ACS: Gianni Versace: “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” – Blog – The Film Experience

Season two of American Crime Story has taken a more thematic approach to its narrative than the heavily plotted season one. Each episode has been a miniature exploration of an issue revolving around the oppression of the gay community, but you could say that the main thesis has been the different ways in which being in the closet can hurt people: by isolating those around you (Lee Miglin), by taking away your way to keep fighting (David Madsen), by threatening your business and public image (as Donatella fears with Gianni). In the latest episode, framed around Jeff Trail (played by Finn Wittrock), it’s how the closet prevents you from living the only life you want to be living.

Episode 5: “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”

This is the first episode in three weeks where Gianni, Donatella, and Antonio make an appearance again, although their presence here is more thematic than to forward or inform the murder narrative.

We open with the Versace offices in Milan a couple of years before the murders took place. Gianni is telling his sister that he has agreed to give an interview to The Advocate, in which he will officially be coming out to the world as gay. Donatella is concerned about what this could to their business, but Gianni argues that the right people will stay with them no matter what.

We then cut forward to the four days previous to Jeff Trail’s brutal murder that took place last episode. Andrew is in San Diego, on his way to Minneapolis to escape his debt, and who knows what else. He will be crashing with his dear friends Jeff and David.

But Jeff and David don’t want him. From the moment Andrew arrives at the airport, it’s obvious that they don’t anything to do with him, and are taking him in out of pity and compromise. Andrew immediately senses this, and his mental wiring starts to flare up once again.

Andrew will be staying at Jeff’s apartment, and through his now customary no-boundaries attitude, we discover that Jeff used to be in the army, but his career ended because it was suspected that he was gay. Andrew puts on his uniform and plays a CBS interview that Jeff did to discuss the anti-gay army policies. The episode then does another jump backwards in time to examine that period of time in Jeff’s life.

Being in the army was his entire life; a family tradition and an honor that he took both seriously and proudly. But once he witnessed a brutal attack on a young man accused of being gay, his visceral response in his defense put a target on his back. And before he could do anything about it, he has been discharged. Just like that, his entire life is over.

He has a fateful encounter with Andrew in the first gay bar he ever walked in; talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Andrew promises to introduce him to the gay world that he’s been missing out on, and they start what initially looks like a friendship, but turns into a relationship of convenience. Jeff needed someone, and Andrew was right there.

In what is the best sequence of the episode (and perhaps the series), Jeff goes to a motel to give the interview to CBS that we previously saw taped. But it is presented alongside Gianni Versace’s interview with The Advocate, in which he decides to reveal himself to the world alongside his 13-year partner.

The way these two interviews are juxtaposed with each other show how different being in the closet affects different strati of people. Versace is being interviewed in a luxury hotel, ready to walk out into the world as himself. Yes, a risky and brave move, but having the safety net of a billion-dollar company behind him. Jeff is literally hiding behind shadows after his entire life has been taken away from him.

Their stories both contain tragedy in very different ways, but the show also makes a poignant statement about how society operates its homophobia differently depending on privilege, class, and celebrity status. It was a bold and trailblazing step for Versace to give that interview, but he probably wasn’t too likely to get tied to a bunk bed and almost beaten to death for it.

The last scenes of the episode depict what most likely was the breaking point for Andrew, following a series of live events that we have yet to see. After a failed marriage proposal to David, in which he makes it explicitly clear that they do not think they are a good match, and a confrontation with Jeff in which he screams that he wishes he never met Andrew in the bar that night, and that no one wants his love, Andrew is ready to make his first kill.

A lot has been said about how little this season actually focuses on the titular Versace murder. In the last couple of weeks, it has even focused less on Andrew himself and more on the lives of his victims; this is not the gaudy show that was promised on the promotional materials, but American Crime Story keeps delivering a nuanced portrayal of the gay experience and its many different pains, joys, and obstacles.

It shows just how much things have changed in just a few decades, but that the disorientation and fear of walking into a gay bar for the first time has remained the same.

‘The Assassination of Gianni Versace’ Episode 5: No bloodshed, but violently heartbreaking | Chicago News

Without any gory scenes, “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” was bloody heartbreaking to watch. In reverse-chronological order, this episode depicts the events that led to Naval Academy graduate Jeff Trail (Finn Wittrock) meeting serial murderer Andrew Cunanan (Darren Criss) at a gay bar in San Diego. In 1995, Trail stops a handful of prejudiced sailors from murdering one of their homosexual colleagues. Trail demands that the badly beaten victim receive medical treatment for his injuries. The battered and weeping man begs Trail to reconsider because, if his sexual orientation becomes common knowledge, he’ll be discharged from the maritime force. Trail understands, relents and consoles his shaking peer. Regrettably, a commanding officer witnesses the display of physical affection and outs Trail.

Shortly hereafter, Trail attempts to hang himself to death. Following a few intense and distressing moments, the demoralized hero reconsiders and safely regains his footing. A disoriented and crushed Trail then ventures to the establishment where Cunanan happens to be drinking. Cunanan immediately concludes that Trail is closeted and he purchases him a beer. Cunanan proceeds to buy Trail countless beverages and the two forge a friendship. Trail tells Cunanan about his predicament and says he’s going to reveal his plight in an interview on national television. Despite Cunanan’s strong objections, Trail discusses his experiences being gay in the military on CBS’s news program “48 Hours.”

This gut-wrenching dialogue cuts to Gianni Versace’s (Edgar Ramirez) decision to announce his decade-long relationship with Antonio D’Amico (Ricky Martin). With complete ease and comfort, Versace and D’Amico address their romance with a journalist from The Advocate. Versace’s confidence and ability to speak freely again shows how tragic Trail’s secretive existence was. While Trail almost committed suicide, Versace and D’Amico were praised for being so forthright about their homosexuality.

Approximately two years later, in 1997, Cunanan takes a flight to Minneapolis to spend time with his ex-boyfriend, architect David Madson (Cody Fern), and Trail. The tension among the trio is palpable and Trail flatly tells Cunanan that they are no longer friends. Criss’ acting here is stellar and his eyes alone explain that he’s mentally unraveling. Cunanan’s gaze is beyond unnerving and viewers know that the fates of Trail and Madson have been sealed.

‘The Assassination of Gianni Versace’ Episode 5: No bloodshed, but violently heartbreaking | Chicago News

‘The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story’ Episode 3 Recap: A Death in the Family

I caught the flu the day this episode of The Assassination of Gianni Versace aired. In the (almost) a week it’s taken me to write this review, I’ve (almost) gotten over the illness. I have not gotten over the episode.

Journey back in time to the third and fourth slayings in Andrew Cunanan’s five-person killing spree, “A Random Killing” bears a half-truth as a title. Victim number four was random indeed, needlessly slain for his truck after a careless leak tipped Andrew off that his stolen car was being tracked. The need felt by victim number five’s surviving loved ones to paint his murder, too, as random — and Andrew’s need to make this impossible for them to do — is the crux of the story. The resulting hour is as menacing, as moving, as good as live-action drama about murder can get.

Any discussion of this extraordinary episode of television must begin with the casting of its two new principals, millionaire Chicago real estate developer Lee Miglin and his beauty-queen turned home-shopping entrepreneur wife Marilyn. Hiring Mike Farrell, M*A*S*H‘s B.J. Hunnicutt, and Judith Light, Who’s the Boss‘s “Angeluhhh,” isn’t quite the stunt showrunner Ryan Murphy pulled off when, say, he made John Travolta and David Schwimmer part of Cuba Gooding Jr.’s defense team and made a masterpiece out of the result. For one thing, the career peaks that trio were hitting around the time of the actual O.J. Simpson case added to The People v. O.J.‘s ’90s-retro frisson. For another, Farrell lacks the “hey, it’s that guy!” cachet held by the others for today’s viewers, while on the other hand, shows from Law & Order: Special Victims Unit to Transparent have given Light ample opportunity to show off her dramatic chops.

What matters, then, isn’t merely the fact that famous faces animate both Andrew Cunanan’s closeted client and target and that target’s determined yet devastated widow. What matters is what those faces do, and the remarkable degree to which writer Tom Rob Smith and directer Gwyneth Horder-Payton allow them to do it.

As Lee, Farrell is revelatory, his kindly face registering a heartbreakingly familiar range of emotions. Pride in his wife’s accomplishments and gratitude for her pride in his. Coldness at the prospect of actual physical intimacy with her but comfort and relief for her continued friendship. The agonizing, eroticized decision to lie to her and allow her to make a business trip without him so he can arrange a liaison with his young escort lover. (His strange, hard-to-watch mini-breakdown when she asks him to join her and he realizes he’s going to refuse is just unbelievably strong work.) The unshakeable religious guilt he feels as an older Catholic man keeping his orientation in the closet, a pain akin to a chronic illness. (“I try,” he whimpers to Jesus and Joseph in his private basement chapel. “I…try…”)

Puppydog enthusiasm for Andrew’s presence and affection, so strong that not even Cunanan’s sour sarcasm and cruelty about the transactional nature of their relationship can truly dampen it. (“I feel alive! You make it seem so real!”) Genuine, almost childlike love of architecture, particularly his world’s-largest-building dream project and his vision of anonymously hanging around on the observation deck, enjoying others’ enjoyment of the results.

It’s this last bit more than anything else that triggers Andrew’s homicidal rage, not that it would take much at this point at any rate; Andrew actually holds his gun on Lee behind the man’s back, just to feel the power he imagines Lee feeling. “I want it to inspire people to reach up,” Lee says of his “Sky Needle.” “It’s about that, not about me.” To Andrew, the very idea that any achievement is not about the immediate glory of the person responsible for it, much less the tallest building in the word, is a heresy of the highest order, and must be punished as such.

So Andrew drags his aroused, oblivious partner into the garage, tools arrayed ominously in the background, and debuts the face-tape routine we remember from the previous episode’s “Easy Lover” sequence. “You like being pathetic, don’t you?” he sneers, before showing Lee how truly helpless he is by suddenly smashing his face in. By now that marvelously expressive face is totally obscured by the tape, so we are only left to imagine the horror, panic, and pain in his eyes by cross-referencing it with his muffled whimpers — worse, perhaps, than seeing it straight up. As Lee lies there, Andrew announces that he’s killed two people already, he’ll stage his soon-to-be corpse with women’s underwear and gay porn, outing him through the act of murder. “You know, disgrace isn’t that bad, once you settle into it,” he says, before lugging over a bag of concrete mix, staving in the man’s chest, and then stabbing him repeatedly. To add insult to this fatal injury, Andrew uses Lee’s beloved blueprints as a placemat for a meal of meat before burning them up. No dreams get out of here alive.

Farrell’s role is interactional, emerging from conversations with his wife, his killer, and his God. It’s a dialogue. Light’s Marilyn is a monologue. She’s constantly speaking to other people, to be sure — to more of them than Lee, in fact. She’s got an television audience for her home-shopping show, a live crowd for her speech introducing her husband at a fundraiser where she touts him as the embodiment of the American Dream, a host of neighbors and cops with whom she must interact as they first discover and then investigate the crime. She even has a son, on hand as glum-faced comic relief when she touts his ostensibly burgeoning acting career. (“He plays a pilot!” “A Russian pilot. There’s lots of pilots in the movie.”)

But except in the few intimate moments she shares with Lee — and even then she’s arguably more focused on her behind-the-scenes suspicions than the here and now — Marilyn’s main task is the Sisyphean labor of maintaining outward appearances. She’s not shy about this, either. “How can a woman who cares so much about appearances appear not to care?” she rhetorically asks at one point, when she realizes her lack of visible signs of grief must be apparent to others.

What makes this character, and Light’s performance, so crushing is the opposite of what you’d expect, though. It’s not that she’s a perfectly put-together Woman With It All who’s trying to cover up her husband’s homosexuality by any means necessary — the kind of part Light, with her severe facial structure and stentorian voice, could play in her sleep. It’s that she’s trying to reveal the real bond she had with this man, despite what she knows to be true and cannot say — a bond that Cunanan’s actions have made it harder and harder for her to get other people to believe in. She finally breaks down not when confronted with evidence of Lee and Andrew’s preexisting relationship, contra to her preferred narrative of a break-in and burglary, but when she starts telling a cop about the “adventures” they had together back in the day, all hot-air balloon rides and romantic desert rescues. “I loved him,” she sobs, starting to smear her makeup. “I loved him very much! There. Is that betterrrr?” Her bitterness stretches out that terminal -r like she’s ripping flesh from a carcass. “Am I a real wife now?” Her pain isn’t over the lie, it’s over what was true. During the harrowing opening sequence, when Marilyn returns home from her trip and realizes something is amiss when Lee fails to pick her up from the airport, that truth is what haunts her face the whole time.

I’m glad, in that beautiful terrible way tragedy can make you glad, that she gets the last word of the episode, even as Andrew continues shopping and driving and killing on the way to his appointment in Miami. (Cunanan misses the chance to carjack and older woman and winds up hunting down and shooting truck-driving family man William R. Reese instead, pulling the trigger almost as soon as the frightened father tries to turn his assailant’s heart by saying he’s a married man with a son. He had no way of knowing how little Andrew wanted to hear that particular song. With a taste for killing in his mouth, he’ll destroy stability on sight.)

Marilyn returns to her gig hawking her signature line of fragrances on the home shopping channel almost immediately — a gutsy move with which the show challenges us to continue to feel empathy for her as she slips into the uncanny valley between sincerity and showmanship, just as the mere presence of any older woman with a glamorous background triggers our societally induced suspicion and revulsion at female failure to remain young. “He believed in me,” she tells her audience, completely honestly. “How many husbands believe in their wive’s dreams? How many treat us as partners? As equals? We were a team for thirty-eight years.” That’s what they were, even if it’s all they were. That’s an achievement. That’s what Andrew destroyed.

Marilyn ends the episode by recounting the advice she got when she first began selling stuff on TV, a technique for connecting with the camera and the people on the other side. “Just hink of the little red light as the man you love.” She stares at the light, at the camera, at us, and as the impenetrable black mascara of her wet eyes closes and the scene cuts to black, her thoughts are ours to imagine.

‘The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story’ Episode 3 Recap: A Death in the Family

‘American Crime Story’ Episode 5 Unexpectedly Tackles Violence Against Gay Men In The Military

Episode five opens in Milan, Italy, in 1995. Gianni, Donatella and Antonio D’Amico debate whether it’s right for Gianni to officially come out to the public. D’Amico claims he’s been treated by the press as an assistant. Meanwhile, Donatella worries about the effects the announcement would have on publicity for the company.

“You have forgotten how ugly the world can be,” she tells Gianni, who in turn stresses that being diagnosed with HIV, he feels emboldened to be honest with himself and the world.

Flash-forward to 1997, right before the events of episode four. Cunanan is seen injecting drugs while begging credit card companies to extend his limit so he can fly to Minneapolis. Cutouts of Gianni Versace are pasted to his wall, hinting at the formation of his obsession.

Trail, whom we know Andrew winds up murdering, reveals to a co-worker that he was in the military as an officer before making the decision to leave. He gets heated when asked more.

Trail and Madson are wary of Cunanan as they pick him up at the airport. They think of ways to avoid him while he’s in town. Immediately upon arriving back at Madson’s apartment, Andrew proposes. Madson is both confused and horrified. He attempts to decline, but Andrew persists.

Trail and his sister discuss a postcard Andrew “accidentally” sent to Trail’s father, outing him. The sister pushes for him to actually inform his parents. Cunanan repeatedly humiliates Madson in public, telling mutual friends of their engagement. Madson loudly declines the proposal again.

The next day, Madson attempts to confront Andrew about his pattern of lying while offering him some financial help. Andrew says he’s starting a new life in San Francisco and needs someone to share it with, while subtly accusing Madson of being in love with Trail.

Andrew stalks Madson that night and watches him rendezvous with another man. Andrew goes back to Trail’s apartment and begins rummaging through his drawers, looking for something. Evidence to use against him? A piece of information to confirm his paranoia?

Andrew finds both a video on gay people in the military (which conspicuously features a thinly anonymized interview with Trail) and a gun. Trail recounts saving the life of a Navy man being beaten to death by his fellow soldiers for being gay. He wonders if coming to the rescue was the right move for his career.

Flash-back to two years prior, to the very incident Trail described. Trail is seen rescuing a smaller soldier from vicious beatings twice in a row. He consoles the soldier who begs for a reassignment. Another soldier sees the moment, and his suspicions are aroused.

Paranoia about sexuality at the military site is on high, with soldiers exchanging stories about men in bathrooms engaging in illicit encounters. Trail is visibly worried when a higher officer calls him in for a meeting, stressing the importance of codes of conduct.

Trail considers suicide. He cleans his garb and ties a noose with his belt. As he dangles from a bench, he changes his mind and unties himself.

Hours later, he’s at a gay night club. And there’s Andrew, sitting at the bar. Cunanan clocks that it’s Trail’s first time at a gay bar, and the two start drinking.

Back to Versace. He appears to be going through with his coming out despite Donatella’s warnings. The scene is cross-cut with Trail’s interview about gays hiding in the military. The two stories are parallel.

It goes back to 1997 again. Cunanan and Trail argue.

“I saved you,” says Andrew.

“You destroyed me,” replies Trail.

“I loved you,” says Andrew.

“No one wants your love,” Trail retorts.

Andrew leaves for Madson’s place. Later that night, he’d go on to murder Trail with a hammer.

The extent to which Murphy has embellished the lives of Trail and Madson for the purposes of his narrative are unclear, although the basic facts do match up: Trail was, in fact, a Navy officer whose body was found in Madson’s apartment. He did, in fact, give an anonymized interview on being gay in the Navy.

Trail’s deep shame over his sexuality, like Madson and Miglin, was the source of his relationship with Cunanan — who, in Murphy’s narrative, fed off his victims’ melancholic regrets like a vampire. It would have been easier to depict Andrew as a purely manipulative monster, stalking wounded prey. Instead, Murphy shows him as desperate and drawn to the bleeding — not only out of a desire to manipulate and dominate, but also to end his loneliness.

Although the ‘90s are often seen as somewhat of a paragon of socially liberal progress, the cruelties of that decade are washed away in the waves of nostalgia from the past few years. Cunanan’s narrative, however fictionalized it may be in Murphy’s sociopathic love stories, highlight not only the immense nastiness foisted upon sexual minorities in our recent history, but also the heartache (and violence) of living in a world designed around queer persecution and forced isolation.

‘American Crime Story’ Episode 5 Unexpectedly Tackles Violence Against Gay Men In The Military

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Quote of the Night:

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

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

American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace S02E05: Don’t Ask Don’t Tell

JEFF TRAIL TAKES CENTRE STAGE IN A FANTASTIC EPISODE

When this season of American Crime Story began it was hard to imagine how it would compare to the popularity and acclaim of its first season. If anything, this season had a much tougher job than the first, tasked as it was with proving if this type of show could maintain said quality in the long term while telling distinct and different stories each season. Part of season two’s success is how different it is to The People v OJ Simpson. Instead of the equivalent of a Law and Order episode stretched to ten meticulously researched and dramatic hours, The Assassination of Gianni Versace has utilised the fact that, as a genre, crime is an environment for expansive story-telling.

The last two episodes, the first centring on the murders of Lee Miglin and William Reese, and the second on the murders of Jeff Trail and David Madson, have kicked the season into high gear by putting the victims of Andrew Cunanan front and centre. Don’t Ask Don’t Tell finally puts the spotlight on Andrew’s first victim, Jeff Trail.

To say that Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is the best episode of the season may not mean that much coming from me, considering I felt the exact same way about the previous two, but that just goes to show what a hot streak American Crime Story is on at the moment. The story that is being told here, the different aspects that branch out from Andrew killing Versace, create a rich tapestry that the late designer would have been proud of, if he made tapestries that is.

Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’s main focus here is rejection filtered through the attitudes towards homosexuality in the early to mid-90s. It’s an episode of contrast, taking us through the different experiences that Gianni Versace and Jeff Trail went through when coming to terms with who they are.

We begin with Versace, as he reveals to his sister Donatella his plans to officially come out as gay through an interview with Advocate. So far, the Versace family, apart from Gianni’s death. Have been used to add flavour to the main story rather than be the main course themselves; which is surprising considering the heavyweight talent playing them. Gianni coming out here is used as a contrast to the fact that Jeff, living in completely different circumstances cannot. Of course, Donatella has her own suspicions about why her brother is choosing to come out now. Apart from rhyming off a list of ways that this revelation could hurt their business, something that didn’t actually come to pass, she outright accuses Antonio of using the it as an opportunity to achieve a kind of fame of his own, confirming in the process that these two never got along. Finally, Gianni shouts both of them down, saying that it was his idea, his decision, words that reverberate throughout the episode.

The point of Versace’s role in this episode is that he wasn’t rejected by the industry that made him a superstar. Before his death there was no other fashion designer whose image was as deeply connected to his brand as the clothes he made. He even became an icon in the gay community which is one of the reasons he came up on Andrew’s radar in the first place.

Jeff Trail is a different story all together. A decorated and respected Naval Officer, Jeff’s identity is just as defined by his career as it is his sexuality. The problem is that these two things are directly opposed to each other. Homophobia in the military was a such heights in the mid-90s that most gay officers hid their sexuality from their colleagues for fear of abuse. For Jeff this culminates in the bravest moment of his life, when he came to the aid of an officer who was being beaten to death because he was gay. Jeff admits in a 60 Minutes interview, in which his face is hidden, and his voice is distorted, that he wishes sometimes that he let the officer die: that way he could have stayed hidden. He eventually leaves the Navy because he can’t take hiding anymore, but that doesn’t mean that he can fully come out of the closet.

This is where Andrew comes in as we see his and Jeff’s first meeting. Andrew comes across as everything that Jeff wants to be: comfortable in the gay scene, confident, kind, and generous. It’s Andrew that points out the fallacy of Jeff having to hide in order to do the interview while the men against him and his gay colleagues are free to talk about killing faggots in full uniform. Andrew’s not wrong, although he is clearly manipulating Jeff into needing him more.

So, Jeff is rejected from what he sees as his true calling in life, he even keeps his naval uniform in a place of almost worship in his bedroom closet, if that isn’t symbolism then what is? Now it’s Andrew’s turn to be turned away from people he thought cared about him. After years of his lies and manipulations, he even sent Jeff’s father a postcard to try and out Jeff, he arrives in Minneapolis to see Jeff and David only to be continually turned away.

As well as these deep thematic discussions, Don’t Ask Don’t Tell also boasts the best performances of the season so far. Finn Wittrock, known for playing psychopaths on American Horror Story, broke my heart as Jeff. His turmoil and anxiety was palpable in a performance of tragically human proportions. He is the only actor so far that has come close to Darren Criss in terms of quality.

10/10 – American Crime Story continues to rewrite the crime genre’s rule book when it comes to adapting a true crime case. No other show has put this much effort into the killer’s victims, giving them full stories where other shows relegate them to gory crime scene photographs. Halfway through the season, and American Crime Story is already one of 2018’s most important shows.

American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace S02E05: Don’t Ask Don’t Tell

The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story Review: Don’t Ask Don’t Tell (Season 2 Episode 5)

The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Season Season 2 Episode 5 “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is another heartbreaking episode which showcases the homophobia of the 1990s which had been in the background on previous episodes, but is now front and center.

“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is impeccably acted as always and it is interesting to see how Jeff Trail and Andrew Cunanan meet. We only saw Finn Wittrock as Jeff Trail very briefly in The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story Season 2 Episode 4 “The House by the Lake,” before Andrew brutally hammered him to death.

However, the timeline is still not working as well as it should. When the episode opens in 1995 with Versace telling Donatella he is going to come out, I was glad that we were getting back to the Versace storyline.

Any scene with Donatella is mesmerizing.

The scene illuminates the stigma of being gay and what it can do to a business, even in fashion, which now, we would see as an accepting industry. Donatella assumes that Antonio wants the fame of being recognized as Gianni’s boyfriend.

But Gianni insists that it is his idea. He almost died and now he wants to share his story.

It’s something he must do.

Versace is only present at the beginning of the episode and then at the end when we see how very different Gianni and Jeff’s stories are told to the press.

It is so sweet when Gianni calls Antonio over and introduces him to the journalist as his partner for the past thirteen years. I love Ricky Martin more and more with each episode he’s on.

Jeff Trail’s conversation with a CBS camera crew is in a dingy hotel compared to the beautiful hotel suite Gianni meets Advocate magazine in. Gianni will be on the cover of the magazine, whereas Jeff will be in shadows and his voice masked like “a criminal.”

Jeff Trail came from a military family and was serving in the Navy under the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy which prohibited the military from discriminating against closeted homosexuals, but at the same time banned openly gay and bisexual people from joining the military.

As we see Gianni and Antonio walk the hotel hallways on the way to the interview intercut with Jeff meeting journalists in secret, I had kind of forgotten that Versace had even been a part of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

The episode largely belongs to Jeff, but after Versace’s intro, we’re back to Andrew’s point of view, four days before the start of his murder spree.

Oh, and Andrew’s also injecting heroin.

As Andrew prepares to leave his life in San Diego, we see a typical serial killer shrine with images of Versace (including the Advocate cover) which shows that Versace was always a target. We also see that Andrew lives in a small room with very little possessions and a closet full of blazers.

He must keep up appearances.

The episode continues to jump between the fateful weekend Andrew comes to Minneapolis, the first time Andrew and Jeff meet, and Jeff’s time in the Navy.

I wish that we would have seen more of Andrew and Jeff’s relationship and how Jeff discovered that Andrew was a fraud.

The interview Jeff gives is a big moment on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” however, we see it three times. First, we actually see the incident Jeff talks about where he came to the aid of a fellow sailor who was getting beat up for being gay.

Then, Andrew watches the CBS tape where Jeff confides that he wishes he hadn’t saved the sailor’s life because it ended his military career.

And then, we hear the story again in the motel room with Jeff and the journalists.

It’s too repetitive and when we see Jeff tell the TV crew about the incident at the same time as Versace comes out to the world, Jeff’s story doesn’t make as big as an impact as it should.

What does make an impact is when Jeff tells Andrew that he has no honor.

The look on Andrew’s face is murderous.

Even more so when Jeff says, “No one wants your love.”

We don’t know why Andrew is the way he is but his motivation for murder is somewhat clear. He kills men who he either wanted to out, who he envied, or who he thought wronged him.

“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is a good episode because of the way it handles the subject matter. The execution, however, however, is too clunky. It is too repetitive at times and Jeff and Andrew’s relationship could have been explored a little further.

Reviewer Rating: 3½ / 5 stars

The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story Review: Don’t Ask Don’t Tell (Season 2 Episode 5)

‘American Crime Story: Versace’ recap: ‘House by the Lake’ – TheCelebrityCafe.com

When hearing the phrase “House by the Lake,” it’s most likely associated with good memories for most people. Something cozy, like a nice cabin perhaps. A place to relax and let life slow down.

But Andrew Cunanan is not most people, and from this point forward “House by the Lake” is going to mean something much, much different for him.

The fourth episode of American Crime Story: Versace — “House by the Lake” — once again dives further into Andrew’s past, before he ever met Gianni (it’s a little strange how Versace in is the title of the show and we’ve barely seen him the past couple of weeks, but we’re willing to roll with it).

This episode takes place one week before everything that went down with Lee in episode three happened — showing Andrew in a far more vulnerable state.

Andrew is living with David Madson (Cody Fern) — a young architect (he’s really got a thing for architects) whom Andrew seems to be head-over-heels in love with. David, apparently, doesn’t feel the same way as he’s starting to grow tired of their relationship and is looking for a way to escape Andrew’s requests for marriage.

The two are sharing some tense moments in David’s apartment — David receiving a promotion and trying then trying leave, Andrew standing around acting all creepy — when their friend Jeff (Finn Wittrock) knocks on the door. David’s confused why he’s here, but Andrew says he invited him over pretty much just out of spite: he’s pretty sure David is cheating on him with Jeff, and he wants to give the two “a chance to talk about me.”

A frustrated David goes downstairs to let Jeff in. They talk about how weird Andrew has been lately and head back into the apartment — which is where Andrew is waiting with a hammer.

BAM. Down goes Jeff. A couple of bloody blows to the head later, and he’s out for good.

David is horrified and doesn’t know how to react. Andrew quickly reassures him that he’s not going to kill him because he still loves him and all that. Sure Andrew, sure.

Still in shock, David thinks they should call the police but Andrew won’t hear for it. He tells him that they’ll both be locked up — David let Jeff in, it’s his hammer and cops hate gay people, and Andrew couldn’t live with himself if David had to go to prison. Oh yeah, Andrew has a gun too — one he stole from Jeff at one point — which further convinces David to go along with Andrew’s schemes.

After an awkward dog walk, the two wind up making a run for it. Good thing too, because it’s not long after the crime is committed that the police come knocking on David’s door.

At first, they assume that David’s body is the one they’ve stumbled upon. Then, after noticing the hair color doesn’t match, they make the next logical conclusion — it’s Andrew’s body. Upon this realization, they instantly run out of the apartment: they don’t have a warrant to be here, meaning anything they discover at this time won’t hold up in a court of law.

Finally, after they get a warrant and send the body down to the lab, they learn the truth: it’s Jeff. They send out an APB for Andrew and David, both of whom are long gone at this point.

Long gone, on their way to Chicago to try and get some money from Andrew’s friend Lee (sound familiar?) David is still a part of all of this, despite his constant confusion. We’re constantly seen flashbacks of him and his dad — a scene in which their hunting, another in which David comes out to him .

After stopping in a restaurant and hearing a cover of “Drive” by The Cars that makes Andrew breakdown and cry (which is, by far, the most emotion we’ve ever seen from Andrew. Maybe he isn’t as remorseless as we’ve been lead to believe), David — who had the chance to escape out a bathroom window — finally commits to the situation and returns to Andrew.

At least, he did in that moment, only to realize his mistake later. The next morning, David sees Andrew holding his gun — which he promised not to use as long as David was around. Andrew won’t admit to what he was doing, which then causes David to crack. He lets him know how much of a manipulator and terrible person Andrew is, how he killed Jeff just because he was in love with him.

Huge mistake. Huge. Like, yeah, David is right and everything but saying that face-to-face with a psycho killer probably isn’t the best idea in the world.

That’s what leads them to a house. After driving in tension for awhile, Andrew pulls over by a lake and drags David out of the car. David begs for his life, but there’s no saving him at this point.

David makes a run for it — and for a moment it looks like he might make it. We see David imagine that he makes it inside a nearby house, only to find his father there, offering him a cup of coffee. The illusion is touching, but only last a second. We snap back to reality to find David has been shot in the back and is bleeding out. Andrew lays with his corpse for awhile, only to then get back in the car and continue to his journey to Chicago. Look out Lee. Look out Versace.

‘American Crime Story: Versace’ recap: ‘House by the Lake’ – TheCelebrityCafe.com

‘American Crime Story’ Takes a Deeper Dive Into Jeff Trail’s Life Before His Murder

These past two weeks, American Crime Story has put forth two incredibly beautiful and heartbreaking episodes about the deaths that kicked off Andrew Cunanan’s murder spree, those of Jeff Trail and David Madson.

Madson was front and center last week, showing what ACS producers think most likely happened to him after Trail’s murder in his loft, interspersed with scenes of Madson and his father. This week, it’s Trail’s turn in the spotlight, as the show reveals his struggle as a gay naval officer and the way he met Cunanan.

Flashing back two years before his murder, we see Trail serving active duty in the Navy, stationed in San Diego. This is around the time when “don’t ask, don’t tell” was a new policy, but by all appearances, Trail loves his life in the military, even if it means hiding who he really is. That changes when he stops some fellow servicemen from beating another serviceman to death for being gay. This puts a huge target on Trail’s back and basically torpedoes his career.

The show makes it seem as though Trail meets Cunanan at a local gay bar and confides in him that he’s going to do an interview with CBS News program 48 Hours about gay people serving in the military. Cunanan makes a big show of talking about how servicemen who are against LGBTQ+ people in the military get to speak about it openly, while Trail has to hide his identity in order to even talk about the issue.

It’s a great point, though, weirdly, the timeline is a bit off. The 48 Hours special was filmed in 1993, which is around the time Cunanan and Trail met — not in 1995, as the show depicts, which may just be an error. There is also no evidence that Cunanan had anything to do with Trail’s decision to do the interview, but it does make for good storytelling and gets Cunanan more involved in Trail’s life in San Diego.

The show then jumps ahead to 1997, when Trail is already living in Minneapolis and Cunanan has come to visit him. It’s unclear if Cunanan’s jealousy over Trail and Madson’s alleged involvement started before he came to Minneapolis or after, but the show definitely uses that as the fuel that drives Cunanan to kill them both, though, in real life, the two were not involved. According to multiple accounts, the two were acquainted but not really even friends.

But Cunanan suspects the two are together romantically behind his back, so he invites Trail to Madson’s loft, and that’s where the episode ends for this story line, with Cunanan slamming the apartment door as he starts beating Trail to death with a hammer.

Outside of Trail’s story, we also get a few scenes with Gianni Versace after two weeks without any Versace material. This week, his experiences as a gay man dovetail nicely with Trail’s experience — they both give interviews about being gay, but while Trail has to conduct his in a seedy motel room with his face obscured by shadow, Versace, a celebrity, does his in a posh hotel suite with a glamorous photo shoot for The Advocate.

American Crime Story may be about Cunanan’s murder spree at its heart, but there is a thread running through it of the struggles gay men faced in the 1990s, as the movement itself was coming out of the closet and met with both support and violent hatred.

The juxtaposition of Trail and Versace is such an interesting framing device that it’s almost a shame we have to spend any time with Cunanan in this episode. Yes, he is the tie that binds all these men together, and Criss is doing an incredible job with the role, but his self-hatred and jealousy and the psychopathic way they manifest themselves is so ugly and manipulative and even jarring. It would have been nice to avoid him altogether for a week.

‘American Crime Story’ Takes a Deeper Dive Into Jeff Trail’s Life Before His Murder

AMERICAN CRIME STORY Review: “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”

This week’s episode of American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace looked like it was going to buck the recent trend of going backwards in time to see what Versace murderer Andrew Cunanan was up to before he got to Miami Beach. It opened in Milan in 1995, with Versace himself (still very much alive then) arguing with his sister Donatella about his decision to give an interview with an American publication in which he will reveal he is gay. His lover (and assistant) Antonio D’Amico is present as well.

This is the first time we have seen these characters in a number of weeks, as the previous few episodes focused entirely on Andrew’s backstory. So it was a pleasure to see them pop up here. It is a curious decision to put names like Penelope Cruz and Ricky Martin on the bench, so I was fully anticipating an episode devoted in full to the story of Versace’s coming out.

Nope. Totally wrong. After the cold open in which Versace and Donatella have a heated exchange over what his coming out might mean for the company, we flash back to a few days before Jeff Trail is murdered in Minneapolis (brutally with a hammer by Andrew Cunanan, which we saw last week). Cunanan is on the phone with a credit card company representative trying to convince them to let him put one last charge on his card: a flight to Minneapolis, where he assures them he will be able to make his debt right.

Meanwhile in Minneapolis, we see that Jeff is working a factory job. A coworker who he lunches with starts prying about Jeff’s past military experience. Jeff tells him he was an Officer and his friend wonders why he would leave that gig to come work here. Jeff is gets fired up pretty quickly, screaming at the man “It was MY choice!” He really makes a scene. As we know, especially from the title of the episode “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” Jeff has most likely been dishonorably discharged from the military for being homosexual.

Soon Andrew is arriving in town, and Jeff and the fellow future Andrew victim David are at the airport to greet him. It’s clear that neither one of them wants much to do with Cunanan at this point, but Jeff speaks about a time where Andrew saved him, and so for old time’s sake is willing to put him up for a couple days. Andrew is all smiles of course, but it’s an eerie feeling the viewer gets realizing that within days this smiling man will be the end of both people there to welcome him.

The episode has its ups and downs in that we know where all this is leading. At times this makes it a little more dull than the last few episodes. At times it adds to the tension. We knew last week that Andrew had taken Jeff’s gun from his apartment without his permission, and the night he kills Jeff, Jeff comes to David’s apartment to retrieve the gun. So this week we see a scene in which Andrew goes through Jeff’s things. I’m not sure we needed to.

Much more interesting is the stuff with Jeff. We get a full backstory to this character, going back to when he was stationed on a ship in San Diego and decided to intervene when some of his fellow soldiers were beating another one to death for being gay. It’s a courageous act, but it is the very act that he later comes to regret. That sets off a chain of events that eventually leads to his death. People begin suspecting that he may, in fact, be gay. When he hears a fellow soldier who turned out to be gay cut a deal with the higher-ups to reveal everyone else he knew to be gay, but he would only be identifying them by their tattoos, Jeff sneaks away and literally tries to cut the tattoo on his leg off his body. It’s excruciating but speaks to his desperation.

Sadly, Jeff tries to hang himself. When he can’t do it, he heads to a gay bar for the first time ever. That’s where he meets the charming Andrew Cunanan. In the most interesting scene, we see Andrew lift Jeff’s spirits and we’re happy for him. But we also know that one day Andrew is going to bludgeon him to death with a hammer. Eventually, due to his meeting with Andrew, Jeff gets the courage to go on camera (though his face is not revealed) and speak about his time as a homosexual man in the military. He painfully laments how he regrets the greatest thing he ever did: saving that man from being beaten to death. This interview is paralleled by Versace’s own interview where he comes out of the closet; one with tentative pride and one with utter shame.

This is really what this series is all about. It’s zoomed in on specific character stories that speak to what was going on in America and the world at the time. That’s what The People Vs. O.J. did so well, and what I was worried this second season would fall flat with. But I stand corrected. These are important stories and interesting ones. And the show just keeps getting better.

TB gives it an A

AMERICAN CRIME STORY Review: “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”