of vintage Benzes in the Bishop’s parking lot accompanied by the opening strains of the Bangles’ version of “Hazy Shade Of Winter.”

When the guitar kicks in, we’re told it’s 1987, and Andrew wheels into a parking spot in the Datsun and alights, in slo-mo, slinging his blazer over his shoulder with a little Foley whoosh. It’s picture day at Bishop’s, and Andrew’s being a noisy theater kid in the line for the photographer, wake-up-sheeple-ing showily to his schoolmates about all doing the same thing for their photos. A football douche wheels around to eye-roll, “Shut up. F**.” Andrew is unfazed by this, unbuttoning his shirt and snitting, “If being a f** means being different.” He brushes to the front of the line and seats himself in front of the camera, tie still tied but shirt open. “Sign me up!” He strikes a pose. “Take a photograph, my good man!” he shouts at the photographer, cocking a hip. Sixteen: it’s exhausting. Not least for the 16-year-old.

Pete stews in the car, then goes in to his current office, a boiler room operation running out of a repurposed furniture store. A wan piano line follows him into a cube warren to his desk. His cubicle wall is festooned with pictures of Andrew, and Andrew only. He gets on the phone, using the same patter that clearly didn’t work at Merrill, only this time he’s apologizing for “world events” fouling up their last trade and selling the client on liquidating her late husband’s pension. The client, hooked up to an oxygen tank and frowning silently as she listens, is in her nineties, and her grandson comes upon the conversation and is not having it. Pete hangs up hastily when the grandson gets to the threatening part of the kiss-off. He wrenches his jacket off, his eyes darting, looking for a way out…or up.

Mary Ann puts down a plate of food and asks when she gets to meet Andrew’s “special lady.” She’s no fool, she knows Andrew doesn’t “smell this nice” for her. Andrew, leafing through a Vogue, weighs whether to scandalize Mary Ann, then asks what if “she’s” “older than thirty”? Mary Ann pours him a glass of milk and says a young man should “always be” with an older woman. She teaches him how to be a man, Mary Ann adds, asking how they met. “Babysitting?” Andrew lies.

Later, he puts a Samantha Fox tape into the stereo and blasts it while guzzling from a flask and dancing self-consciously around the master bedroom he’s still occupying. He goes through a few shirts in the closet, then comes upon an outfit that makes him twinkle.

Cut to Andrew emerging from the house in a black raincoat, which he’s clutching around him to hide what’s underneath. He climbs into an older man’s Benz coupe, and is greeted with a smooch, but refuses to show what he’s wearing underneath. There’s a gift for him in the glove box, a bottle of cologne, and Andrew stagily announces that he knows the guy buys him things, but that’s “not what this is about” for Andrew. The guy’s like, Andrew, chill out, and asks where they’re headed. To the IMDb and Google image search, in my case, because the screener I’m working with doesn’t have end credits and the guy playing his boyf cannot be Michael Badalucco, yet really looks like him.

Y’all tell me who this is, it’s driving me nuts. Andrew, meanwhile, isn’t telling Fauxdalucco where they’re going, and Faux isn’t happy when he finds out it’s a house party. It’ll be fun, Andrew tries to shrug, but Faux isn’t about it; he’s married. “We’re a secret.” Andrew doesn’t want them to be a secret anymore, and Faux has to tell him how shit is, namely that their thing is “strictly on the side.” Did Andrew think it could be more, Faux asks kindly, just as a couple of dingles on their way into the party pound on the hood, at which time Faux has had enough, and hands Andrew some cash and tells him to get out, now. Andrew ignores the money and stalks into the party, whipping off the trench to reveal a red pleather sweat-suit/suit situation underneath. As Devo orders him to “whip it, whip it good,” Andrew does so, sending the trench into the bushes next to the driveway, and stalks into the house, where he finds the dance floor and grimly and immediately dominates it, driving the other partygoers to the sidelines with his big movements. As the friend we saw in the first episode, the one who tried to sell Andrew on being with a nice guy like him, tells another friend that he’s gearing up to ask Andrew out and worries that he doesn’t have the right look, Andrew continues dancing, not-that-surreptitiously checking to see who’s watching him and why.

The friend, Jerome, watches him with an eloquent combination of terror and turgidity. Elsewhere in the room, Lizzie Coté comes upon this performance and pulls a “well will you look at this guy” face, but the longer she observes, the clearer it becomes that he’s drowning out there,

so she plunges in to join/save him, telling him he looks fabulous. “What, this thing? This little thing?” Later, on the couch, they bond, although she has a secret to share. “Can we only ever speak in secrets?” Andrew asks, probably not entirely joking. Lizzie reveals she’s an impostor – a married lady the owners of the house, the DeSilvas (hmm), asked to keep an eye on things. He’s fine with that, saying he gets on far better with older people; they can still be friends. She confides that she missed this whole scene thanks to being home-schooled, but Andrew can’t wait to get out of school. What will he do? Seek out his heroes, he says: Basquiat, Keith Haring…Versace.

At Pete’s job, a secretary who seems to have a crush on him gets up to tell him, “They’re waiting for you.” In a conference room, Pete tries to joke with his three interlocutors about whether he’s getting promoted, but it’s actually about an accusation from the grandson that he took Nana’s life savings and, well, just took it, telling her he’d lost the money on a non-existent stock. That’s illegal, Pete is reminded, and his protest that it’s just a misunderstanding doesn’t go over well either; there have evidently been quite a few of those over the years, not to mention his frequent job changes, and the fact that guys don’t tend to come to this outfit from Merrill “voluntarily.” The feds are on the case now, and the company is cooperating, because they have nothing to hide. Does Pete? He says that he does not. He walks as casually as he can to his cubicle, then begins frantically shredding, crumpling, etc., although it seems like if the issue is that the equities didn’t exist, he should be creating a paper trail saying they do, not destroying spreadsheets that are irrelevant in that case, but what do I know. The shredder jams on him anyway, and when he realizes his colleagues are prairie-dogging in his direction, he sinks into his chair and freaks out quietly to himself, trying to come up with a plan. What he lands on: booking a flight for that day.

The FBI – not the SEC? You know what, who cares. It doesn’t matter which agency “should” show up to handle the Pete situation; the point is, one of them is coming in the front door, and Pete, tipped by his crush at the front desk, is bolting out the back.

At school, Andrew is basking in his yearbook triumph:

He’s thrilled. His friend teases him that nobody cares about yearbook awards. “Says the man that didn’t get one,” Andrew shoots back, but he’s not mad. The friend looks at Andrew’s real page, not the semi-shirtless Most Likely To Be Remembered snap, and asks of the caption, “Apres moi, le deluge?” “After me, destruction,” Andrew translates, shrugging that it sounded cool.

Pete screeches up to the house and dashes inside, then upstairs, where he pries up a board in the closet and grabs a Ziploc of cash and passports from underneath. Mary Ann comes in to ask what’s happening, and is shoved to the ground once again as Pete dashes towards the front door…only to find the FBI already there, announcing a warrant for his arrest. Back up he goes, out what I guess is an upstairs porch door, and over a side wall into a neighbor’s property. Outside, Andrew pulls up and gets out down the street, frowning at the FBI cars and commotion, as Mary Ann opens the door to the agents, who demand to know where he is. She just stares at them. Andrew, walking back to the car, sees Pete hurdling a fence. “Dad…?” Pete grabs Andrew’s car keys, tells him not to believe a word they say, and takes off in the Datsun. Andrew watches him peel away, completely unable to incorporate this turn of events into his understanding of the world and his life.

Mary Ann is telling Andrew the extent of Pete’s deluge: he emptied the bank accounts, sold the house out from under them and transferred the money…he knew the feds were coming. Andrew stares into space, in forlorn shock…

…then does the same at the ceiling in the master bedroom that night, before getting up and packing. He’s going to find Pete, he grimly tells Mary Ann, who wails that he’s gone – he fled to Manila, “like a dirty rat.” She goes on that she knew he was stealing, and should have said something, but Andrew quickly writes a note and holds it up to shush her: “They’re listening.” He scribbles that “Dad has money hidden,” with “hidden” underlined, and she has to tell him that there is no plan, no secret stash. Pete left them, left them with nothing. Andrew isn’t going to believe that, and when she starts screeching that he can’t go, Pete’s dangerous, she’s scared, he clamps a hand over her mouth and tells her she’s “wrong about him.” He pushes past her…

…and after the break, he’s getting a cab at the airport in Manila. The driver’s like, you sure you want to go to this address? Maybe a nice hotel? Andrew’s sweatily insistent, even when they pull up to a nondescript and overgrown address on a dirt road; he doesn’t even ask the driver to stay, just gathers his nads and knocks on the front door. His uncle answers. He’s thrilled to meet Andrew, but Andrew’s focused on finding Pete, so Tito directs him through heavy underbrush to an outbuilding, just as overgrown…with metaphor, what with the palm fronds and mosquito netting obscuring everything, nature too strong to keep at bay. Andrew knocks the door open and steps hesitantly inside his father’s lair, which is sizable and well kept under the circumstances. Pete is behind a newspaper, and gets up to hug Andrew, laughing, “I knew you’d come.” Andrew relaxes into his embrace.

Pete puts down a plate of chicharrones, apologizing for their frumpiness, “but with a cold beer…” Andrew is rigid at the table. “Long flight?” Pete asks. Andrew nods. Pete says Andrew must have questions. “Mom says there’s no money,” Andrew blurts. Pete grouses that Mary Ann has “a weak mind,” always did, and explains selling the house by saying he had to move assets “out of reach” so the feds wouldn’t get it. “So, there’s money,” Andrew confirms. “Millions!” Pete says. Andrew’s like, great, so…where is it? “I told you,” Pete says, beginning to darken. “Did you?” Pete glares. “Out of reach,” he repeats. “Oh,” Andrew says, his face falling. Pete exclaims with a salesman smile that he’s so happy Andrew’s there.

Andrew’s not; he can’t sleep. He gets up and turns on the light next to Pete’s bed; Pete startles awake, into a defensive posture, and says he’s not surprised Andrew can’t fall asleep. His “body remembers” the heat there, but Andrew isn’t used to it, didn’t grow up in it, playing in it. Pete doesn’t move his gaze from Andrew’s as he says that you can pretend you belong somewhere else, “but the body knows.” There’s no money, is there, Andrew grunts. Pete allows that no, there isn’t. “No plan. No…millions,” Andrew snarks, and is told to watch his tone; Pete’s still his father. “My father. My father,” Andrew muses, and here’s where the dialogue gets rull stagey and over-externalized, so I’ll boil it down: Andrew calls Pete a thief and a liar; Pete delivers a monologue about his “real crime,” that he didn’t steal big enough, that if he’d stolen hundreds of millions they’d have given him a corner office but the grubby amounts he took meant he didn’t get it, didn’t belong (and this is not a bad insight; nor is his note that, actually, going to America with nothing and making it big is a lie too; this is just a little Death Of A Salesman in the execution, and in a way that’s landing more “needed another draft” than “homage” to me).

“I can’t be this,” Andrew says bleakly. Pete is offended that Andrew doesn’t want to be him, but Andrew points out that he bragged to his friends about Pete – and it turns out everything he said was a lie, and he can’t “be a lie,” he just can’t. He’s nothing but, of course, and nothing about that is going to change for him, but it’s how badly he wants to be a true thing, one of substance, that turns everything upside down for him and his victims. Andrew then delivers a monologue of his own, not terribly credible in my opinion at least as far as 1) how people are with damaging information they’ve found or 2) how kids deal with their parents’ humanity, about going to the library to research Manila and finding out that not only is Pete not in the top 500 stockbrokers in California; that list, as I posited in a previous recap, isn’t even a thing. Criss acts it very well, but is told to pair it with a bit of business chopping up some fruit or something that’s a little much, and mostly an excuse to get a knife into the scene. Pete doesn’t respond to the accusation, turning Andrew’s tears around on him instead and calling him weak, like his mother – who, Pete bitterly notes, didn’t care that he stole “as long as there was money.” Why didn’t Andrew bring up the book earlier? Because he thought there was money. He’s not upset that Pete stole; he’s upset that Pete stopped. Not a bad point, but not one Pete really has standing to make, either. Pete must have not finished that polite-conversation chapter, though, because he snarks that now Andrew has to work, “a sissy kid with a sissy mind!”, and punctuates it by spitting in Andrew’s face. Andrew doesn’t get to come there and judge him; he judges Andrew. He’s ashamed of Andrew, his “special sissy boy.”

Andrew couldn’t get from one street to another, never mind from the Philippines to America. “And back again!” Andrew snits, and gets slapped across the face, so he grabs the knife, but Pete has his number: “Do it. BE A MAN! FOR ONCE!” Andrew flinches away from him; he’s clinging to the knife, the blade slicing into his palm, his face a childish mask of pain and paralysis. No, Pete smugs as Andrew sobs. “You don’t have it in you.” Blood drips onto the floor, and Andrew drops the knife and whispers that he’ll never be like Pete. Pete stares at him, utterly disgusted.

Back in San Diego, Andrew arrives to find the house getting packed up by a collection service. He slowly counts out the cab fare with a bandaged hand, reluctant to part with what’s left of his money. Looky-loo neighbors watch the movers. Andrew heads inside, ignoring his mother, to find the master bedroom emptied, except for the bare-mattressed bed and a few stacks of books. He stands at the window for a moment, then attacks the books, strewing them about. The Amy Vanderbilt undergoes an especially vicious attack, as he rips it apart and hurls the pieces around.

At the pharmacy, Andrew asks for a job application. Mercado asks if he’s Filipino, and presses him on his family name and where they come from; Andrew is barely polite, but that doesn’t stop the quizzing, and when Mercado asks what Pete does with his days, Andrew lies blandly that Pete owns “multiple pineapple plantations.” Mercado is skeptical, but merely says, “Is that so.” “As far as the eye can see,” Andrew says.

Jack Of All Trades, Master Of One On American Crime Story | Previously.TV

1996, La Jolla CA. The opening licks of Laura Branigan’s “Self Control” accompany Andrew Cunanan’s sun-kissed drive into a luxurious compound, where he parks an Infiniti, drops a couple Saks bags in a bedroom, and gets naked to enjoy first the ocean view and then a solitary swim. Later, he carefully wraps a shoebox; then, as Branigan announces that she lives among the creatures of the night, Cunanan goes into a mouth-watering walk-in with myriad neatly ROYGBIV’d button-downs, selects a pair of shoes, rubs some cocaine on his gums, and eyes himself contentedly in the full-length mirror.

In a suit with the sleeves pushed Sonny Crockettishly up to his elbows, Cunanan swans down a hallway to find Michael Nouri hanging a “Happy Birthday Andrew” sign above the doorway to the great room. This is Norman Blachford, Cunanan’s sugar daddy for about a year, and it seems like Cunanan gives the ladder Norman’s up on a speculative jiggle, then croons, “Careful!” Norman is apparently inclined to let that go, but a friend of Norman’s with a regrettable old-man-red dye job has just arrived, and he’s not inclined to let any of Cunanan’s shit go, especially not when Cunanan notes through a fake smile that “it must be at least ten minutes” since Red had a drink. “What a relief,” Red burbles, “I was worried we were gonna have to get along.” Red 2020, y’all. Norman hopes Cunanan doesn’t mind that he invited a few of his own friends, and Cunanan says he knows Cunanan loves his friends. “Yes, it’s been noticed,” Red brays. Cunanan observes that he might have preferred two parties, one for his set and one for Norman’s, and Red is lying in the high weeds for that one, saying the Queen of England has two parties, but Cunanan’s “not that sort of queen.” Cunanan smirks that Red’s “a jukebox of bitchy hits,” but before he can get owned again, Lizzie Coté swoops in to greet him.

On the terrace, Cunanan confides that the “whole party” has one object: to land David Madson, “the man of [his] dreams.” Lizzie’s like, so you’re “officially gay now?” Cunanan sniffs sophomorically that he doesn’t like labels. Lizzie’s like, whatever, me neith, but they’re useful – and also, what does Cunanan plan to tell David about “this place”? David doesn’t “know about Norman”; Cunanan has to keep them separated, he says, and he needs Lizzie to help him explain to David what he’s “doing here, with Norman.” What is he doing there, with Norman, Lizzie wants to know. Cunanan tries to make it out like he’s just Norman’s decorating advisor and “there’s nothing sexual” between them, but when Lizzie suggests just telling David the truth, the fact that Cunanan is non-sexually living with his “wealthy older client” sounds off when she lays it out that way. Cunanan can’t lose David; he’s a house, a home, a family, “picking kids up…from school.” He’s a future, and before this, Cunanan’s “only dated the past.” Lizzie notes that Cunanan has it bad for David, and asks gently, “Who are you trying to be?” Someone David can love.

Jeff Trail is at the front door, gift in hand. Cunanan answers, takes in Jeff’s attire, holds up a “girl, no” hand and shakes his head, and hustles Jeff into the bedroom. Rude. He hastily unwraps the gift, an outdoorsy guide of some sort that Cunanan barely registers as Jeff says he thought they could take some hikes, give the bars a rest for once. Cunanan’s completely focused on putting Jeff in an expensive pair of shoes, and asking him to give Cunanan the present we saw Cunanan wrapping earlier.

Jeff’s like, weirdo says what? Cunanan explains while compulsively patting the box that David’s coming, and he needs David to see that he has really good friends. Jeff’s like, we are friends, and Cunanan makes a series of fluttery you-don’t-get-it hand gestures and says, right, sure, but “I need you to look the part.” “What does a good friend look like?” Jeff asks, about to laugh in Cunanan’s face, and Cunanan gets salty and says he just needs Jeff’s help, the way he’s helped Jeff “with countless guys.” Jeff still doesn’t see how different shoes constitute “help,” but Cunanan’s done explaining: “I just need him to see that I’m loved.” Not the last evidence we’ll see of Cunanan’s fundamental misapprehension of how love works, or how non-monstrous humans understand it, this episode, and it seems like Jeff is beginning to see the outlines of this hole where non-transactional displays of genuine feeling would go as he reassures Cunanan again that he does love him. Cunanan doesn’t have time for Jeff’s non-pathological earth logic: “I need him to know that.” Jeff finally shrugs and goes along: “It’s your birthday.”

But that’s not all: Cunanan also told David that Jeff’s an active-duty lieutenant on the USS Independence. This is a bridge too far, as it were, and Jeff snaps that he’s not impersonating an officer. Cunanan wheedles that it sounds so impressive, though! Jeff peers at him and says he knows it does, the subtext being that only one of them can successfully distinguish between sounding impressive and actually being impressive, and Cunanan chirps, “So be in the Navy! Wear those shoes…” Jeff will wear the shoes, but not “the uniform.”

Walking through the party, “his” gift held awkwardly in front of him, Jeff asks, “Who are all these people?” “Friends of free food and free champagne,” Cunanan mutters, own-goaling his own striving ass. Lizzie hisses that David has arrived, and we go to slo-mo so Cunanan can gaze at David in a manner he probably thinks is loving, but looks a lot like a spider contemplating a juicy fly. He rushes to overhug David and coos that nobody else has ever traveled so far to see him. David looks uncomfortable and says he wanted to see where Cunanan lives; he’d been “so mysterious” about it. He hands Cunanan a small gold gift box, and Cunanan smooches him on the lips, a territorial kiss David isn’t expecting. Lizzie comes up to say that the two of them are adorable, and Cunanan introduces her as his bestie from San Francisco. Right, David says, from when you were designing costumes “with Versace.” Annaleigh Ashford pulls a delightfully delicate “oh, is that the story I’ll be expected to keep straight this time” face, but backs Cunanan’s play, adding that he’s the “kindest” and “sweetest” person she knows and she’s never heard him talk about anyone the way he talks about David. David’s like, gulp, and follows Cunanan into the party, asking if this is where he lives. Cunanan is cagey about that, despite passing within earshot of Norman, saying it should be, given all the work he’s done on the place. David enthuses about the view, and Cunanan assures him they’ll have a house like this one someday: “Maybe this very one!”

Jeff hits his mark then, wishing Cunanan a happy birthday. Cunanan takes the wrapped box and blares his thanks while checking to see who’s looking at them, and once again I wonder about the acting and directorial choices that make this version of Cunanan such an obvious arriviste. I have no quibble with the performance, which is compelling (if off-putting), and I acknowledge that a “realistic” portrayal of a sociopath is not necessarily good television, because most sociopaths most of the time seem charming and/or normal. It’s how they get by. Unfortunately, the ACS iteration of Cunanan is frequently enough bratty and tone-deaf as well as a flagrant bullshitter that it can take me out of the story a little bit, as it’s about to here. Cunanan near-shouts, “And on a military salary!” but Jeff tries to be a good wingman, muttering dutifully that they’re by “that designer you always talk about…Versace.” “FERRAGAMO,” Cunanan blares, like, if you care that much that he get it right, maybe tell him what’s under the wrapping paper before you run this con. Cunanan’s more concerned with getting a burn in on Versace, though, snarking that Versace doesn’t make shoes: “That would require at least some degree of craftsmanship.” He follows this up with a peacocking “amirite” gesture that nobody at the party responds to. Well, unless you count Jeff looking up at David at the top of the staircase and frowning all, “H…i, I don’t know.” Finally Jeff throws himself a lifeline and introduces himself. As Jeff and David make friendly chitchat, Cunanan looks for a spot to turn their attention back to him, growing increasingly concerned at their immediate easy vibe with each other.

Lizzie invites the gents out onto the terrace, but Cunanan tells the others to go ahead; he has to fortify himself with a line first. Red is lurking nearby, so Cunanan gets defensive about the “birthday pick-me-up,” and then about Red’s implication that he would do a “gutter drug” like crystal. Red basically ignores this to say he’s got a birthday present for Cunanan himself, and it’s a piece of advice. Cunanan bitchily wonders if he has to open it right then, but Red’s like, so here’s what: Norman’s not the lucky one here. You are. Norman is “a conservative old queer” who likes that Cunanan can talk to grown-ups and read a wine list, so he graciously doesn’t “make it clear” that Cunanan is an employee. Cunanan bluffs that he’s Norman’s equal, actually, but Red’s like, yeahhhhh no: Norman built a company from scratch. Cunanan likes few things less than reminders that he’s allergic to working his way up, and excuses himself, but Red grabs his arm to hiss that Cunanan took advantage of Norman at a time when Norman’s lover had just died after suffering “terribly.” Cunanan’s all, I volunteer at an AIDS charity, I don’t need a lecture, but Red’s all, what you “need” is to know that I won’t let Norman get hurt again. Cunanan recovers himself, saying Red must be unpopular at parties if all his gifts “are this dreary,” but Red eyes Cunanan down and says hedoesn’t mind being disliked. Excellent bespoke burn, friendo. Cunanan’s had it, but Red isn’t done, calling Cunanan’s retreating back “a volatile mix,” “too lazy to work and too proud to be kept.” Cunanan whines that he has to get back to the party: “That room is full of people that love me!” He doesn’t convince either of them, as Red calls after him, “Then that room is full of people that don’t know you!” Can’t spell “read” without “Red”; won’t try.

Cunanan stalks to the top of the staircase, sees Jeff and David laughing together by the pool, and fairly runs down to join/get between them, almost shouting about whether Jeff’s BOYFRIEND is joining them. No, he isn’t. “He’s so funny!” Cunanan fake-chuckles. “Is he still working at that mall?” Jeff sees you, Blanche: “He works for a living, yes.” David tries to smooth things over with, of all things, a question about where Cunanan sleeps; he saw the master bedroom with two mattresses. Cunanan non-answers this with a lie about Norman spending time in Phoenix and his own stays at his “New York apartment.” “Your New York apartment,” Jeff repeats, dry as a bone, and Cunanan begins a series of Starman head movements, which don’t abate when David hesitantly says he thought he’d be staying there that night, but… “Oh, you must!” Cunanan says. Jeff offers his couch, but Cunanan immediately says it’s “hard and filthy.” David and Jeff both crack up. Cunanan looks between them with the pasted-on and unsure smile of a child who doesn’t understand why what he just said is funny to drunk adults. David’s like, let’s talk about it later, and Cunanan’s about to try to forget that sneaking sense that he’s on the outside of something again, some more by pouring more champagne when Lee Miglin approaches to wish him a happy birthday.

And here’s the difference between real class and Cunanan’s store-window version: Cunanan pretends not to remember him. Lee is too excited to see him to mind much, even when Cunanan herds the younger men away, then snips at Lee, “I asked you not to approach me.” Lee babbles about how “exceptionally handsome” Cunanan looks and how he couldn’t wait any longer to come say hello: “Does that make me pathetic?” What’s pathetic is the societal bigotry that would convince an accomplished citizen like Lee Miglin that his by-necessity hidden desire for a younger man puts him at this steep a power disadvantage in their relationship, especially when said younger man is acting like a haphazardly stacked garbage heap in this social interaction, but once again, Cunanan gets by with it, brushing Lee and his birthday gift off with a “we can arrange a time.” Looking panicky, he jumps on David – who’s chatting with Jeff and Norman – like a sugared-up eight-year-old and drags him and his other paramours into an awkward photo op. “All the people I love!”, he says, striking a pose, while everyone else in the frame makes mental air quotes around that last word.

As everyone’s arranging their faces into facsimiles of happy, the camera rushes in on Cunanan’s face, just in time for it to fall.

Cunanan makes a list with a fountain pen. Next to the list on the desk is the photo from the party, with everyone’s faces but Cunanan’s and David’s scratched out.

Little on the nose. The list, which Cunanan is now presenting to Norman, is of “requirements” for Cunanan and Norman to stay together, and includes a Mercedes convertible, first-class berths on international AND domestic flights, and getting jumped into Norman’s will – as his sole heir. As Norman dryly reads the list aloud, Cunanan – attired in what he thinks is the height of unironic beachfront posh: a sweater draped around his shoulders, crisp Bermudas, and driving mocs – snots that he’s been with Norman for over a year, devoting his life to making Norman happy and making “enormous sacrifices.” Hard to say if Norman deliberately sets a trap for Cunanan here or just can’t bother pretending he buys his shit anymore, but he asks mildly what sacrifices, exactly. “Love,” the overstepper says with a defiant lift of his chin. Whose love? “My parents.” Right, Norman mutters, “the New York billionaires.” They disinherited me, Cunanan crazy-eyeses, when they found out he “was living with an older gay man.” Norman, who seems more resigned to having to bust this asswipe than anything else, asks if Cunanan knows how Norman got so successful. It’s hard work – and “due diligence.” Cunanan unwisely sticks with the snitty tone and asks what Norman’s saying. He’s saying Cunanan’s name isn’t DeSilva, as he’s evidently been claiming; it’s Cunanan. Push in on Cunanan looking very young and legit frightened; he denies it, and that as of a year and a half ago, he was working in a Thrifty drugstore for six bucks an hour and living with his mom. “Mary Ann?” Norman prompts, and finally Cunanan is silenced. He gets a million-mile stare, then flounces from the room.

Norman watches him with a “bye bitch” expression, then follows him out to the balcony, where Cunanan is staring miffily out to sea. He rounds on Norman with an accusing “You investigated me?” Norman evenly notes that Cunanan investigated him; no way they met “by chance.” Cunanan knew what books he liked, what kind of music…he’d researched Norman, to target him (Norman uses the word “pursued,” but: yeah). Norman then points out Cunanan isn’t a prisoner there. In fact, he’s not even Norman’s partner, really, since they haven’t had sex in months. Cunanan quickly brats that “if you give me everything on that list, sex can become more regular.” Norman snorts, clumsily exposits that Cunanan never saves any money because he’s always splashing out on other people, and says he’ll up Cunanan’s allowance, but the first-class flights: no. He’d also pay for Cunanan to finish his college degree. Cunanan sulks that he already has a PhD, but Norman is getting irritated, and says no, he really doesn’t; he has two semesters of a history degree at UCSD. Cunanan is decompensating back in time, verbally stomping his foot at the idea of going back to school, or anything else that’s work: “It’s ordinary!” Norman’s like, being smart is pointless unless it’s “in the service of” something, by which he presumably doesn’t mean grifting, but Cunanan announces that he “want[s] that list” or he’s leaving. Norman sighs that Cunanan’s made a beautiful home there, and he wants Cunanan to be happy, truly; he doesn’t even mind the constant lies, except for one, and that’s that Norman is a fool. Cunanan whines that he probably lost “the love of his life” because he lives with Norman. Confirming that Cunanan means David, Norman groans, “Oh, boy,” and basically asks if, once he’s made Norman’s heir, Cunanan is already dreaming of the day Norman’s out of the way. Cunanan is literally pouting with his arms folded

as Norman informs him with a half-smile that, if he wants “this life,” he could have it by working hard…but if he won’t work, he’ll have to share it with Norman. Those are the choices. Cunanan probably thinks he can treat every older man the way he treats Lee, and responds by gritting that if he can’t have love, he wants the list. Yes or no? Norman calls that bluff with a gentle no. “Fine,” Cunanan whispers, and is headed inside to pack, but on his way, he scampers over to a deck chair and smashes a glass table with it. Going inside for real now, he turns dramatically in the doorway and acts as though he’s the aggrieved party, and on camera: “I’m leaving. I expect you to call.” Call…the cops? A locksmith?

Cunanan unloads the Infiniti in front of a mealy cinderblock foyer with newspapers blowing around outside. In a grimy efficiency apartment, he drops his bags and looks around. A phone rings, and we pan cut to…

…Jeff, watching TV. It’s his dad on the other end, calling to report on the outing postcard Cunanan sent, now received by Trail Sr. There’s a brisk knock on the door, and we pan cut again to…

Cunanan, sitting up performatively straight on a bare mattress, stagily turning his head towards the sound. He gets up, looking apprehensive, and zhuzhes his shirt; the only decoration, a magazine clipping of Gianni Versace, flutters on the wall as he moves past. It’s Jeff, of course, and Cunanan croons, “Hi,” and lets him in. Jeff, all business, says he heard about Norman. He’ll come around, Cunanan smiles, but Jeff isn’t buying: “You had a good thing there.” Cunanan’s a little irritated: “He. Had a good thing.” Jeff gets down to it, asking if Cunanan sent Trail Sr. a postcard. Cunanan dissembles, but Jeff is getting agitated; his dad wants to know who Cunanan is, why he signed the card “love,” and why Jeff’s “buying [him] expensive shoes.” “How funny,” Cunanan smugs, enjoying Jeff’s discomfort. “What’d you tell him?” Jeff asks if he did it deliberately, advancing on him; it felt like a threat. It was, but Cunanan eye-rolls that it was a mistake. “You’re lying!”, Jeff snaps, asking if Cunanan is trying to tell Jeff’s parents Jeff is gay. Cunanan wonders sarcastically why he’d want to do that: “They probably just assumed that you gave up your great naval career to be a f*****!” Jeff grabs Cunanan by the arms and swings him into the wall, bellowing at him to stay away from his family. As with any scene in which that crazy shitbox Cunanan is ignored, intimidated, or otherwise busted down to size, it’s deeply satisfying when he grunts, “You’re hurting me!"…

…but it’s disheartening at the same time, given how attempts to set boundaries for Cunanan tended to end. Jeff releases him and apologizes, but instead of leaving, he stays to hear Cunanan soap-opera that he never thought Jeff was capable of violence, especially not towards Cunanan. Jeff is not exactly eager to do the emotional violence he’s about to do, but grimly confesses that he’s leaving San Diego to work at a propane gas company – in Minneapolis. The camera semi-swoops towards Cunanan as he puts it together, or so he thinks, and Jeff is quick to say that it’s not because of David. Cunanan snarks that it’s just chance, then, that Jeff pulled an M Scrabble tile and picked an M city, that M city, and Jeff tries to say that David only told him about the job, no more, but Cunanan is sliding into a tantrum about Jeff screwing him over – after all the guys he found for Jeff – by "stealing” the only guy “that really likes” Cunanan. Jeff doesn’t touch that, but his actual reason for leaving, that he’s unhappy in San Diego and needs a change of scene, that it breaks his heart to pass the harbor and see the ships he can’t be on, aren’t about Cunanan, so Cunanan doesn’t hear them. Jeff seems to see this, and ends with a weary, “I’m leaving. I thought you should know.” As he’s heading for the door, Cunanan growls, “You stay away from him. I’m warning you.” Jeff cuts him a “sha right” side-eye and closes the door as Cunanan yells again for Jeff to stay away from David.

David himself picks up the phone to find Cunanan on the other end, talking quickly so that David can’t interrupt: he misses David so much! He’s going to Los Angeles and he wants David to come! He’ll FedEx David’s first-class ticket over! David’s like, well but I wish you’d have, you know, asked first? Or at all? But Cunanan literally says he won’t take no for an answer, he’ll drag David “kicking and screaming” if he has to, which he says through one of his patented desperate fake “laughs.” Then he says, very quietly, “Please.”

Cunanan arrives at a hotel by cab, and is shown to a duplex suite whose balcony is the sort of domain-surveyor perch Cunanan loves. He orders flowers for the suite, and a Mercedes convertible. David is announced, and Cunanan tells the desk to send David to the balcony, where Cunanan artfully arranges himself. David, somewhat abashed, appears in a long-sleeved t-shirt and jeans; he’s never flown first class before. “Then this must be something special,” Cunanan prompts him. David doesn’t give him quite the awestruck response he’s looking for, asking how work went. Cunanan chirps that he’s all done, and he can just relax; asked what it is he does, exactly, again, Cunanan is typically grand but vague about the “behind the scenes” “money” stuff he’s “doing,” and condescends that it’s boring and “technical” – so how about they go shopping! The whole situation is already failing David’s smell test, but he heaves a sigh and follows Cunanan.

The next scene finds them at a tailor, drinking champagne while David is fitted for a suit, compliments of Cunanan, who wants him to “dress like the man you’re going to be.” Who’s that, David wonders. “An American dream,” Cunanan says. “The country’s most successful architect!” David chuckles that he likes this, “go on,” so Cunanan keeps spinning a future of a thriving practice, a glossy spread in an architectural mag with a picture of David’s “handsome face” – then lifts his champagne flute: “With me by your side.” Cody Fern’s tiny awkward eye-flick here is perfectly done. Darren Criss’s corresponding tiny jaw clench of realization that they don’t share the same vision, and childish fury at his perceived rejection, is just as perfectly done.

A bit later, as Cunanan is mulling his next move, David emerges from the dressing room, sharply attired in the new suit. He’s rigid with discomfort as he mutters that Cunanan doesn’t have to buy it for him; Cunanan croons that David can throw it away if he doesn’t like it, but Cunanan is buying it. As Cunanan pays, David stares out onto the street, appearing to contemplate the position he’s in and very much wants to extricate himself from.

Later, a room-service waiter lifts the last cloche on a spread of expensive cuts of beef, lobster-tail sculptures, and whatever other try-hard culinary gaucheries you’d expect a Cunanan to order. As David looks on with a nauseated mien, Cunanan overtips the waiter and officiously pours champagne. At last David gets it out that he owes Cunanan an apology: “I shouldn’t have come.” All of this, “it’s too much,” and he’ll pay for half. Cunanan tells him to put his wallet away, but David needs him to see the real issue: “Andrew, I’m not the one.” Cunanan’s face is a bland mask of loathing, much like Jason Priestley’s when he’s trying to make Brandon Walsh look nobly forebearing on Beverly Hills, 90210.

He drops his head, then raises it, trying to sell David: “You are the one. Yes, you are.” He’s both legitimately pleading and probably to some extent copying shit he’s seen in movies as he says he knows he “overexaggerate[s]” sometimes, but not about this; David is the only one he’s ever “really, truly” loved. David fidgets, saying they had a great time in San Francisco – “one great night, and maybe there was a chance, but…” “But it was one night, and you scotched that chance by overinvesting it with meaning to this stalker-ish degree,” he does not add, sitting heavily. Cunanan also sits, alert, looking for something he can seize on to return this conversation to his control. David says he gets the feeling Cunanan doesn’t have “many great nights with people – am I right?” Cunanan makes a clueless “…and?” face; David goes on that, when Cunanan does have those nights, it feels “huge…life-changing.” David’s gentle compassion for what he thinks is a first-love/losing-one’s-virginity spasm of intense weirdness falls on deaf-ish ears, since Cunanan is only capable of the intense and weird bits, not actual love; Cunanan asserts that David did change his life. David tries again: the hotel, all the food, the whole weekend is Cunanan “trying to recreate” when they met. “It’s like we’re stuck on a first date.” Cunanan does hear the word “stuck,” and asks sulkily why David came, then. David hasn’t traveled much; Cunanan called, he “was excited.” So David didn’t come for Cunanan. David lies (I think) that he did; he wanted to see if they could take “the next step.” Cunanan asks if he doesn’t think they can. David isn’t sure. Cunanan sees an opening, a la Lloyd in Dumb & Dumber hearing that his chances with Mary are a million to one and celebrating because he only hears the “one.”

Great, Cunanan says, get to know him! What does David want to do, he’ll do anything! David says, “We get rid of all this,” and starts clearing a spot on the table; he takes off his suit coat. Cunanan mimics him exactly, from plates to taking off his jacket. They sit back down, and David exhales, “The truth.” “The truth,” Cunanan echoes cheerily, so David asks about Cunanan’s parents: “Who are they.” A flicker of terror crosses Cunanan’s face, but he flips through his mental card catalog of bullshitty stories and settles on the one about his dad being a stockbroker who made a huge fortune, listed in California’s top 500 broker…listing (which is probably not a thing), and went back to the Philippines to run “vast” pineapple plantations. Some of this is true, sort of; none of this is how most people respond to a question about their childhoods, which is really about who your parents are to you, what they’re like, not what they do and/or how well. David perceives not far into this horseshlitany that Cunanan simply isn’t and will not be capable of felt responses,

but sees it through: “And your mom?” Cunanan claims she ran a literary publishing house in New York, and is now estranged from his father. “Did you get along with them?” David asks, not expecting anything in the way of a real answer anymore, and he doesn’t get one, as Cunanan says that they love him “more than anything in the worrrrld.” Not what you were asked. He muses that they gave him anything he wanted growing up, and doesn’t have any idea that it’s weird to say your parents gave up the master bedroom for you, even if that actually occurred. But Cunanan is dimly aware that it’s time to change the subject, and asks about David’s parents. David says they run a small hardware store just outside Minneapolis, but is not even done speaking when Cunanan “remembers” to say that sometimes, when the food at school “wasn’t quite up to scratch,” he’d call his mom and she’d bring him a lobster dinner “just like this one.” He’s sure to add that he shared it with all his friends. David stares at him sadly; he’s decided that calling Cunanan on any of this is a waste, and Fern’s micro-adjustments in this entire sequence are so impressive and dimensioned. Emmys, give the kid a little something for his mantel, will you? “Your parents must have loved you very much,” David says, exhausted. “Next question,” Cunanan beams, leaning his chin on his hand flirtily. David’s done, saying he’s tired and he’s going to crash. “David,” Cunanan says, stopping him. “I’m a good person. Who wants to be good to you.” David non-answers that one day Cunanan will make “someone” very happy, he knows it. He leaves Cunanan alone with a tableful of food, and during the commercial, I hope that David locks the door of his bedroom in the suite, and that Cunanan comforts himself with that entire Caprese salad, because it looked delicious. …Look, you take the tiny bright spots with this show.

Back in San Diego, Cunanan returns to his grubby apartment to find no new messages on his answering machine. He contemplates the giant, fruitless bill from Chateau Parvenu, which is in excess of $2700. (Charges include a $40 Croque Monsieur, and champagne bottle service both in-room and “poolside.”)

Later, at Flicks, Cunanan lies to the bartender that David “said yes!” Spotting a dealer at the back of the room, he drops a show-offy tip on his drink order and heads to the dealer’s table while George Michael sings, “All we have to do now / Is take these lies, and make them true somehow.” He tells the dealer he needs something stronger, and after a tiresome visual explanation of pure crystal involving a bunch of matches, Andrew is back in his hole, injecting himself with the meth and then falling into a red-gels hole of a different sort, in which he’s getting a fitting from Gianni Versace. It’s a hallucination, but the reality of Cunanan’s corrosive self-pity persists even in an aggrandized fantasy that sees Gianni on his knees, tweaking the break in Cunanan’s pantlegs while Cunanan announces that he believes he’s the most generous person in the world. “What could be more generous than spending everything on other people and being left with nothing?” “I couldn’t say,” the politely servile Gianni of the meth-tasia murmurs, since a figment of Cunanan’s unconscious isn’t going to know emotions are not transacted but felt, much less point it out to the customer. Cunanan continues to bray about setting people up and ending up alone himself, about how people have taken and taken from him and now he’s “spent.” “A man with nothing to give is a nothing man.”

Gianni measures the suit coat and says that’s “very poetic, sir.” Cunanan goes on that the world is wasted on, and wasting, him; he adds bitterly that the world has turned Gianni into a star. “Was it the world, sir?” Gianni asks affectlessly, which sends Halluci-nanan into a rant about Gianni thinking he’s “better than” Cunanan. “We’re the same! The only difference is, you got lucky.” “Not the only difference, sir,” Gianni shrugs, moving his measuring tape from Cunanan’s shoulder to around Cunanan’s neck. “Oh yeah?” Cunanan brats. “What else you got?” “I’m loved.”

Cunanan comes to in the dark. The already sad apartment has devolved into more of a messy pit, but he’s added more pictures of Gianni and Antonio to the wall. He writhes on the bed…

…then returns to Flicks, clearly strung out, to brag to the bartender that he’s just back from Paris with David. The bartender is like, k cool, and asks what they saw; Cunanan immediately gets himself caught in a lie when he mentions the Vatican and the bartender’s like, that’s in France now? Cunanan snots that of course he was in Rome: “We’re saving Paris for our honeymoon.” “Understood,” the bartender shrugs. Hee. The tip is modest and crumply this time as Cunanan makes a beeline for the dealer again. He says he needs more time. All he’s got is time, the dealer grunts. What Cunanan needs is money.

And he’s thrashing through the underbrush outside Norman’s house later that night in pursuit of it, coated in sweat, his pink polo ringed with grime. Norman is opening a bottle of red as, outside, Andrew tries various glass outer doors, hoping to find one left open. He’s sort of half-knocking on them; not sure if he’s hoping to get caught or just trying to “hear” if the bolts are thrown, though given the meltdown he had earlier I’m a little surprised he doesn’t try a smash-and-grab. Eventually he comes upon the great room where Norman is at the bar cart, and stares wide-eyed at him, working his jaw in a nice bit of methy business from Criss. Norman senses him and half-turns. Cunanan flails away into the darkness, but only temporarily, as he’s rushed around to another set of doors and is trying to unlock the locks at the bottom. Norman comes upon him. He paws at the glass, pasting on an “oh hey so nbd buuuut” rictus and babbling that his keys don’t work, baby, can he let him in? Norman says nothing, so Cunanan switches to angry bellows of “LET ME IN!” and “I MADE THIS HOUSE!”

Norman is unmoved by this raging and pointedly lifts the cordless to his ear, not breaking eye contact with Cunanan.

We next see Cunanan at the door of his mother’s rundown apartment, where he gets a sobbing hero’s welcome despite the fact that you can almost smell him through the screen. He barely moves to hug his mother back as she repeats “my Andrew, my Andrew” over and over. Finally she breaks the clinch: “I thought you were in Milan!” Lady, look at him. Unless “Milan” is what y’all call Skid Row where you live: no. Cunanan’s face falls as she tows him inside…

…and gives him a creepy bath as he cries. She sings an Italian lullaby, telling him her mother used to sing it to her when she cried and one day he’ll sing it to his own children. Cunanan mumbles that he’s not going to have any children, and Mary Ann quavers that that’s nonsense, “life means nothing without children.” I would say that “fortunately” she’s distracted from this “a life without kids is no life at all” lecture, but I can’t, because what she’s distracted by is that his smell has changed: “You don’t smell like you.” She plunges her face into the back of his neck, crying that she knows his smell and this isn’t it. She starts scrubbing under his pits, sniffling that she’s going to make him smell like himself again. Cunanan limply allows it as she goes back to panting out the lullaby. Eeeeeesh.

Later, Mary Ann bustles around doing breakfast-y things and talking about a wealthy schoolmate of Cunanan’s, Charles Walker, whose mother always looked down on Mary Ann because they had a bigger house, or so Mary Ann remembers it, and here we arrive at the crux of Cunanan’s pathology, the idea that the rich or powerful or otherwise rarefied are sitting around thinking ill of their social or financial lessers. The truth, dimly apprehended by Cunanan on some level, I think, and ergo the cause of his chaotic rage, is that the one percent don’t think about the rest of us at all, good or bad. They don’t care. We don’t register. Anyway, Mary Ann is pleased to report that Charles Walker couldn’t get a job after college despite all his connections, and she couldn’t wait to tell Mrs. Walker about Cunanan’s schmancy gig as a costume designer for Italian operas.

Cunanan tries to interrupt her, saying he’s unhappy, but the rotten apple didn’t roll far from the tree, as Mary Ann completely ignores this to keep bragging about, um, bragging about him and his many international travels…"all the places that I have never been. And her face.“ She was "so jealous.” Her son has done so little; Mary Ann’s son has done so much.

Now Cunanan is staring dully at the family pictures on the piano. She hugs him tightly and says she “gave him everything. But it was worth it. For moments like this.” Like…inappropriately bathing your adult son, who might as well be a Resusci-Andy doll for all the attention you pay to his actual self, when he’s teetering on the lip of Catatonia Canyon? Cool. Kids are everything. Got it. She wishes he could stay with her, but she has to share him “with the world.” Please don’t. We’re alllll set.

He heads out to his car, the too-large and unflattering sweat-polo she’s kitted him out in sagging around him. She tags behind him, suspiciously eyeing the Infiniti where it’s parked amid knocked-over bulk trash waiting for pickup. After another too-tight hug, she asks where he’s headed next. Minneapolis. There’s an opera house there? There is, and was in 1996, but Cunanan just shakes his head and says he doesn’t think there is, likely knowing he could say any fucking thing and she’ll just believe what she likes. Sure enough, she beams and smooches him a dozen times. He gets in the car and starts it, and peers over his shoulder at her, saying with an air of significance, “Bye, Mom.”

Not The One | Previously.TV