Tag: january 2018

Family Tragedy: Inside the Versace Drama

You would often hear him before you saw him: a muffled baritone in the brocade-lined suites of the Paris Ritz or a booming echo down the marble neoclassical corridors of the palazzo at number 12 Via Gesù in Milan. “Do-na-TEL-la!” he would bellow, as he strode regally through a warren of makeshift cutting tables, observing the team of seamstresses bent over gossamer layers of Swarovski-studded tulle and silk, guiding the layers of fabric through the relentless staccato rhythm of sewing machines.

Gianni! Gianni! They would turn their faces to gaze reverently at the master, Gianni Versace, the Italian designer and couturier who was murdered at age 50 on the steps of his Miami Beach mansion, Casa Casuarina. He was loved by his family and his staff—his family often was his staff—and the legions of fashion editors, models, and buyers who swarmed to his radiant light. Gianni was a fashion designer, but his world—his profession, really—was show business.

He broke the rules of French haute couture, showing his collections of chain mail dresses and denim shirts paired with ball gowns on top of the swimming pool at the Ritz. He shattered the stuck-up class consciousness of Milanese ready-to-wear by setting up shop on the ultratraditional Via Gesù and then inviting celebrities like Madonna, Elton John, and Tupac Shakur to sit in the front row. He defined the cultural zeitgeist one supermodel at a time, sending Linda, Christy, and Naomi marching down his runway to the exuberant chorus of George Michael’s “Freedom.”

For a brief moment in the 1990s Versace was the king of fashion. Prince showed up at his afterparties. Richard Avedon shot his ad campaigns. Princess Diana wore his dresses. He obsessed over what was new but took inspiration from antiquity. His logo was the head of the Medusa, and every label and shopping bag featured a Grecian frieze inspired by his hometown of Reggio Calabria, which was once an ancient Greek colony.

Art, music, theater, dance, and classical sculpture all infused Versace’s daily life, whether he was in Lake Como, Miami, or Milan. He was inspired by Byzantine mosaics, by the three-dimensional works of Alexander Calder, and by the gutsy glamour of his sister Donatella, his lifelong muse and consigliere.

He designed stage costumes for Tina Turner’s concerts and for Maurice Béjart’s ballets. In his flagship stores on the Faubourg St. Honoré and Fifth Avenue, Versace hung works by Frank Stella and Julian Schnabel. He splashed Andy Warhol’s famous pop portraits on dresses and leggings, and he manipulated the punk rock imagery of the Sex Pistols into the vision of Elizabeth Hurley in a slip of a dress held together with giant gold safety pins.

“I think it’s the responsibility of the designer to try to break the rules and barriers,” Versace once said. “I’m a little like Marco Polo going around and mixing cultures.” He was a rule breaker when taking on that role in Italian fashion was risky business, especially for a working class kid from the south.

At a time when AIDS and homosexuality were mentioned only sotto voce, Versace lived his life as a publicly gay man. Most of all he was kind and he cared deeply about family. At the end of every couture show at the Paris Ritz he would take his bow and stop to thank each model.

Versace’s passion for life and for his work is ultimately what made his tragic and untimely death so surreal. In fact, it’s strange to think that Gianni Versace has not been here for the last 20 years to witness the way his intoxicating mixture of rock and royalty has come to define today’s celebrity culture. The latest installment of Ryan Murphy’s American Crime Story on FX, “The Assassination of Gianni Versace,” airing now, brings that pivotal 1990s moment rushing back, with vivid portrayals of the designer and his sister by Edgar Ramírez and Penélope Cruz.

From the series’s opening sequence, when Ramírez walks through the ornate boiseried dressing room at Casa Casuarina, lifts a pink silk bathrobe off of its hanger, and steps out onto the balcony to survey South Beach’s sun-drenched Ocean Drive, the show oozes the kind of louche ’90s glamour Versace helped create.

The glimmering highs and dark lows of celebrity culture are telegraphed in the details and drama of every scene, from Donatella taking in the crime scene for the first time, sunglasses firmly planted on her Roman nose, to Gianni walking freely down Collins Avenue, not a bodyguard in sight, greeting friends and strangers alike. You can almost smell the blend of cigarettes and sex when Versace huddles with friends in the VIP room of a nightclub as the heavy disco beat of “Gloria” thumps away and his killer approaches.

“Versace was living in a time that he helped create,” says Ramírez, who prepared for the role by researching the designer’s impact on 1990s fashion and culture. “He was a visionary and a disrupter, and we’re experiencing an era that he helped create aesthetically. He saw the sexiness of the 1970s and the opulence of the 1980s, and he mixed them. Glamour and sexuality had never been married like that. There were no designers expressing that rock ’n’ roll approach to couture before Gianni—this mix of sexuality and celebrity. The current obsession with fame started with Gianni.”

In many ways Versace was born to be a designer. He and his siblings were raised by their dressmaker mother and coal merchant father in Reggio Calabria, on the toe of the boot of Italy. Gianni spent his youth watching his mother and her studio of 45 seamstresses sew.

He made his first dress at the age of nine, and later, after studying architectural drafting, he went to work for his mother. At 26 he moved north to Milan and designed for various clothing brands, including Genny, Callaghan, and Complice.

By 1978 he had his own fashion house and was showing sexy dresses in leather and lace in Milan’s Palazzo della Permanente. A boutique soon followed on the fashionable Via della Spiga.

In the 1970s, being a southern Italian outsider in Milan was not easy. Catty competitors whispered about Versace’s over-the-top shows and the abundance of sex appeal on his runways. This was puritanical Milan at a time when Giorgio Armani’s corporate armor reigned supreme. Versace was challenging that aesthetic with a big smile.

He ignored the criticism and surrounded himself with family and friends for protection. “In the middle of all of his creative exuberance, Versace was mainly focused on his family,” says Ramírez, who was surprised by this seeming contradiction in the designer’s character.

“He was a family guy, and very few people then would imagine how much this meant to him. They think of his celebrity and the parties and the clothes and the vitality of the brand, but very seldom would they relate all of this to a man who would go to bed very early and focus mainly on his work and his family. That was a very important trait of his personality. It is very Italian, but when you think that there was only one designer who defied convention so much, in a way that was completely out of the norm.”

Of course, Italian families have always been powerful in fashion, from the Fendi sisters in Rome to the Ferragamo family in Florence and the Missoni clan outside Milan. There were other fashion “families,” too, not blood relations necessarily but designers and their business partners who worked together so long they felt related. The Valentinos in Rome and Paris, for example, including Valentino, his longtime business partner Giancarlo Giammetti, and their socialite muses Georgina Brandolini and Marina Cicogna.

Italian luxury companies like Bulgari, Buccellati, and Cipriani are also controlled by powerful families. At times all this melding of family and business could take on operatic if not comic proportions. As Versace himself put it in 1986, “I am a bit like Fellini: I like my family around me.”

As in every family, each Versace sibling had a role: Santo, the eldest, the serious one; Gianni, the enfant terrible; Donatella, Gianni’s accomplice. Gianni was famous for talking about his relatives—his sister and brother but also his nieces and nephews, for whom he often would say he built his company. He treated each seamstress and front row celebrity like family, too. And he loved to say that with such a group “you can fight at six o’clock and have a nice dinner at eight.”

“I could relate to that family emotion,” Cruz says. “Italian and Spanish people are similar in that way. It’s like what I have with my brother and sister. Donatella, Santo, and Gianni, what they had together they started together, and that family passion is very tight.”

In many ways it was the close ties of the Versaces that made the designer’s death so devastating, particularly for Donatella. “My brother was the king, and my whole world crashed around me,” Donatella said in the aftermath of Gianni’s murder.

Indeed, Donatella had always been the party girl, the muse, the one who befriended celebrities and never wanted to become a designer herself. Cruz plays her devastation and conflict with a perfect balance of solemnity and extravagance. In one of the first scenes in the series, we watch the steps of Donatella’s private plane descend slowly before we see her; this small detail captures the drama and isolation and, ultimately, the glamour of being Gianni’s sister in that moment.

“It was such a devastating time,” Cruz says. “Versace was at the pinnacle of fashion, and they were such a close family. So for Donatella to lose so much and have to then take over the company was very emotional.”

Before accepting the role, Cruz called Donatella to get her blessing. “To me she is like a heroine. She is somebody who we all know had such a close relationship with her brother. He was so important to her, and then in the middle of this horrific thing—of losing him in such a horrible way—she didn’t even have the time to deal with that, because she has to take care of this empire and be so strong when she had so much pain,” says Cruz, who worked with a coach to perfect Donatella’s signature growl.

“She has demonstrated in so many ways in her life how to be an incredible woman.”

To honor her brother and the 20th anniversary of his death, Donatella staged a tribute collection in Milan last fall with a retrospective—or reinterpretation—of his iconic fashions. She reimagined the floral printed silk shirts and knife pleat skirts, the animal prints mixed with Medusas, and the gold chain mail dresses Versace made famous. She dove into the archives and recreated 12 classic prints—including the leopard print called “animalière,” the “Baroque” gold squiggles, and the “Warhol” print of Marilyn Monroe and James Dean.

But merely recreating the clothes was not enough. She had to somehow recapture the moment—the excitement of 1990s glamour. So she called her supermodel friends and hired them all to walk the runway. Out came Claudia Schiffer, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford, and Helena Christensen—five of the original pack who were part of Versace’s ’90s crew and who helped the designer elevate his couture shows to pop culture events.

At the end of Donatella’s tribute the models created a tableau at the foot of the runway, posed like Greek statues in their chain mail dresses, leonine waves of hair cascading down their backs. And then Donatella appeared to take her bow, and they marched forward together, as if not a minute had gone by—nothing had changed—since the mid-’90s supermodel apogee.

The audience went crazy, jumping to its feet. An avalanche of Instagram posts followed. It was a classic fashion moment, and an emotional recognition of how influential Versace had been and how far Donatella had come as the steward of her brother’s brand.

More than the supermodels and the sexy clothes, though, that last scene on the runway was a reminder of something much bigger: Joy was the ineffable Versace ingredient—combined with glamour and sex and over-the-top exuberance. With all of his intensity and drama and talent and confidence and warmth, Gianni Versace brought joy to fashion.

Family Tragedy: Inside the Versace Drama

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Geektown Radio 144: Mr Robot, American Horror Story Composer Mac Quayle, UK TV News & UK TV Air Dates!

On this week’s Geektown Radio podcast we have all the usual tv news and airdate information, and the return of Composer Mac Quayle, the man behind the music for the brilliant ‘Mr Robot’, and pretty much ever Ryan Murphy show currently out there!

Mac won the Emmy for his score on Golden Globe-winning suspense-thriller ‘Mr Robot’ starring Christian Slater and Rami Malek, and also received 3 additional Emmy nominations – 2 for his outstanding Main Title and Score for Ryan Murphy’s hit series, ‘Feud: Bette and Joan’ starring Jessica Lange and Susan Sarandon, and 1 for his Score on ‘American Horror Story’, starring Kathy Bates and Angela Bassett.

His other work includes ‘American Crime Story’, both ‘The People v. O.J. Simpson’ and the upcoming ‘Assassination of Gianni Versace’, which is due to land on BBC Two in February. He also scores ‘Scream Queens’, starring Jamie Lee Curtis and Emma Roberts, Murphy’s procedural drama ‘9-1-1’, and will be scoring Murphy’s new project ‘Pose’.

TV tonight: A harrowing episode of ‘The Assassination of Gianni Versace’

The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story
FX, 10 ET/PT

The unsettling second season of American Crime Story is slowly revealing the story of spree killer Andrew Cunanan (Darren Criss), and this episode focuses entirely on one of his earlier victims, Chicago real estate magnate Lee Miglin (Mike Farrell). The episode, one of the best of the season, is occasionally hard to watch. But Judith Light puts in an exceptional performance as Miglin’s devoted wife Marilyn, whose hard exterior is broken by the violent crime. Of all nine episodes, this one feels almost like a short film, more about Lee than his killer.

TV tonight: A harrowing episode of ‘The Assassination of Gianni Versace’

Ricky Martin still angry cops couldn’t stop Versace killer

Ricky Martin was living in Miami when Gianni Versace was murdered in 1997.

And Martin — who plays Versace’s partner, Antonio D’Amico, in “The Assassination of Gianni Versace” — says he’s shocked by how long it took local police and the FBI to find Versace’s killer, Andrew Cunanan (Darren Criss).

“Miami’s a very small town. It’s very easy to find people,” says Martin, 46. “And [Cunanan] wasn’t even hiding.” In documenting Versace’s murder, Ryan Murphy’s FX miniseries exposes the many mistakes made as the police and FBI pursued Cunanan, who killed four men in 12 days before gunning down Versace on the steps of his South Beach mansion.

“He went to a pawn shop and sold something and showed his ID. And he signed the paper as Andrew P. Cunanan,” says Martin. “There’s a moment [in the miniseries] where the FBI agent opens the [car] trunk and you see all the [10 Most Wanted] fliers. And the other agent asks, ‘How come all these flyers are in your trunk?’”

D’Amico cradled Versace (Édgar Ramírez) on the steps of his villa after Cunanan shot him on July 14, 1997. Martin says he’d been invited “many times” to the villa, Casa Casuarina, while he lived in Miami, but that he never went — until the morning he filmed the brutal murder scene. He remained secluded inside the ornate home, “just finding the emotions and everything. And there was a moment where I said, ‘Please, say Action. I’m ready, I’m ready.’”

Martin says D’Amico spoke to him before production started about his relationship with Versace — a source of conflict with Versace’s sister Donatella (Penelope Cruz). “He told me, ‘My relationship with Gianni was beautiful and full of respect.’ He said, ‘We were free. We were open.’ If someone talked bad about Antonio, Gianni would become a lion and defend him. After 15 years, it’s not a game. It’s a real relationship.”

In the series, Donatella doesn’t see it that way, blaming D’Amico for bringing strangers into the house for threesomes. Although Martin and Cruz are friends, Martin says, “Penelope told me, ‘Ricky, you can’t be good to me because I’m not supposed to like you.’ And I would try. I would try for [Donatella] to like me. But it wasn’t happening.”

In his will, Versace left D’Amico approximately $30,000 a month, “inflation proof,” for life. According to Maureen Orth’s book, “Vulgar Favors” — the series’ source material — Donatella and her brother Santo Versace negotiated with D’Amico to take those payments in one lump sum.

“The sad thing is back then [Versace and D’Amico] couldn’t marry,” says Martin, who married his partner, Jwan Yusuf, in 2017. “If they were married, the laws would protect Antonio. And that was not the case.”

Martin dismisses the Versace company’s criticism that the series is a “work of fiction,” citing Orth’s book, including sources who say that Versace and Cunanan met seven years earlier in a San Francisco club called Colossus.

[D’Amico, who lives in Italy, has said Versace never met Cunanan.]

Martin is asked why he thinks Cunanan perpetrated his crimes, but has no concrete answer.

“No one knows. And no one will ever know,” he says. “It makes me really angry. It’s not that [Versace is] dead. It’s why did we allow it to happen.”

Ricky Martin still angry cops couldn’t stop Versace killer

American Crime Story: The Assassination of Versace Season 2 Episode 2

Another episode of Versace’s assassination is amongst us and so much more was revealed. From Versace’s unknown illness, to family relationships, to an insight in Andrew’s life pre Versace murder. For this episode, the story unfolds in reverse chronological order and recounts the events preceding before the main event. A chilling bedroom scene involving an elderly man, duct tape, scissors and Cunanan dancing takes centre stage, alongside Andrew’s ability to lie more easily than people tell the truth.

So much of the story is yet to unravel; what or who made Andrew the killer he is? Was it the lack of support from friends and family as a gay man? Was violence a key point of his life? Why is he so enthralled by successful elderly men? So many questions and yet no answers! With seven episodes remaining, I have my fingers crossed that all will be revealed.

For now though, I would like to share with you five of the best moments from American Crime Story: The Assassination of Versace, season 2, episode 2:

Versace’s Cremation

“After everything he survived – to be killed like this.”

After a heated argument with Antonio, Donatella has a private one-on-one cremation for Versace, dressing him up in his fanciest suit. This scene was incredibly powerful and emotional; seeing Donatella mourning her brother’s death is so heartbreaking. She always shows such a strong persona, so it was very appreciated to see a much more vulnerable side of her. After Versace’s ashes were delicately wrapped up, Donatella took him on her private jet, where she hinted at Versace already having a close-to-death moment previously. In the very first scene of the episode, Gianni is shown seeking treatment at a hospital with his partner Antonio. Although nothing is specifically said in the episode, there have been previous talks of Gianni having HIV/AIDS in 1993 – 1994, which lead him to become too sick to work and on bed rest for a while.

Donatella’s devastation and anger is shown when she says to his ashes, “After everything he survived — to be killed like this,” shows that Versace was a strong man and managed to cheat death, only to be murdered three years later.

Versace and Donatella’s relationship

There are still pieces of Versace and Donatella’s relationship that we’re missing, but in this episode, we saw a little more of a bond between the siblings. When Versace is dealing with his illness, Donatella has a fear of losing her brother, and what a touching scene this was. “What is Versace without you?” “It will be you.” “Who am I without you?” “You will find out.”

Later on in the episode, Donatella pushes Versace to reach his potential when she believes he is stuck in a rut and another fashion designer will soon swoop in and take his spotlight. With her push, Gianni wows the crowd with his models and designs, and although he doesn’t say the words, the silent exchange between him and Donatella says that he is thanking her. I can’t wait to see more moments between the two of them, as this is a bond that seems unbreakable.

Donatella and Antonio’s relationship

It’s incredibly clear to see that Donatella and Antonio never really saw eye to eye. During Versace’s illness and struggling to keep his company relevant, an argument erupts between the pair starting with Antonio claiming that Donatella has never been supportive of he and Gianni’s relationship. Donatella opens up to Antonio about how she feels, claiming that he has never been a real partner to her brother and has given him nothing throughout their time together.

“You knew he wanted a family. Why didn’t you give him one?” “What have you done for him? What have you given him? Stability? Safety? Children? If you had given him anything, I would have given you respect – but you have given him nothing.”

I would love to know whether or not Donatella and Antonio put all their tension behind. If they did, it’s a shame they had to do it due to a tragic loss!

Andrew Cunnanan’s story reversed

The premiere of American Crime Story: The Assassination of Versace started off in the present, with Cunanan killing Versace. This time, we was taken back two months to the day Andrew first arrived in Miami to find Versace. At the point of present day, Cunanan has already killed four people and landed himself a spot on the FBI’s Most Wanted List. Now we’re going to sit back and watch those four murders take place, alongside still seeing how Andrew is doing in the present.

Andrew’s false identities

Darren Criss consistently puts on the most terrifying performance of Cunanan, and with all of these false identities forming within seconds of each other, the creepiness has gone from 80% to a whopping 110%! With his simplicity of practicing everyday conversation in the mirror to himself to reflect his individual personas, you really do get the chills. I applaud Ryan Murphy every second for giving Darren this role… although I may never look at Blaine Anderson the same ever again.

He begins the episode as Kurt, a fashion student from Nice who travelled all this way for a few words with Versace. With his newfound friend Ronnie, he describes his close personal friendship with Versace effortlessly and with the elderly man he seduces, he tells the story of the lobster and black pepper his mother used to pack for his school lunches. The question is, are any of these stories true or at least connected a little to his real life? Or he just that good at manipulating and lying? Who knows!

A rather interesting moment, though, was the final nightclub scene where Andrew is approached by a guy. When asked what he does, he replied with, “I’m a serial killer!” He then covered his back by rambling a list of jobs that he supposedly does from a banker to a writer — and the episode ended with him telling this guy his true identity. “I’m the person least likely to be forgotten. I’m Andrew Cunanan.” Wowza! I can’t wait to see more of his identities throughout the season. Bravo once again, Darren Criss!

American Crime Story: The Assassination of Versace Season 2 Episode 2

American Crime Story: The Assassination of Versace season 2 premiere

He wanted to be famous… so he killed a man who was. Join us on examining the shocking 1997 murder of legendary fashion designer, Gianni Versace.

The premiere of American Crime Story: The Assassination of Versace centers around serial killer Andrew Cananan. With the series, we get to explore the motives behind such a memorable and tragic death. The inspiration behind this exciting new series was Vulgar Favors: Andrew Cunanan, Gianni Versace, and the Largest Failed Manhunt in US History — a book that journalist Maureen Orth published in 1999.

Ryan Murphy took the first episode in a whole new direction, in which we witness the murder of Gianni Versace within the first ten minutes, and then we go back in time to 1990 where flashbacks are given to show how these two men were connected to one another. We also see Versace’s sister, Donatella, dealing with the loss of her brother and making sure that his legacy lives on. The episode ends with the police on a manhunt to find Andrew and failing. However, Andrew is an extremely clever man and I cannot wait to follow the rest of this hunt.

Check out the 5 best moments of American Crime Story: The Assassination of Versace season 2 premiere:

1. Aesthetically pleasing

Although the story is tragic and all in all devastating, Ryan Murphy shows such beauty within this episode. It starts off so blissfully over Versace’s breathtaking villa, the sun-kissed 90’s Miami beach and genuinely good looking people with their tanned and glorious bodies out on what should have been a normal and joyful day. It shows such a flawed beauty throughout and you can’t help falling in love with every moment of it, until Murphy turns our bliss in to shock within seconds.

Oh and you know, the faces of Darren Criss and Penelope Cruz may have also played a role in us falling in love.

2. Versace and Cunanan’s first meeting

As it is well recognised, Andrew Cunanan was known to create extraordinary tales in order to impress others. He fed on the wealthy and famous lifestyles and who better to make his victim than pop culture icon and billionaire, Gianni Versace? The episode showed us that the two had met in 1990 (seven years before Versace’s death) in a San Francisco night club. Andrew approaches Versace, where at first, Versace is quite ignorant and is too fascinated in telling his stories to pay attention to Andrew. Soon enough, Versace remembers him from a previous event in his own villa and Andrew is honored that he would remember such a brief moment. Versace eventually invites Andrew to attend the opera with him, where the two bond over Versace’s love for fashion and how he can have an input in to Andrew’s novel that he hopes will one day become a movie where Versace can design the looks.

3. Versace’s death

We all know when it comes to Ryan Murphy he has absolutely no chill on how much gore and realism he will put in to his shows, and he once again showed no signs of toning this one down with the in depth glance of Versace’s death. It is clear in the beginning that Andrew has aimed for Versace’s face, but at this point, we don’t know for sure.

Later on when Versace is rushed to the hospital, we see him with two gunshot holes in his face as he lays dying amongst all of the doctors trying to keep him alive. They pronounce him dead at 9:12am on July 15th, 1997 at the University of Miami’s Jackson Memorial Hospital. Gianni’s death really did tug at my heart strings, and being that I knew little of his death before watching this, I was so enthralled by his story and his legacy that this just wasn’t fair. This man deserved a whole lot better than was given. Will my opinion change as the story unravels? Who knows!

4. The focus on LGBT and homophobia

The main focus was the underlying theme of homophobia circulating Cunanan’s murders. The murder happened 20 years ago, and to say the way we respect and look at the LGBT community today as of then, has come an extremely long way. Andrew was an openly-gay male prostitute who drew himself into the wealthy and glamorous lives of older gay men before killing them. He killed four in total before adding Versace to his list, and the significance of his death goes beyond the moment of tragedy, in which the show highlights important issues that were undiscussed at the time of his death. For instance, his partner Antonio D’Amico, who was with Gianni for 15 years. The police didn’t want to accept this and instead suggested that they were ‘business partners’. Versace’s death finally goes public and the police finally pay attention to Cunanan’s identity.

5. Darren Criss

There were many magnificent actors in the debut episode of season 2, however I think all applause should head in Darren Criss’ direction, as he portrayed Andrew Cunanan spot on. Reading more into Andrew’s life, his father left him and his family to avoid arrest for embezzlement and he and his mother got into an argument about his sexuality. Andrew’s aggressive behavior was shown in this argument when he threw his mother against a wall, dislocating her shoulder. Due to this, he had examinations for his behavior and reports later recognized that he possibly suffered from antisocial personality disorder and a personality disorder characterized by lack of empathy.

What I really loved about Darren’s portrayal of Andrew is when he comes face to face with a TV broadcasting the events of Versace’s murder, he watched the TV with no sign of emotion, until he sees a woman’s reaction where she covers her mouth in horror and shock. He then covers his own mouth up to convince people he was also in shock and managed to fill his eyes with emotion. That just showed so evidently how unaffected Andrew is to his murders. I can’t wait to see how this murder starts to affect Andrew — whether it fills him with guilt or pride, Darren is going to be outstanding as always at telling us the story!

American Crime Story: The Assassination of Versace season 2 premiere

Paste’s TV Power Rankings

4. The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story
Network: FX
Last Week’s Ranking: Ineligible

On the morning of his 1997 murder, the Italian fashion designer (Edgar Ramirez) strolls through his Miami Beach palace in a flowing, fluorescent robe, the camera retreating skyward as he breakfasts by the pool; the corresponding image of his killer, Andrew Cunanan (the magnetic, frightening Darren Criss), peers in on the con man as he tosses off his matching pink cap and vomits into a toilet, then pauses for a glimpse of the message etched into the bathroom stall: a rough drawing of two dicks, with the caption “Filthy faggots.” From here, The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story, which premieres tonight on FX, unspools in reverse, tracing the lives of its two main characters back to their childhoods—and among its constants is that unutterable word, that unforgivable commonplace, that useful descriptor, that reclamation. The “crime” in this season of American Crime Story is the assassination of Gianni Versace, certainly, but it’s also, doubtless, homophobia itself, socialized and self-inflicted, individual and internecine: At the heart of the anthology’s magnificent second act is a potent, political, possibly even dangerous reconsideration of what it means to be called a faggot, and then what it means to become one. —Matt Brennan

Paste’s TV Power Rankings