Tag: january 2018

‘The Assassination of Gianni Versace’ Episode 2: The Great Creator

Like the 2001 film “Memento,” the second season of “American Crime Story” unfolds in reverse chronological order: Each episode recounts events preceding those of the episode before.

So here we are in Episode 2, just before the murderous rampage of Andrew Cunanan reaches its climax. We learn of his sadism: A chilling bedroom scene involving duct tape, scissors and a would-be sugar daddy contains a sublime mix of comedy and terror. We learn of his lies: He tells absurd yarns more easily and smoothly than most people tell the truth. We learn of his jealousies: He seems more interested in the accomplishments of the men he stalks than in notching any accomplishments of his own.

What we have yet to learn is what this all adds up to — what makes Cunanan distinctive from any other serial killer, other than his lively intelligence and large vocabulary — or the answer to, in my view, the crucial question: Did Cunanan’s experience as a gay man in the ’80s and ’90s inform his violent psychopathy? And if so, why and how?

Perhaps I’m too interested in causation — I’m a newsman, keep in mind — but isn’t that what we want to know? If sexuality winds up being to “Versace” what race was to “The People v. O.J. Simpson,” the first season of “American Crime Story,” we will need a framework for understanding its role in the crime. There are still seven episodes to go, so I’m hoping that what right now are tantalizing but scattered hints cohere into a whole.

To its credit, the episode does make clear that law enforcement was reticent, if not downright homophobic, about using the gay community to find Cunanan, who was wanted for four killings before he murdered Versace. An F.B.I. agent insists that their target is an expert predator targeting wealthier, closeted older gay men and unlikely to frequent clubs. Lori Wieder (Dascha Polanco), a Miami Beach police detective, urges investigators to canvas the South Beach clubs with fliers and pleas for the public’s help, but she is overruled.

Cunanan emerges as a truly terrifying figure in this episode, thanks to the strong performance by Darren Criss (“Glee”), whose emotional range is put to effective use. He steals license plates in a Walmart parking lot and breaks into a deranged smile when a little girl stares at him in suspicion. He switches the radio station when a newscaster says he is wanted for the murder of Lee Miglin — a victim we haven’t yet met — and manically sings along to Laura Branigan’s “Gloria.” He checks into a seedy South Beach hotel and smooth-talks the receptionist. Scoping out the Versace mansion, he comes face to face with a life-size medallion of Medusa, the mythical Gorgon whose image Versace adopted as a logo, on the front gate. It’s an even match; Cunanan is scary as hell.

I’m struck by his verbosity — has any serial killer ever had so much to say? His monologues reflect an eye for detail and, of course, a penchant for self-promotion, even delusion.

“I need to make my way in the world,” he tells the hotel receptionist, explaining his interest in being mentored by the Italian designer. “I think Mr. Versace will find my conversation very excellent. I would say, ‘Sir, nothing is more inspiring to me than that one outfit that Carla Bruni wore. It was a skirt of crinoline, like a giant floral handkerchief fastened with a gold belt and daringly mismatched with a denim shirt.’”

He lies with abandon, not caring whether his fabrications are even remotely plausible. Befriending a drifter — Ron (Max Greenfield), a fellow gay man who is hanging out at the hotel — Cunanan discusses with him the loved ones they’ve lost to AIDS and other tragedies. Even the most personal statements seem hard to believe, as when he insists that he “lost the best friend and the love of my life” — both that very year.

He tells Ron that he and Versace met in San Francisco and that the two were once an item and that Versace had proposed — almost certainly a lie. He gushes about Versace’s talent: “The man invented his own fabrics. When they told him what he wanted wasn’t possible, he just created it himself.”

He adds: “I don’t see something nice. I see the man behind it. A great creator. A man I could have been.”

Ron asks: “Or been with?”

Later, as if to complete the occupational tour d’horizon we’ve been on, he tells a young man named Brad (what else?) at a noisy gay dance club that he’s a serial killer, the only definite truth he’s uttered thus far.

When Brad looks confused, Cunanan spins again, in a monologue so wondrous it deserves reproduction:

This Whitmanesque survey of economic possibility took my breath away. What if this young, handsome, eloquent man had pursued dreams that didn’t involve duct tape and scissors? Such a pity.

The other story in this episode is of Versace’s final weeks, focused in particular on his relationships with his longtime partner, Antonio D’Amico, and his sister and muse, Donatella. Played by a sultry, terrific Penélope Cruz, she worries — unnecessarily we are told — that her brother’s brand needs refreshing, lest it be overtaken by new designers like Alexander McQueen and John Galliano.

Of greater emotional consequence is Donatella’s stabilizing influence on her brother and on his partner, whom she scorns for not demonstrating greater fidelity or a willingness to start a family. Whether it’s because of her chiding or a premonition of imminent doom or simply the result of getting older, D’Amico relents. “I want to marry you,” he tells Versace. The designer is skeptical.

“You can say it in the morning,” he asks. “But can you say it in the evening?”

Earlier in the episode, the couple visit a hospital — Versace in the celebrity semi-disguise of a hoodie and sunglasses — where two AIDS patients, emaciated and deathly ill, can be seen. Lifesaving “cocktails” of antiretroviral therapies had become available, lifting the death sentence the epidemic had imposed on a generation of gay men. Versace, who takes a blood test, recalls that before Donatella was born, he lost an older sister, Tina, to peritonitis.

“Until that moment, I always believed that if you get sick you can also get better,” he says.

The episode doesn’t explicitly state that Versace was HIV-positive, as the journalist Maureen Orth contended in her book “Vulgar Favors,” on which this television series is loosely based. The implication is certainly strong. But from a dramatic perspective, it’s not important what his illness was — what matters is that the prospect of premature death hung over these men, who grappled with questions of loyalty, commitment and family, years before same-sex marriage seemed possible, much less became the law of the land. It’s poignant and well worth pondering how Versace’s genius and relationships might have evolved had his life not been cut short at age 50.

Fragments:

• Race has so far been a subsidiary theme, but for brief references to Cunanan’s Asian heritage. (His father was Filipino.) But there’s a telling moment when Cunanan is at a pizzeria and an employee, who has seen the most-wanted poster, goes to the back and dials 911. “Is he black or white?” the dispatcher asks the pizza worker, who is himself black and looks confused. “White guy — he killed four white guys,” the worker pleads. As if any greater urgency were needed.

• A post-mortem scene — in which Versace’s body is lovingly dressed by his sister before cremation — is arguably this episode’s most elegant. His ashes are scooped into an ornate metal box, which flies back to Italy with Donatella. Impeccably tasteful.

‘The Assassination of Gianni Versace’ Episode 2: The Great Creator

Max Greenfield on his haunting ‘Assassination of Gianni Versace’ role and the end of ‘New Girl’

One of the great surprises of The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story is the completely transformative performance by New Girl’s Max Greenfield. The actor plays Ronnie, a junkie who befriends Andrew Cunanan (Darren Criss) and is unaware that his new acquaintance is a wanted serial killer.

In only a handful of scenes, Greenfield creates a full-bodied tragic character — even Ronnie’s walk feels specific and thoughtful. The actor previously worked with executive producer Ryan Murphy on American Horror Story: Hotel, which also found the actor exploring a much darker side than New Girl fans were used to seeing.

EW talked to Greenfield about reuniting with Murphy, crafting his Versacecharacter, and, naturally, Darren Criss’ pink Speedo.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Was this just the case of Ryan Murphy calling you up and asking you to do this role? How did this come about?
MAX GREENFIELD: Ryan and I keep in touch. He knew that I had finished New Girl, and he knew I was off. We ran into each other and he was like, “What are you doing?” and I was like, “I don’t know, man.” I think I had wrapped that week. He goes, “I wanna show you a couple of things.” And this happened to be one of the things he showed me. He sent me the first two scripts. I went off and looked at it, and I thought it was incredible. I didn’t know that I could do it. I’m certainly not the person that you think of when you would read this on paper. Like, “Oh, that’s a no-brainer!”

So I put myself on tape for it. I wanted to see if I could do it, and I got to a place where I felt like, “Oh, now I sorta love this guy!” I sent Ryan the tape and I said, “I don’t know if this is any good, but this is what it would look like.” Two and a half weeks later, I was in Miami.

Did you lose weight? You look much skinnier, or maybe that was just your psychical performance.
It was probably a little bit of both. The previous summer I had done The Glass Castle, which was a great experience. But I was supposed to have an arm-wrestling match with Woody Harrelson in the movie. The one note from the director was, “Hey, man, this is a big scene in the movie. I know you’re like a fit guy. Can you not work out as much?” I was like, “I will not touch another weight.” And I didn’t for like a long time, and I ended up losing a lot of size. On New Girl, I’m always like in cardigans, and I just don’t think it really played. But in this, mixed with the fact that I’m like, “Oh, in two weeks I’m going to be in Miami? I don’t have to eat I guess.” But I also think it was the physicality and the buzz cut and the whole thing.

What was it about Ronnie that you responded to?
What I really loved about him and what I found so heartbreaking about him … I knew he was based on a real guy, but I knew physically we didn’t resemble one another. What I found so heartbreaking about him, and as I started to research the period of the time, but I knew a little bit about — it’s funny when you research something as an actor, you might know about that period of time. But when you’re then asked to come at it from a place of, I’m going to have to play this person, really understanding what 1997 and that the period around that meant for somebody in the LGBT community who has HIV, and the idea that a year and a half earlier they had figured out the correct medication to give patients who had accepted over the past 15-plus years that they were going to die! They watched everybody else around them die — how on earth would it be any different? You hear people who are still living with HIV who lived through that time to this day talk about the fact that they still have difficulty wrapping their head around that tomorrow isn’t going to be my last day? Or this isn’t going to turn on me?

But what I also loved about Ronnie and what he represented is you can see through Ryan’s other work and Larry Kramer’s work, these people from the ACT UP movement who were like taking it head on. But you never saw the people who gave into it and didn’t fight and just thought, “This is my fate and this is what I deserve.” And I think Ronnie was one of those people, and it broke my heart. I thought, “I love this guy.”

Did you find any comparisons between Ronnie and Gabriel, the character you played on AHS: Hotel?
I think in the sense maybe that these are two guys who were lost. Totally lost.

How as it working with Darren?
It was really great. It was intense. As heartbreaking as Ronnie was, part of that heartbreak was his relationship with Andrew and the fact that he was enamored by this guy, and also sort of thinking he had made a friend. He was so alone and thought this was a guy who came to Miami for the same reasons he had. Watching him sort of try to keep up with Andrew and carry on a normal conversation with him like friends might do and listen to this guy who was so all over the place. The humor of that is not lost on me. I mean, there is an element of like, man, this is an odd couple!

What was it like when Darren emerged from the bathroom with duct tape on his face?
The nice thing of a scene like that is they’re not very hard to play! If you’re in character and the scene is “Be freaked out by the guy who walks out of the bathroom with his head wrapped in duct tape,” I’d love to say I’m an incredible actor, but at that point it’s not that hard.

You also have to spend a fair amount of time staring at Darren in a pink Speedo; was that an odd day at work?
That is so par for the course on a Ryan show. Honestly, it couldn’t be less weird.

I guess you did previously yank Naomi Campbell through a bed on Hotel.
[The beach scene] was honestly one of the more casual days I’ve ever had on a Ryan set [laughs].

Why do you and Ryan work so well together?
Um, it’s not me. There’s a couple factors: I really love Ryan. I love what he does. He has set the bar so high for performances on his projects that if you don’t come prepared and ready to go, I don’t know why you’re there. That to me is all I wanna do.

Then, there’s the fun idea, which is like to surprise or excite Ryan, which is really hard to do.

The third thing, and this really is why it works out so well, is because the people that work for Ryan, his department heads, these people are so astronomically good at their job. If you utilize them as an actor under the umbrella of what Ryan has given us all for who this character is, the next thing you know you have the right clothes on, you have the earring, your hands are dirty, your head is shaved, you have the right mustache. Everything is just right, and you then don’t have to work that hard. To me I think the reason why I’ve been really happy and satisfied and why I think they’ve been successful collaborations is because of the people he surrounds himself with. They’re so good.

Now that New Girl is ending, would you want to be on a Ryan Murphy series?
Look, Ryan is one of those people if I saw his number pop up on my phone, I’d say, “I’ll be at Fox in five minutes.”

What can you say about the finale of New Girl?
What I love about the season and the way we wrap it up is I equate it to like a rock musician who plays a rock concert and goes, “You know what, you guys? Tonight I’m playing the hits! We’re just gonna play all the songs you love.” I love that they did that. I love what Liz [Meriwether] and the rest of the writers did. I think it’s a real love letter to the fans. It’s all of the greatest hits from seven seasons.

Max Greenfield on his haunting ‘Assassination of Gianni Versace’ role and the end of ‘New Girl’

American Crime Story begins to paint a portrait of a killer

“Manhunt” B-“

“Manhunt,” like the pilot episode, jumps back and forth in time and between characters, an approach that I’m still not sure totally works. Versace is still alive (save for a brief moment in the cold open that takes place after his death) and Andrew is on the run for a different murder: Lee Miglin. Yet “Manhunt” doesn’t, as I expected it to, then jump back to introduce us to Lee and everything that happened there. (That, presumably, will be in a later episode.) It just takes us to Andrew’s arrival in Miami.

What “Manhunt” does do quite successfully is plunge further into Andrew’s world, a blend of fact and fiction. It’s fascinating and disturbing (the best blend of Ryan Murphy’s strengths) the more we see how skilled Andrew is atlying, whether he’s breezing through a story about being a “fashion student” who wants to meet Versace or when he’s confidently telling new friend Ronnie all about how Versace proposed to Andrew. It didn’t work out, Andrew says with the casualness of a less-important conversation, but they’re still friends. His fictional relationship with Versace is so strong that Andrew becomes defensive, insisting that the more someone knows Versace, the more they’ll love his clothes. To Andrew, Versace is “a great creator—a man I could have been.” He doesn’t want to elaborate. (And that’s to say nothing of the mini-monologue Andrew gives a dancing partner at the end of the episode, able to confidently say he’s a banker, a spy, a propane salesman, etc. all in one breath.)

“Manhunt” also introduces one of the major real-life controversies surrounding The Assassination of Gianni Versace: the fashion designer’s health. In Vulgar Favors, author and Vanity Fair reporter Maureen Orth alleges that Gianni Versace was HIV-positive and that she was told this, on the record (some people also believe this is why Versace’s body was cremated and rushed out of the country so quickly). Versace’s family denies it but Orth still stands by it. Assassination includes this in the cold open which flashes back to a sick Versace, accompanied by Antonio, getting blood tests and treatment in a hospital. Perhaps to give themselves some leeway, the episode doesn’t say it’s specifically HIV (Donatella did say Versace beat cancer six months before his death) but it’s more than implied.

HIV was heavily looming over the culture at the time so it’s necessary here—Ronnie is HIV-positive, and explains how he once thought he had only one month to live—but whether or not Assassination needed to include it specifically with regard to Versace’s unconfirmed status is certainly another question, especially as it feels a bit shoehorned into the cold open. But it does work in the conversation between Ronnie and Andrew: Ronnie is immediately open and talks with an underlying sadness; Andrew lies about how he lost both the “love of my life” and his best friend to the disease, both in one year. There is nothing Andrew won’t lie about in order to fit in, or in order to capitalize on people’s emotions and sympathy to make sure they remain on his side. (The earlier scene where he’s practicing “I don’t want to be a pain” for something as simple as switching his hotel room is telling, too. He wants to make sure he remains in the hotel clerk’s good graces—just in case.)

As for other series-long thematic elements at play, “Manhunt” brings up two in one scene: being closeted (which popped up last week, too) and BDSM. Andrew, in dire need of cash, picks up a businessman he meets on a beach—a man who readily admits “I can be submissive”—and goes back to his hotel. It’s vaguely reminiscent of both junior-league American Psycho and Murphy’s campier American Horror Story elements as Andrew wraps the man’s entire head in tape and listens to him struggle while dancing around in a speedo, all scored to “Easy Lover.” Jump to afterward and the man is visibly shaken from the encounter, quietly urging room service to come back in thirty minutes, and keeping his distance while Andrew enjoys some surf and turf.

As soon as Andrew leaves, the man bolts the door and calls 911 … but he ends up not reporting anything. From the ring he slips back on his finger, the assumption is that he’s closeted and married to a woman—and if he reports anything, he’ll likely be outed. It’s an uncomfortable scene for a number of reasons, and one surface-level reading—that the limitations of being closeted helped Andrew continue for so long—doesn’t feel right. (As for the BDSM factor, well, truthfully I can’t speak to how it will play out in the long run with this season, but Orth’s emphasis on linking Andrew’s interest in BDSM pornography/activities to his murder spree was often frustrating to read in a way that made me deeply uneasy, but hopefully it’s done better here.)

Distilling “Manhunt” into one short recap is annoyingly hard, because it was telling so many stories at once, and some better than others. There’s the investigation and how agents claimed Andrew was a “predatory escort” who targets “closeted, older, wealthy” gay men, and assumed he’d be in Ft. Lauderdale rather than Miami, thus not allowing Detective Lori Weider to warn bar owners/community leaders in Miami (or to put up flyers, which the pawn shop employee would have definitely had hanging on her wall). There is Versace and Donatella’s backstage conversation which didn’t hit as well as it could, maybe because it was trying too hard to link back to his alleged illness or to hammer home what Andrew took away from the world (though that is necessary to reiterate!). However, Versace and Antonio’s conversations in which Antonio says that he wants just Versace, not the other men, were all lovely to watch and felt more natural. Ronnie and Andrew’s drug moments were just disquieting enough—Andrew’s abrupt taped-up shower was chilling—and Max Greenfield portrays Ronnie with incredible depth.

Mostly, I keep thinking about timeline. It doesn’t yet feel effective, but it is interesting that it mirrors how we often learn about serial killers: We hear their names, we learn about their murders, and then—if we choose to keep digging—we read their personal details (any relationships, mental illnesses, drug or alcohol abuse, etc.). Finally, if we stick around, we might learn a bit about the victims themselves. And that, too, is something that I keep thinking about while watching: How much time will Assassination dedicate to the victims? Hopefully, more than most true crime series, especially as it keeps unfolding backwards.

  • Seriously, there are about fifty other things I’d like to yell about if I had the space. Dascha Polanco—an obvious standout on Orange Is The New Black—is putting out an effortlessly lowkey performance, and I hope she becomes an ACS mainstay.
  • The restaurant employee calling 911 on Andrew, but being unable to remember his name, and the police getting there just a bit too late reads so much like fiction but it’s not! One thing about the Versace/Cunanan case that I am utterly fascinated by is how many super-close calls there were, and how often Andrew escaped unscathed.
  • OK, one final thing: the soundtrack is superb.

American Crime Story begins to paint a portrait of a killer

‘The Assassination of Gianni Versace’ recap: Welcome to Miami

We gave it an A-

This week’s episode begins like we’re seeing a bizarro-universe version of last week’s: Versace is in a hospital again, but this time he’s standing, looking at the bodies of two gaunt men in beds, while holding Antonio’s hand. At first glance, a viewer might mistake the sick bodies for theirs.

He’s getting treated for something, but the show is intentionally vague on what that something is. The Versace family has always maintained that Gianni Versace was HIV negative, and suffered from ear cancer in the final ears of his life, but the obvious implication here is AIDS — as a gay man living at the height of the epidemic, Versace would have been at risk, and the doctor’s comments about new possibilities with regards to treatment seems to line up. Artistically, it makes sense: It provides a counterbalance to Cunanan, who will emphatically deny being “sick” to Ronnie later in the episode. But vagueness is the best choice of all, mirroring the conversation and speculation that followed Versace in real life.

Versace returns home from the hospital to lounge on a gilded daybed in the center of a room, looking like Marat in the tub, with his sister sitting over him. “What is Versace without you?” she asks. “It is you,” he replies. The scene dissolves from tableau to familial drama: Donatella blames Antonio for Versace’s illness, or for failing to protect him (again, this subtext works better with the implication of AIDS. How was Antonio supposed to protect him from ear cancer?). Antonio asks for basic respect but Donatella balks. He gave her brother neither children nor safety. “If you had given him anything I would have given you respect, but you have given him nothing,” she says. Versace pleads for all three of them to be a family, but things seem prickly at best.

We are transported to the house after Versace’s death, with Donatella watching people place their offerings at the gate. “He is gone, Antonio. There is no need for us to pretend anymore.”

The mortician begins his work of making Versace look as near to his living photograph as possible. Donatella arrives to see his body, bringing a suit for him. She tenderly tightens his tie in the coffin and fixes his cufflinks. He looks perfect, almost living, and then he is cremated. All of that beautiful effort is turned to ashes, and put in a gold box to go back to Italy on a plane with Donatella.

Meanwhile, it’s 1996 again, and Cunanan drives a red pickup truck to Walmart, where he changes the license plate in the parking lot and smiles at a little girl staring at him before driving away. From the radio, we hear that he’s a suspect for the death of Lee Miglin (who had been Cunanan’s third victim), which confirms what we probably suspected: This is before the assassination of Versace. Cunanan, singing along to “Gloria” in the car, screaming out the window, dancing in his seat, is gleefully driving to Miami.

Using a fake passport, Cunanan books a room at the Normandy Plaza (where a massive art piece of Marilyn Monroe emphasizes the show’s theme of celebrity and notoriety) and we see another of Cunanan’s easy lies. “Born in Nice. Have you been?” He’s sociopathically smooth, and it’s a credit to Darren Criss that the oil leaks from his words.

Now that he’s made it to Miami, he heads to Versace’s home, only to find the gates locked. And so he’ll wait for his opportunity, buying sunglasses and a hat and a camera from beachside vender, taking dozens of pictures of the houses to set up a creepy serial killer collage back on the hotel wall.

Even before Versace’s death, Cunanan was on the FBI’s top 10 most wanted list, and the FBI came to Miami to inform local police that they’re operating with the assumption that Cunanan is in town or coming soon.

The FBI agents condescendingly rebuff Detective Lori Weider’s (Dascha Polanco) questions. The FBI only has 10 fliers of Cunanan, and they’re not paying attention to the Miami gay scene. “The fliers aren’t a priority for us,” the agent says. (That decision will come back to bite them in the ass when Cunanan uses his real name to pawn a gold coin, and the pawn shop owner will look over at the bulletin board of posters and not see his face.) Weider photocopies a few herself.

Even as a wanted man, Cunanan lives with complete freedom. He talks his way into an oceanfront room with a little practiced speech and befriends the HIV-positive Ronnie (Max Greenfield) who had been hanging around outside. Ronnie’s appeal is clear: Cunanan loves an audience. He talks endlessly about Versace’s fashion and their close friendship, balking only when Ronnie seems skeptical about his obvious lies.

On the beach, Cunanan does what is implied to have become a habit: becoming an escort for wealthy, older men. He finds one and returns to his hotel room, where the man’s suggestion (“I can be submissive”) is all he needs to duct tape around his head, neck, and eyes — and finally, his mouth.

The man begins to struggle. Cunanan turns up the music and flirts with a pair of scissors. “Accept it,” he repeats. “Accept it. Accept it,” chanting it like a mantra, or the chorus of a song. While the man flails for air, Cunanan dances around the room in the show’s most unsettling scene to date.

Finally, Cunanan in his tiny bathing suit straddles the man and raises the pair of scissors above his head. It’s not obvious what he’s going to do. He stabs the man in the face — allowing him to breathe.

The man, alive but still looking very shaken, answers the door for room service in a robe. Cunanan gleefully eats and tells pretty lies about his mother packing his lunch when he was growing up. The man locks the door after Cunanan and puts back on his wedding ring. He calls 911 but hangs up. Cunanan’s greatest ally is the shame men feel about their gay dalliances.

In Versace’s glamorous life, the designer is arguing with Donatella about which models to use for the show. He doesn’t want girls who look too skinny. He prefers girls who look like they enjoy eating, sex, life. What do these models enjoy?

“Front covers,” Donatella answers. She is the business end of the operation, the public face who understands how to stay relevant and get people excited about a brand. Versace designs the beautiful, beautiful clothing — he has a vision. And he executes that vision at the show, ending with a “Versace bride” in a silver mini-dress. Even Donatella gives him a thumbs up from backstage.

His relationship with Antonio is evolving as well. “I don’t want this anymore,” Antonio says about their open, polyamorous lifestyle while Versace is swimming in his pool. “I want you. I want to marry you.”

“You can say it in the morning, but can you say it in the evening?” Versace answers, and swims back to the other end of the pool.

Presumably only a few miles away, Ronnie and Cunanan are cohabiting a room, and Ronnie is beginning to realize how dangerous his new friend really is. While Ronnie talks through the bathroom door about wanting to open a florist kiosk, Cunanan wraps his entire head in duct tape, from the nose up. “Andrew,” Ronnie finally asks. “What did you do?”

“Nothing,” Cunanan says. “I’ve done nothing my whole life.”

Cunanan pawns a gold coin (stolen, I assume, from the man he duct-taped). The pawn shop woman, who knows enough to be suspicious, asks where he got it. “It’s a remarkable story,” Cunanan says, with his usual grease. We don’t even get to hear it, because we don’t need to. Everything is an easy lie. He is the talented Mr. Ripley without the talent at impressions.

While walking past the Versace house, Cunanan sees a woman with long blond hair trying to get in the front gate, pretending to be Donatella. Versace appears on the balcony. “Baby, I can only handle one Donatella, one is enough!” he calls out, trying to get the woman to leave. “Big kiss for you.”

Cunanan sprints home, thinking this is his shot. He grabs his gun and pulls all of the photos down on the wall before charging back down the hallway.

“We were friends, that was real, right?” Ronnie asks when he sees Cunanan leaving. He knows this is the end. “When someone asks if we were friends,” Cunanan says, “you’ll say no.”

But Versace isn’t home anymore — he goes out to the club with Antonio (who repeats his desire to get married, this time at night). And Cunanan gets a sandwich, where the clerk recognizes him from America’s Most Wanted and calls the police. Of course, by the time the police get there, he’s gone, managing to get to the same club where Versace went (again, just missing him). If only the police had staked out the clubs — this is one of the sites the detective mentioned specifically.

Cunanan doesn’t know Versace is gone yet, and so he frantically scans every face. When someone asks who he is, he rattles off every identity. I’m Andy. I’m a serial killer. I’m a banker. I’m a stockbroker, shareholder, set builder, importer. And then the most important identity: “I’m the person least likely to be forgotten.” It’s Cunanan’s desire above all else: to be someone like Versace, someone important, who’s created something incredible. He wants to be remembered, linked to Versace in death if not in life.

Which makes you wonder whom exactly this television show is serving.

‘The Assassination of Gianni Versace’ recap: Welcome to Miami

The Assassination of Gianni Versace Recap: Easy Lover

Editor’s Rating: ★★★★☆

I don’t know how it’s possible to have two songs stuck in my head at once, but after this episode, both Phil Collins’ “Easy Lover” and Laura Branigan’s “Gloria” are competing for the space between my ears. The idea of Andrew Cunanan singing “Gloria” while wagging his head out of the window like a Labradoodle on the way to the park just seems incredibly reckless, no? How can one possible drive like that? How many crashes do you think Darren Criss got in before they finally got the shot they needed?

Anyway, Cunanan’s insistence on turning the radio station away from the tales of his crime and finding a little bit of escapist beauty is one of the keys to his off-kilter personality. He’s always looking for it, even in the portrait of Marilyn Monroe in the lobby of the disgustingly seedy Normandy Plaza hotel. (Only $29.99 a night! There’s always a vacancy!) He does it again while laying out all of the Versace magazine ads around him on the hotel’s disgusting carpet, and yet again when he recalls Versace’s “proposal” to him while bathing in a public shower on the beach.

Cunanan is obviously destitute and on the run, but that doesn’t stop him from living in his own fantasy world, where everything is fantastic and he is going to walk out of his discount motel and be discovered on the beach and get carted away to a life of fame and luxury. “I don’t see something nice,” he tells his new friend Ronnie about Versace’s clothing. “I see the man behind it. I see a great creator. I see the man I could have been.” That’s the key right there. Andrew thinks that nothing separates him from Versace when everything is what separates them.

With this episode, it becomes clear that the action of the series is moving backward and forward at the same time. While we’re dealing with the aftermath of Versace’s shooting and the hunt to find Cunanan, we’re also seeing Donatella grappling with her brother’s death and her desire to take control of the company. However, we’re also moving backward in both men’s lives, finding out how they intersected on that deadly doorstep by slowly retracing their steps.

For Andrew, we find out that he was hanging out in Miami for about a month, chilling with crackhead Ronnie and turning tricks with old men on the beach. The “Easy Lover” scene is by far the best so far, too: The song is a little bit on the nose for Cunanan’s appointment with a married, older business man from out of town, but that is the camp genius of it. We see Andrew, in his underwear and a blousy open shirt, swanning about while his lover nearly suffocates under a hood of duct tape. Andrew is telling his lover to submit to him; he wants control because he feels so absolutely out of control of the rest of his life.

Meanwhile, Andrew’s friendship with Ronnie is odd. He needs someone who he can impress and who will make him feel superior, but it also seems like he’s grasping for connection anywhere he can find it. Ronnie is happy to oblige. After all, Andrew is attractive, glamorous, carrying drugs, and willing to cut Ronnie in on his escort money for doing nothing at all.

There’s an interesting parallel between Ronnie and Versace here: They both thought they were going to die of AIDS and then were revitalized thanks to advances in medication that happened in the ‘90s. Gianni had gotten very ill, an illness that was kept from the public, and Donatella blamed his philandering lover Antonio for bringing men into their life and possibly causing Gianni to contract HIV. “If you would have given him anything, I would have given him respect, but you have given him nothing,” she tells Antonio.

Donatella is also grappling with the knowledge that she isn’t the genius that her brother is. She castigates him for letting designers like John Galliano and Alexander McQueen steal the spotlight from him and pushes him to be more modern. He says his clothes need to come from his emotions. They decide to each dress a few models in his upcoming show and they’ll see how people react. Of course, everyone loves Gianni’s clothes and they merely mumble when Donatella’s models saunter down the runway.

At home, Antonio is trying his best to have his cake and eat twinks’ asses too. We see Antonio romping in bed with several beauties (speaking of beauties, Ricky Martin’s butt!) while Gianni sits nearby and sketches. Antonio thought they were procuring men for them both, but it’s not what Gianni wants anymore. In the morning, Antonio says he wants to marry Gianni, though this was long before marriage equality was even a glimmer in the eye of the Human Rights Campaign. Gianni brilliantly retorts, “You can say that in the morning, but can you say it in the evening?”

That brings us to Twist. Twist is one of the all-time greatest gay dance clubs in the world. It’s still in operation in Miami and almost directly behind where Versace’s house was at the time. It’s a large, sprawling club with multiple dance floors on various levels and a small shack in the courtyard where brawny Latin men in banana hammocks offer lap dances for $20 a pop. God, Twist is major. This episode was not filmed in the real Twist, but it will have to do.

Anyway, Andrew and Gianni almost collide at Twist the night before their fatal encounter. Andrew initially sees Gianni fighting with a drag impersonator of Donatella, then runs home to get his gun to kill the designer while he knows he’s in residence. Instead, Gianni and Antonio take off for Twist to bask in the recognition of being local gay celebrities and maybe bring home a shirtless circuit boy or two. But Antonio doesn’t want them anymore, and they have a moment of affection where he finally declares that he wants Gianni at night too.

Cunanan heads to Twist as well, but they don’t quite meet up. This, as it happens, also shows how the FBI has been screwing up the manhunt for Cunanan because they don’t understand the gay community. When they roll into Miami, the local police tell them that the spots popular with the gay community are Twist and the 12th Street Beach, the two places we’ve seen Andrew hang out. But instead, they want to focus in Fort Lauderdale, thinking that he’ll be looking for older, wealthy gentlemen to take advantage of. If only they had bothered to listen and staked out at Twist and the beach, Cunanan wouldn’t have kept escaping like he did when the guy at the deli recognized him from America’s Most Wanted.

Instead, we see Andrew finally make his way into Twist, where, unable to find Gianni, he loses himself on the dance floor. He’s quickly approached by a handsome young man who asks him what he does. Andrew spews all of his lies, manufacturing all of those gossamer webs that he’s been spinning all at once. Rather than luring this man into his web, it repels him, his insanity driving him away. Then he finally says, “I’m the one least likely to be forgotten.” It is the only true thing he says in the whole episode.

The Assassination of Gianni Versace Recap: Easy Lover

‘The Assassination of Gianni Versace’ Recap: Andrew Arrives in Miami

For the second episode of American Crime Story season 2, we’re going back two months to see what Andrew was doing in Miami before killing Gianni Versace, as well as what the FBI WASN’T doing. There are payoffs to things that were set-up in the first episode (the pawn shop and Max Greenfield’s Ronnie) and a lot of set-up for future episodes.

While Cunanan’s disturbing psychology is interesting and gives this episode a fantastic ending, the other storylines seem a little too trite. Gianni Versace continues to be portrayed as a saintly, flawless human being while the show emphasizes how many times his murder could’ve been prevented if not for bad FBI work, gay shame and loud club music.

Gianni’s Health Scare

The episode begins in March 1994 when Gianni visits a hospital and though it’s not made explicit, the implication is that he’s HIV positive and getting treatment. This leads to more details on the rift between Gianni’s sister Donatella and his partner Antonio. She blames him for Gianni’s illness because he sleeps around, but they agree to be civil for Gianni’s sake.

Antonio challenges Donatella by insisting that he’s not a villain and Gianni isn’t a saint. That’s almost laughable, because throughout these first two episodes Gianni Versace is depicted as being quite saintly, a flawless genius who is friendly to everyone and even complains about the models for his runway show being too thin. The show’s portrayal of Gianni Versace is more like the idealistic, romanticized version of him that exists in Andrew Cunanan’s mind.

After the murder in 1997, Gianni’s body is cremated and Donatella flies his remains back to Italy, lamenting the fact that he died like this after what he survived. The whole opening sequence is a little too on-the-nose, a bit sterile and forced as the show takes us through every little detail of the remains being boxed up.

Andrew Comes to Miami

In the episode’s third time jump, we’re in May of 1997, two months before the assassination. Andrew drives south in the red pick-up truck the cops found in the first episode. He hears a news report about how he’s the prime suspect in the murder of Lee Miglin (a tease for next week’s episode). 

Andrew goes to a hotel to get a room and turns on the charm and the lies, using a fake French passport and rambling on about being a fashion student hoping to talk to Gianni Versace. He gets his seedy room and goes right to Versace’s mansion, but the door is locked, naturally. He buys a camera and takes a ton of photos of the mansion, stalking his victim and obsession.

Andrew Makes a Friend

Andrew befriends another guest at the hotel, Ronnie (New Girl’s Max Greenfield), the guy we saw at the end of the premiere who denied knowing Andrew. Ronnie is an HIV positive drug addict who has lived a hard life and is just trying to enjoy his final years.

Andrew continues his habit of being whoever he needs to be with whoever he’s with, claiming he worked for an AIDS charity in California. He also reveals that both his best friend and the love of his life died earlier this year (again, a tease for future episodes).

While taking an outdoor shower after stripping down to skimpy pink briefs, Andrew waxes poetic about how Versace proposed to him, but he declined and they’re still friends. Andrew goes on and on about what a brilliant creator Versace is and how he’s the man that Andrew could’ve been. This is turning into Amadeus, if Salieri wasn’t a rival composer, but just some delusional nut job.

Andrew Makes Some Money

Andrew needs money, so he spies an old man looking at him on the beach and approaches him. They go back to the man’s hotel room and things get very disturbing. The man wants to be submissive, so Andrew wraps his entire head with duct tape, even his eyes and his mouth so the man can’t breathe.

Andrew dances around in his skimpy underwear, ordering the man to accept his helplessness as he struggles to tear off the tape to try and breathe. Once the man finally stops struggling, Andrew jams a pair of scissors into his mouth to make a hole in the tape so he can finally breathe.

In the aftermath, Andrew enjoys some room service as the man seems absolutely terrified for his life. When Andrew leaves the man locks the door and calls 911, but he looks at his wedding ring and doesn’t say anything. The shame of being a closeted homosexual prevents him from reporting Andrew’s clearly psychotic behavior.

With the money he earned, Andrew and Ronnie buy some drugs and get high. Ronnie fantasizes about starting a flower shop together while Andrew wraps his own head in duct tape, an obvious metaphor for his desire to completely obscure who he truly is.

The Manhunt

The show offers even more evidence that the FBI really dropped the ball on this investigation. Two months before the murder the FBI comes to Miami under the theory that Andrew , who has already killed four people and is on the 10 Most Wanted List, is heading there. The local detective (Orange Is the New Black’s Dascha Polanco, who we met last week) wants to canvas the gay bars and hand out flyers, but the FBI insists that the flyers aren’t ready and that Andrew’s M.O. is going after older, closeted gay men, so they shouldn’t waste their time on gay clubs.

The detective decides to photocopy the FBI’s flyer herself and hangs one up, but it’s mostly covered by the end of the episode. We also see Andrew going to the pawn shop from the first episode and cashing in a gold coin. The woman is suspicious of him and looks at her bulletin board of wanted posters, but those flyers are still in the FBI dude’s trunk.

These scenes really hammer home the idea that the local detective was a brilliant heroine who probably could’ve prevented Versace’s death if not for the FBI’s total incompetence. This season may be a lot of things, but subtle isn’t one of them.

“Life Is Precious”

A little over a week before the assassination, Versace has a runway show and he complains about how the models are too thin. Donatella criticizes him for not being cutting edge and modern, which is costing them magazine covers. Gianni, however, is simply happy to still be alive. He doesn’t want to make dark and morbid clothes like Donatella wants, he wants to celebrate the joy of life because it’s special.

At night Gianni sketches some new designs while Antonio has sex with another man in their bed right next to him. Antonio asks Gianni to join, but he just tells Antonio to have fun. The next morning Antonio says he doesn’t want to sleep with other guys anymore, he wants to marry Gianni. But Gianni thinks he only says this in the morning, not at night.

The Night Before

On the night before the assassination, Andrew is walking past the Versace mansion and sees Gianni. With proof that he’s there, Andrew rushes back to his hotel to grab his gun and all of his stuff, ready to commit the murder. Andrew runs off, but first he gives Ronnie some money and tells him that if anyone ever asks if they were friends, Ronnie will say “No.”

Andrew grabs some dinner, but the server recognizes him from America’s Most Wanted and calls the cops. In the funniest scene of the episode, this heroic bystander, who is black, describes Andrew as “the white guy who killed four other white guys.” Andrew flees just before the cops arrive.

Also that night, Gianni and Antonio go out to a gay club and Andrew shows up too once he sees that the lights are off in the Versace mansion. However, they don’t cross paths and when the couple leaves, Antonio still insists that he doesn’t want this anymore, he just wants to marry Gianni.

Back at the club, Andrew dances with a guy who asks what he does. “I’m a serial killer,” Andrew says, borrowing a line from American Psycho. The music is too loud so the guy doesn’t hear him.

“I said I’m a banker,” Andrew adds, the start of an epic delusional monologue. “I’m a stockbroker, I’m a shareholder, I’m a paperback writer, I’m a cop, I’m a Naval officer, sometimes I’m a spy. I build movie sets in Mexico and skyscrapers in Chicago. I sell propane in Minneapolis, I import pineapples from the Philippines. I’m the person least likely to be forgotten. I’m Andrew Cunanan.” For all of its flaws, that’s a brilliant way to end an episode.

‘The Assassination of Gianni Versace’ Recap: Andrew Arrives in Miami

The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story Addresses Versace’s HIV Status

There are a lot of deliberate ambiguities woven into the storyline of The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story, most of them related to Andrew Cunanan and the smooth, effortless lies he tells about himself. As I noted last week, it’s often unclear whether what we’re seeing is a) what actually happened in reality, b) what actually happened in the show’s fictionalized version of reality, or c) Cunanan’s self-aggrandizing, unreliable version of events. But the season’s second episode opens with a discussion of what has become the most controversial fact vs. fiction element of the show: Versace’s HIV status.

The Versace family has released a pair of statements denouncing the show as ““sad and reprehensible” and specifically taken issue with its depiction of a “medical condition.” In the source material for the series—the book Vulgar Favors, by Vanity Fair journalist Maureen Orth—it is reported that Versace was HIV positive at the time of his death, which the Versace family has always denied.

With that context established, let’s get into five talking points from tonight’s episode ‘Manhunt.’ Plus, keep track of this season of American Crime Story with this timeline of Andrew Cunanan’s murder spree.

1) According to the series, Versace had already come close to death—and miraculously cheated it—shortly before he was murdered.

“After everything he survived… to be killed like this?” Donatella says, quietly heartbroken, after we’ve seen flashbacks to Versace seeking treatment at a hospital, hiding behind sunglasses until a nurse reassures him, “there are no journalists here.” Though the terms HIV and AIDS are never used, the implication is clear: Versace has a condition which requires a cocktail of drugs, and he is determined to keep it secret at all costs. He’s become too sick to work, or even walk at a normal pace, and confesses to Antonio that he’s becoming bitter as a result.

2) The story of Andrew Cunanan’s rampage is being told in reverse.

This won’t remain strictly the case throughout the series, but last week depicted Cunanan killing Versace, and this week takes us back roughly two months to the day he first arrived in Miami to stalk Versace. At this point, Cunanan had already killed four people, landed a spot on the FBI’s Most Wanted list, and stole the red pickup truck he’s driving from his fourth victim, William Reese. On the subject of which… let’s talk about that singing scene.

Cunanan is utterly elated in the wake of all this bloodshed, and Darren Criss’s pure manic energy throughout this episode is breathtaking. As he cheerfully drives through South Carolina towards Florida, he turns on the car radio and flips right past a station that mentions his name as a suspect in the murder of Lee Miglin. He lands, instead, on a station playing Laura Branigan’s “Gloria,” a peppy disco fave whose lyrics are actually deeply disturbing if you listen closely:

Are the voices in your head calling, Gloria?
Gloria, don’t you think you’re fallin’?
If everybody wants you, why isn’t anybody callin’?

Can’t imagine why Cunanan would sing along to this with such gusto!

3) Versace’s illness brings out long-buried tensions between Donatella and Antonio.

In the aftermath of Versace’s death last week, it was clear that these two do not see eye to eye. This week—between Versace’s illness and the company’s struggle to stay relevant in a changing fashion landscape—exacerbates their differences. Antonio claims Donatella has never been supportive of his relationship with Gianni, despite how long they’ve been together, while Donatella clearly feels that Antonio has never been a real partner to her brother. “You’ve given him nothing,” she spits—not stability, not respect, not children—and though she doesn’t say this explicitly, it’s clear she blames Antonio for Versace’s inferred illness, in light of their proclivity for three-ways. I wish I were more engaged by Versace’s relationship with Antonio, but their scenes together feel strangely lifeless to me, and I think it’s because Ricky Martin is miscast in this role.

4) “We were friends. That was real, right?” “When someone asks you if we were friends, you’ll say no.”

It almost seemed like Cunanan might have made a friend in Ronnie, the wiry Miami Beach local played by New Girl’s Max Greenfield—if Cunanan were capable of feeling anything for anyone, which is highly debatable at this point in the story. The above dialogue exchange is heartbreaking because Ronnie is so vulnerable, but it’s actually one of Cunanan’s few honest moments: he knows, at this point, that he’s living on borrowed time and is going to be caught, and that Ronnie will eventually deny knowing him for his own good.

But that’s not the only moment where Cunanan is unexpectedly honest with Ronnie. Maybe he doesn’t consider Ronnie to be important or influential, so the stakes are low. When Cunanan’s just come back from an outing—which involved seducing, terrorizing and nearly suffocating an elderly man with masking tape—a justifiably nervous Ronnie asks a wide-eyed, jittery Cunanan "What did you do?” Cunanan’s reply: “Nothing. I did nothing. I’ve done nothing my whole life. That’s the truth.” That is the truth, and it might be the last time we hear it from Cunanan.

5) Watching Cunanan slip from one false identity to the next—sometimes within a single sentence—is dazzling.

I cannot say enough about the sharp, scary writing for Cunanan, nor about Criss’s flat-out terrifying performance. This is someone who practices in the mirror for everyday conversations and creates entire personas on the spot; when he checks into the beachside motel in Miami, he’s Kurt! He’s from Nice! He’s a fashion student who traveled all this way just for a few words with Versace! To Ronnie, Cunanan effortlessly describes his close personal friendship with Versace; to the elderly man he seduces, he waxes poetic about the lobster and cracked black pepper his mother used to bring to him for school lunches. Is any of this true? Who knows? It’s not even entirely clear that Cunanan knows, or that he cares.

This is all embodied so beautifully in a dizzying final nightclub scene where Cunanan, still high on the thrill of his crimes, is approached by a young man who asks what he does. “I’m a serial killer!” he says gleefully, the club music loud enough to drown out his confession, and then launches into a cheerful verbal breakdown, listing one fake profession after another: he’s a banker! He’s a writer! He imports pineapples from the Philippines—a reference to the story he told Versace last week about his father’s pineapple plantations. But most importantly? “I’m the person least likely to be forgotten.”

The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story Addresses Versace’s HIV Status

Composer Mac Quayle On Scoring FX’s ‘Versace’ – Awards Daily

Mac Quayle’s partnership with Emmy-winning writer/director/producer Ryan Murphy resulted in some of the finest compositions of the last decade in television. An Emmy winner for USA Network’s Mr. Robot, Quayle’s work with Murphy runs an enviable gamut of television genres. American Horror Story‘s gothic and often romantic horror themes. The electronic interpretation of 1980’s era horror in Scream Queens. The classic Hollywood sounds of Feud: Bette and Joan. Each product delivers memorable themes that immediately orient the viewer in Murphy’s latest product.

Quayle’s most recent Ryan Murphy productions include Fox’s star-studded 9-1-1. His latest contributions to the American Crime Story series, however, has critics standing at ovation. His delicate and haunting themes for The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story evoke classic cinematic thrillers. Quayle spoke with Awards Daily to reveal his on-going process with Ryan Murphy and to talk about establishing the sound for the gripping drama.

You continue to work with Ryan Murphy on a variety of projects. After so many properties, how is the creative process working between the two of you?

I think it continues to work. He keeps coming back to me. [Laughs] He keeps asking me to write music for him, so I take that as a sign that it’s working. The process is pretty similar even though the projects are quite different. We start with a conversation about what he thinks would make a good musical direction for that season, and then based on those preliminary discussions I start writing music.

What cues did he give you for approaching the Versace material?

Well, we talked about the tone. Part of this story is about a serial killer, so we talked about how the music should help tell that story. We looked at things like Silence of the Lambs – that sort of creepy, serial killer-type genre – and thought that would be a nice partial influence for what we wanted to do. The story takes place in the 90s, and we felt like an electronic sound would be appropriate for it. Aside from those two elements, we paid attention to the Italian aspect of the story with Versace and his family. I’ve been calling it Silence of the Lambs meets Giorgio Moroder in an Italian villa.

What are some of the recurring themes viewers should look out for throughout Versace?

There’s a theme for Andrew Cunanan (Darren Criss) – a melodic motif and signature sound that follows him around. There’s a theme for Donatella Versace and for Gianni Versace. Those are the three main musical themes. Characters sort of come and go in this story, so there may be a theme for a single character in the story that we don’t really hear again.

In the pilot, the first 7-8 minutes are largely wordless and are underscored by your arrangement of “Adagio in G Minor.” Talk to me about using that for the pilot.

Well, that piece is an amazing piece. It was proposed as an idea, and when we sat down and watched it, it was beautiful and seemed like it had potential. Yet, there was something about the version we were using that didn’t have what I thought was needed to pull the viewer in the show. I convinced them to let me do a new arrangement of it and try to create something that would pull the viewer in and keep the attention going for 7-8 minutes. It needed motion. So, I did an arrangement. They really loved it, and we ultimately ended up recording it with an ensemble.

Composer Mac Quayle On Scoring FX’s ‘Versace’ – Awards Daily