“Ascent” C+
As The Assassination Of Gianni Versace winds down toward the end of its season, there is a lesser sense of urgency present throughout. “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” was the clear highlight of season two and these last two episodes—ugh, titled “Descent” and “Ascent”—haven’t quite succeeded in keeping up the momentum. Neither are bad episodes but both feel somewhat meandering and a little confused about what the ultimate thesis is (and especially so in comparison to the first half of this season, which was always interesting).
Last week’s “Descent” saw Andrew rapidly spiraling out of control leading up to his murder spree and this week’s “Ascent” goes just a bit further back to show us his home life, and to sprinkle in some more background information. Simultaneously, “Ascent” also showcases Donatella (and some of Gianni) as she tries to figure out where she fits in within Versace™, which has become more pressing now that her brother is having health problems. While it’s nice to see Donatella (Penelope Cruz forever!), the episode doesn’t work as well as it could.
Donatella is a fascinating person, though perhaps more in real life than in Assassination (which is to be expected in a show trying to tackle this much in just nine episodes) which is the main frustration with some of these scenes. She remains in the background, as an afterthought. In “Ascent,” the cold open revolves around Versace pushing her to be more of a designer and less of an assistant. “You have the opportunity to be great and you choose to assist,” he tells her, though I wonder how much of that truly is her choice and how much of it is her falling into that role because the company and family dynamic demanded it. He wants them to design a dress together, reminding her that he’s sick and that she’s tasked with taking over the company when he dies. It’s a cold open layered with what they don’t know: that his death will be sooner and more sudden.
Later, we see the dress the two designed together (a dress I have seen a ripped-off version of many times during my Hot Topic years) as Donatella steps out into the spotlight of countless flashbulbs. Versace steps aside. But it’s not as successful as it seems at first; an employee later informs the Versace siblings that customers are “turning away from grandeur and showmanship” and instead looking toward “simplicity and practicality,” prompting a disagreement between Donatella and Versace. The argument is cut short when Versace suddenly loses his hearing and, later, we’re told he’s suffering from ear cancer. He’s going to take care of himself in Miami while Donatella deals with the day-to-day operations of the company.
When it comes to Andrew, there are two standout scenes in “Ascent,” albeit with different results. First, there is David and Andrew in the hotel together after they’ve had sex and are now sitting on the floor in comfortable robes, opening up to each other (or at least David’s opening up to Andrew). David tells the story of coming out to his childhood friend—a girl who confused his earlier actions with something more romantic—and how she felt betrayed and never spoke to him again. It’s a vulnerable moment for David, and for the whole show, and it speaks to recurring themes: how so many of Andrew’s victims were men full of trauma, loneliness, and isolation—all related to their sexuality. They weren’t able to live openly and, for some, when they finally began to explore a more accessible world, their lives were cut short. Assassination is best in these small moments of examining the trauma and weight of being closeted, or the climate of homophobia.
The second scene occurs after Lincoln brings home a self-proclaimed straight man from the gay bar. It’s already a tense mood as the man takes a step back when Lincoln takes a step forward. But when Lincoln decides to call him a cab and reaches out to take the drink back, their fingers touch for a brief second and everything shifts to something more sinister. “Ascent” goes into horror movie mode, complete with a sound cue, as the man beats Lincoln to death in a pretty gruesome scene reminiscent of Andrew bludgeoning Jeff Trail. As it turns out, Andrew is also in the house; the man tries to justify his actions (“He tried to kiss me,” which is certainly not true) and Andrew tells him to run.
It’s a rough scene to watch but it’s also one that feels false and forced the more I sit with it. What exactly are we supposed to take from it? That Andrew is copying what he saw? That being closeted and/or internalized homophobia is dangerous? That police don’t give a shit about marginalized people (the later conversation with Norman—”You can kill us and get away with it” also feels too neat)? Because the other episodes have already made all of this pretty clear! And it’s true that Lincoln was murdered in real life (a drifter confessed to the police, though you’d never guess that from clickbait headlines implicating Andrew) but was this a necessary inclusion? It left me with a similar feeling to the scene in “Manhunt” when the businessman hangs up on 911, but it mostly left me wondering if the show just doesn’t have enough left in it.
See, much of “Ascent” is rehashing what we already know. We see Andrew cruise Norman, and then detour to Lincoln only to end up back with Norman. We see him repurpose David’s story for his own in order to win over Norman. We see him clash with his mentally ill mother while trying to leave. We see his charisma, yes, and we also see his selfishness and his violent streak. We see him lie and manipulate, over and over, but what sets any of this apart from the last few episodes? When Andrew meets David, it’s to show why David was drawn to him—but we basically already saw why during Andrew and Jeff’s first meeting. When Andrew smashes store-brand ice cream to the floor and exclaims “I want the best,” there’s nothing new about that note; it’s just hitting the same beat.
It’s strange that “Ascent,” which depicts everything from a fucked-up mother/son relationship to a brutal murder, feels like a filler episode but it does. Maybe it just feels that way because Assassination was so top heavy and this is a change of pace. Maybe the show is just simply running out of steam toward the end. But hopefully it was just a bump in the road, and it’ll regain its footing for the final two hours.
Stray observations
- If we’re being completely honest, the more I sat with last week’s “Descent,” the less I liked it! I don’t think either of these are bad episodes of television but just lacking in comparison to the first five. Or maybe all this murder and homophobia is making your reviewer just a lil cynical!
- I would like to see more of the dynamic between Andrew and his mother (and his father, too, if they go back that far) because she’s such a strangely compelling person in Orth’s book, and I’ve mostly liked what I’ve seen of her so far.
- Another good scene: Andrew at the escort interview, desperately trying to sell himself (he’s “clever,” “really fun to be around,” “well-endowed”) and basically getting inspected like he’s a pup at a dog show. She even checks his teeth! I do wish Assassination would touch upon the race factor a bit more—he’s denied because clients “rarely ask for Asians”—because being a white-passing Filipino who constantly lies about his background is a pretty interesting character trait to explore!
- It’s a testament to Penelope Cruz and Edgar Ramirez that I never outwardly groan at some of the cheesier lines (“This dress is not my legacy. You are”).
Tag: review
Intriguing but also baffling: The Assassination of Gianni Versace reviewed | The Spectator
By common consent, including Bafta’s, The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story was one of the best TV dramas of 2016. Produced by Ryan Murphy, it laid out the story in a beautifully clear, largely chronological way that made us appreciate, all over again, just how strange the whole O.J. business was — not least thanks to the wider social forces at work. Now, we’ve got The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story (BBC2, Wednesday), also produced by Ryan Murphy and also tackling an event from the 1990s that manages to seem both shockingly particular and neatly revealing of more general trends.
At which point, all similarities end, because here Murphy (who also directed the first episode) takes a far more fragmented and less viewer-friendly approach. The show hops backwards and forwards in time, showing us scenes and several unnamed minor characters that are yet to be linked, and for quite long stretches it appears perfectly content to leave us somewhere between intrigued and baffled.
Last week’s first episode, for example, began with a long, pre-credits sequence that intercut scenes of Versace’s highly agreeable life in his (literally) gilded Miami Beach villa with regular sightings of a handsome young man beside the ocean, alternately reading a history of Vogue and fondling a gun. The man then headed to the villa, saw Versace returning from a morning stroll and shot him dead. The sequence certainly established the programme’s ability to blend sumptuous visuals with the slow cranking-up of something very sinister indeed. But it also demonstrated an equally characteristic willingness to be deliberately enigmatic about what on earth was going on — and, more specifically, why.
Two episodes on, and we’re not much the wiser. We do know that the killer, Andrew Cunanan, had already murdered four men when he arrived in Miami Beach a few weeks before Versace’s death in July 1997. Yet, the details of his background, crimes and motives still remain distinctly mysterious. Admittedly, Cunanan was a fantasist, a compulsive liar or both, telling different people different stories wherever he went. Nonetheless, the drama could presumably have set at least some of the record straight by now. So why hasn’t it? The reason, I’d suggest, is a pretty good one: to make us realise that, when it comes to a man as weirdly malevolent as this, being somewhere between intrigued and baffled is an entirely justified response.
Meanwhile, the snapshots of Cunanan’s past also served as snapshots of gay life in the late 1990s, a time when a treatment for Aids had finally been found, and when, it seems, the obvious sense of relief was combined with a feeling of mild incredulity, as people slowly recovered from a collective trauma. For their part, Versace and his partner Antonio were faced — perhaps not uniquely — with the choice of whether to throw themselves cheerfully into their old promiscuous ways or to opt for cosy monogamy.
Despite the strength of the individual scenes, Darren Criss’s fantastically unsettling performance as Cunanan and an impressive supporting cast — including Penelope Cruz as Versace’s sister Donatella and Ricky Martin as Antonio — it’s clear that for viewers of The Assassination of Gianni Versace a certain degree of patience will be required. Luckily, those very same things also give us enough confidence in the show to believe that our patience will ultimately be rewarded.
Intriguing but also baffling: The Assassination of Gianni Versace reviewed | The Spectator
The Assassination of Gianni Versace Episode 7 Review: Ascent
★★½ out of 5 stars
There’s a lot of the same in this episode – Andrew’s delusions of grandeur, his refusal to either accept a normal life or fight for something better. Yet so much is, chronologically, for the first time – seeking out older men in the personals, taking someone’s story and using it as his own, telling stories with almost no truth to them at all. This episode posits itself as Andrew becoming the Andrew we know, the liar, the killer, the manipulator, the purloiner of other people’s money, stories, and lives. Its mixed performance largely fluctuates with how smoothly it executes that transition.
The Cunanan story is bookended and intermixed by more time with the Versaces than we’ve had since perhaps episode 2, and it’s a welcome change. It’s the time period when Gianni knew he was sick, but was keeping his status a secret, or trying to. All series, Edgar Ramírez and Penélope Cruz have done an excellent job playing the deep affection and loyalty that Gianni and Donatella had for each other. Still, it’s clear who’s side Murphy is on – when Gianni and Donatella fight, the show gives the task of setting Gianni straight to Antonio. This makes Antonio the better person, the man who rises above his disagreements with Donatella for the good of his partner.
Donatella really comes into her own in this episode, struggling with her pain at what was then a death sentence for her brother, as well as fears about her inadequacy to run Versace without Gianni. Both siblings are cracking. He wants her to be great, to be able to go on without him, but he doesn’t know how to show it without disappointment and frustrating. And she gives him other people’s designs, claiming she’s incapable. Maybe that’s why she does it – if she is never good enough to run Versace on her own, perhaps she will never have to.
There’s a truly beautiful moment, when they decide to design a dress together, and Gianni tells his sister that the dress is not his legacy, she is. Rocking a bumpit way before they were cool (or even invented), Donatella steals the show at the Vogue 100th anniversary gala in a dress that would make Adam Rippon jealous. On the other hand, Gianni walks gingerly, still sick, a portent of his upcoming recuperation from “rare ear cancer” in Miami, which couldn’t sound more like a lie if it tried. As he unveils her in their creation at the Vogue 100 party, and then steps out of the spotlight, he passes the torch.,
Of course this being both Ryan Murphy and Donatella, things are a little weird. Donatella and Gianni have always had a weird, too-close for siblings vibe. But there’s something about the way she is as his model, the straps of her slip sliding off her shoulders, him slipping a belt out from his waist and around her neck, the hint if BDSM and auto-erotic asphyxiation, that makes it all a bit too sexually charged for siblings, even for these two.
The first half of Andrew’s story was tough to take. In his first scene of the episode, he doesn’t even look like Andrew – he’s Darren Criss. His dramatic reactions, like his Haagen-Dazs tantrum, feel overwrought and on the nose, rather than precisely characterized the way he’s been so far. It does give him a chance to give his character’s thesis statement: “it’s not even German mom, it’s just a name that they made up to sound special.” Unfortunately, in the first real misstep of the series, it’s not coming through as well in this episode. Somehow, in a show that has featured a person mopping up human blood with a magazine ad for their own clothing and a bird autopsy, throwing a tub of ice cream on the floor still feels too much and off-key.
It’s odd to once again feel sympathy for Andrew, which Criss manages, if only briefly, when trying to sell himself to the woman running the escort service. He seems to genuinely think that saying, “I’m clever” three different ways will be enough. So much of what works in this episode, though, is watching Cunanan become the man we know. So we see him learn to scope out and then manipulate older men, meet and charm David with the dinner we saw him feverishly try to re-create in the previous episode.
Between Andrew’s conversations with his Filipino boss, and his attempt to become an escort have the most pointed discussion of Cunanan’s ethnicity so far. I can’t imagine anyone else in this role, and it’s certainly a career-defining moment for Criss. But it’s also a great case for casting roles with the appropriate ethnicity. Both Criss and Cunanan are half-Filipino, and it’s clear that Cunanan was carrying as many anxieties about his ethnicity as his sexuality, as we see him call himself da Silva for the first time. Unless you’re watching Mystic Pizza or live in certain pockets of the country, it’s easy for many white Americans to forget what it has been like for Portuguese people in this country, even recently. One wonders what further nuance a Filipino or otherwise AAPI (Asian-American or Pacific Islander) showrunner would have brought to this project, in the same way that Ryan Murphy has created a show no hetero would have ever made.
Unfortunately, in the final part of his education, we get both a bonus brutal murder, and Andrew learning the wrong lesson from Lincoln’s death. He saw how to kill, how to get caught, and, most importantly, that gay men can be robber, beaten, and killed without any real consequence. I shouldn’t be shocked by the bloody mess where Lincoln’s face used to be, or the inclusion of another death in this series. But I am. As Cunanan sheds his poor, beaten mother and his old life, the fact that this Andrew-adjacent murder is seen as a reasonable response to a man trying to kiss him (which he didn’t), is just one more reminder of the larger crimes at stake.
The Assassination of Gianni Versace Episode 7 Review: Ascent
American Crime Story: Versace Season 1 Episode 7 Review: Ascent
With only a few episodes left, this series is coming down the home stretch rather slowly.
American Crime Story: Versace Season 1 Episode 7 takes us even further back in time to the days before Andrew met David and even Norman. This is Andrew completely devoid of excess and merely working a 9-5 to make ends meet.
Oh and the Versace’s are back. It’s been awhile since they fully shared an hour with the Andrew Cunanan story.
Overall, while this series has been strong, there’s been world class installments and much weaker ones. This one, unfortunately, fell in the weaker category for me.
For starters, let’s talk about the Versace’s. During the premiere, I was so excited to see what they were going to show us about this family. The casting was out of this world and there’s so much meat to their story.
Yet, here we are with two episodes to go and Gianni and Donatella Versace feel like completely secondary characters. Everything is so Andrew Cunanan centric, that when I see the siblings it takes me awhile to even remember what has been going on with their storylines.
Donatella- This company is you, it’s not me.
Gianni- You have to make it yours. You have to take it. And you have to own it.At this stage of the game, we’re back in 1992. Gianni is sick with a rare form of ear cancer and he and Donatella are struggling with their ideas of how she fits into the company.
For many of us now, we see Donatella as the face of Versace, so it’s very interesting to see the dynamics at play years before Gianni’s death. The confident and secure Donatella we saw shortly after Gianni passed, is not the Donatella we see here. She’s uneasy and unsure about where she stands.
It is Gianni that gives her the strength and motivation to believe in herself, her talents and her importance.
Seeing the siblings here, I feel robbed they we haven’t gotten more of them throughout the course of the series. Andrew is an obviously interesting case study in sociopathic behavior, but the heart of this story comes from the Versace’s.
At this point, it feels like I could rattle off a term paper about Andrew Cunanan’s entire life, yet I’m still wondering about so many things in regard to Gianni and Donatella.
For me, being told no is like being told I don’t exist. It’s like I disappeared or something. – Andrew [to Jeff]
But maybe I was naive to believe this would be a story that focused equally on Andrew and Gianni. This was always going to be about what lead to the assassination and that had everything to do with Mr. Cunanan.
As we continue traveling back in time, we finally stumble upon the Andrew that truly has nothing. Sure we’ve seen him at rock bottom, but have we seen Andrew truly have to work for anything?
One of the most intriguing things about Andrew is his sense of entitlement. He believes that he is owed everything. From ice cream, to an allowance, to a job.
And it’s this inflated sense of self-importance that ends up being one of his biggest downfalls.
Prior to Norman, there was another wealthy, older man in Andrew’s life and I had no idea how that story unfolded. The entire scene of Lincoln and the man he picked up in the bar sizing one another up, just felt off. Like it was apparent something was going to go wrong but I didn’t know what.
I have to wonder if that was Andrew’s first experience with death and if that had an effect on him. I mean, you have to assume it did. To witness a brutal murder and essentially escape death yourself has to impact you.
Norman: We fall sick, it’s our fault. We’re murdered, it’s our fault.
Andrew: You can rob us. You can beat us. You can kill us and get away with it.Norman and Andrew’s conversation about Lincoln’s murder was fascinating. For one, we know that Andrew must have kept his encounter with the murderer and what he saw to himself. This alleged kiss between Lincoln and his killer never took place and Andrew is well aware of that.
So, why not tell the police? I would never presume to know what goes through the head of a narcissistic coward, but he must have thought it was better to for him to act unaware.
At this point in time, as Andrew and Norman stare out at the vast Pacific Ocean, you have to wonder why that just couldn’t be enough for Andrew. Money at his fingertips and the clout he believed he deserved.
But Andrew always wanted more. And he would have died before he walked around this Earth as a forgotten man.
Okay fanatics, what are your thoughts on “Ascent”? Were you hoping to see more of the Versace’s in this series? What else do you want to see before the finale?
American Crime Story: Versace Season 1 Episode 7 Review: Ascent
‘The Assassination of Gianni Versace’ Recap: How Did Andrew Ascend to a Lavish Lifestyle?
The backwards arc of Andrew Cunanan on The Assassination of Gianni Versace continues in the seventh episode, “Ascent.” It’s obviously the inverse of last week’s accurately-titled “Descent” because this time we see Andrew go from a poor pharmacy worker to living in a fancy estate with Norman.
His rise does include a few bumps, including a failed job interview, injuring his mother and witnessing a murder. But really, it’s Andrew’s preference in ice cream that may tell us the most about who he is.
This episode also brings back the Versaces, going back to 1992 to show us Donatella’s own ascent into stardom. At least that means Penelope Cruz is back. Whether you like the structure of this series or not, I hope we can all agree that casting an Oscar-winning actress, then giving her almost nothing to do for four episodes in a row, is not a great decision.
Andrew the Escort
The show goes way back in Andrew’s past to 1992 in San Diego when he was working at a pharmacy and living with his mom. He’s frustrated by his ordinary life, illustrated by his rage over the fact that his mom bought cheap, generic ice cream instead of Haagen-Dazs. Andrew’s lack of self-awareness is startling. He knows the full history of the makers of Haagen-Dazs, admitting that it’s a made-up name designed to sound fancy, and yet he wants it because he believes the corporate lie that it’s something special.
After a bad night at a gay bar, Andrew decides to chase his dreams of wealth by seeking employment at an escort agency. The woman who runs it is impressed with his intelligence, but she turns him down because her clients aren’t interested in arrogant Asians. I know that, like Andrew Cunanan, actor Darren Criss is half-Filipino, but I doubt any of the escort agency’s clients would complain about him being Asian.
Andrew decides to go off on his own, targeting rich old gay men and basically stalking them. He arranges a “coincidental” meeting with Norman at a play to seduce him with his charm. Andrew’s target takes the bait and he gets invited to dinner with Norman and his old pals, Lincoln and Gallo.
At the end of the night, Norman has to go home to Phoenix, but Andrew stays behind with Lincoln, who offers him $100 a night. Andrew counters with a weekly allowance and an expense account, offering to bring over his friends if Lincoln wants more variety.
Andrew and David’s First Date
Now that he has money, Andrew goes out to dinner with his friends and spies a cute blond sitting alone at the bar. It’s David Mdson and Andrew buys him a drink and invites him over. This is the beginning of that first date David talked to Andrew about in last week’s episode.
They go to Andrew’s fancy hotel room and David is intoxicated by the opulence. It’s not long before they share a first kiss while overlooking the San Francisco skyline and having shower sex. Afterwards David shares his simple dreams of a house with a two-car garage and a yard. It seems clear that Andrew is envious, not of David’s pedestrian dreams, but of his happiness and contentment with them.
The End of Lincoln
The date may have gone well, but Andrew ignored Lincoln’s calls and after seeing the bill for the hotel, Lincoln ends his arrangement with him. That proves to be a deadly mistake.
Lincoln goes out looking for another young man and meets a gruff guy named Kevin at the gay bar. Kevin says he’s straight and is very uneasy, but goes back to Lincoln’s place anyway. Lincoln promises he won’t do anything and offers to call him a cab, but when Lincoln takes his drink and their hands briefly touch, Kevin goes nuts and attacks him, bashing Lincoln’s skull in and killing him.
And at that same moment, Andrew comes over to talk to Lincoln and sees the whole thing, a bit of obvious foreshadowing as Andrew will eventually bash in the skulls of Jeff Trail and Lee Miglin. Kevin Andrew, who tells him to run.
Andrew’s New Life
In the aftermath, Andrew and Norman connect over the loss of Lincoln. It turns out the police arrested Kevin, but since he says he lost control when Lincoln tried to kiss him, that qualifies as self-defense back in the early ‘90s.
Andrew suggests that Norman should move to California and they can create a home and a new life together. He wins him over by telling him the same story David told Andrew, taking it as his own.
It works and Andrew is able to leave the apartment he lives in with his mom, telling her that he’s traveling the world assisting Gianni Versace. His mom thinks she’s going with him because he promised to take her away, but that’s obviously not an option. She begs him not to leave her alone and she gets so worked up that Andrew pushes her into the wall, fracturing her shoulder blade.
The House of Versace
In Italy in 1992, Gianni Versace gets into a fight with Donatella, but he’s simply trying to push her to be great. He’s sick and fears he’s dying, so he wants to groom her to take over the company when he’s gone.
At this point, I’m very confused by the timeline because the Versace storyline is infrequent and jumps around. The first episode was based around his death in July 1997. The second episode flashed back to him being diagnosed as HIV-positive in March 1994. Then he disappeared for two episodes and jumped forward to June 1995 in the fifth episode when he publically came out. Then he was gone again, but now we’re back in 1992. At least with Andrew his story is consistently moving backwards, but the Versace scenes are jumping all around and have no cohesive story.
Anyway, the Versaces design a dress together and Gianni convinces her to model it at Vogue’s 100th anniversary gala. She reluctantly does, but then becomes the toast of the town as all of the photographers lose their damn minds over Donatella in the dress. Just like that, Donatella is an overnight sensation.
Everyone may be talking about the dress, but no one is buying it. Donatella proposes the idea of two dresses with the same basic design: one high-end for runway shows and red carpets, but the other is more simplified and comfortable for woman to actually buy and wear. Gianni is furious about the idea, but it may be his growing illness as he melts down because he goes temporarily deaf.
Following this incident, Gianni and Antonio go to Miami, with Donatella claiming that he has a rare form of ear cancer and that she will take over the company in his absence.
Do you find the time-jumping confusing?
‘The Assassination of Gianni Versace’ Recap: How Did Andrew Ascend to a Lavish Lifestyle?
‘American Crime Story’ Recap: Gianni Urges Donatella To Take Control
It’s 1992 in Milan. Donatella is busy working on new Versace designs with her designers. “A dress is a weapon to get what she wants,” Donatella says. A new era of fashion is on the horizon. Her workers have been wondering what is wrong with Gianni since he’s been absent so much. When Gianni arrives, he immediately picks a fight with Donatella. He calls her out for taking a step back in designing. She pleads with him to tell her what he wants from her. “I want everything,” Gianni says. Donatella cries that she’s already given all of herself to him and this company. He says it’s not enough.
Antonio tells Gianni to apologize to Donatella for being so cruel. Gianni goes to his sister and tells her that they are going to design a dress together. “Soon it will be just you,” Gianni says, as if seeing the future and knowing he’s not going to be a part of it. “All of this will rest on you.” Donatella replies, “This company is you. It’s not me.”
“You have to make it yours,” Gianni tells her. “You have to take it. You have to own it.” When Gianni’s not around, Donatella will be in charge. She will be the face of Versace. “This dress is not my legacy,” he says to his beloved sister. “You are.”
An Ice Cream Tantrum
In San Diego, Andrew is working at a pharmacy. He comes home and finds a discount ice cream container in the freezer and throws it on the floor. He only wants “the best.” If it’s not Haagen-Dazs, he doesn’t want the ice cream at all. (*Rolls eyes*)
He meets Jeff Trail at a local gay bar. Andrew fears getting rejected by men. He finds himself lying to get attention. In the end, Jeff’s still the one who goes home with a guy at the end of the night. No matter what Andrew does, he’s just never good enough. He dreams of getting far away from San Diego and assures his mother that he’ll take her with him.
Andrew auditions to be an escort. Physical attributes are the only things that matter. “This is about being what people want,” the woman says. Andrew’s not the subject of fantasies. He’s turned away, but he’s not deterred. Andrew targets Norman Blachford, and the man falls right for it, as does Lincoln Aston.
The Dress
Gianni and Donatella design that black leather bondage dress, which sets the fashion label in a new direction. He convinces her to wear the dress to Vogue’s100th anniversary gala. When the brother and sister walk in together, the crowd goes wild. Later, Donatella sees that something is very wrong with her brother when he suddenly can’t hear anything. Gianni suffered from ear cancer before he died.
While out with friends, Andrew spots David Madson for the first time. He orders David a drink and takes him home. Andrew is immediately smitten. Andrew returns to see Lincoln and watches the man get brutally murdered by a stranger. He reconnects with Norman in the wake of Lincoln’s death. Norman welcomes him in with open arms. Andrew tells his mother that he’s going on vacation with Versace, and she freaks when she realizes that she’s not going. He’s really just going to live with Norman. Never trust a guy who doesn’t treat his mother right.
While Gianni recovers, Donatella steps in as head of the company. She easily slides into the role of a leader. Gianni always knew her greatness, and she’s now realizing it, too.
‘American Crime Story’ Recap: Gianni Urges Donatella To Take Control
‘The Assassination of Gianni Versace’ Episode 7: Asians With Attitude
Episode 7: ‘Ascent’
Genius has been an underlying theme of this series, the second season of FX’s “American Crime Story” — specifically, the creative genius of Gianni Versace (and to a lesser extent, the young architect David Madson) and the pathological genius of Andrew Cunanan, whose capacity for deceit and violence is rare.
Episode 7 of “The Assassination of Gianni Versace” reveals a different side of Versace’s genius — one that enabled him to build an institution and not just a brand. As this week’s episode relates, his genius was grounded in a gift for reading people, based on intuition and perception rather than on flashes of inspired brilliance.
In a series of flashbacks, we learn that Gianni, perhaps with a foretaste of his premature death, has begun to shore up his legacy by encouraging his most loyal helpmate — his sister, Donatella — to rise as his potential successor.
It is a kind of encouragement by tough love. As portrayed by Edgar Ramírez, Gianni has a fiery temperament and is prone to bursts of rage when he believes his exacting standards are not being met. “What are you?” he shouts at Donatella, played by a terrific Penélope Cruz, as he shoves aside a collection of drawings she has assembled for his review. “Are you a designer? No, what are you? Are you a collector of other people’s ideas?”
He fumes at her: “You have the opportunity to be great, and you choose to assist.”
Time is not on their side: Gianni is using a cane, and he is losing his hearing. The series has implied — as does “Vulgar Favors,” the book by the journalist Maureen Orth on which it is based — that Gianni is H.I.V.-positive. (The Versace family has disputed this.) After reconciling, Gianni tells a tearful Donatella that they will design a dress together, “as if it’s the last dress I will ever make.” He adds, with a touch of melodrama: “This dress is not my legacy. You are.”
Later, at the 1992 gala celebration in New York to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Vogue, Donatella unveils that bondage-themed dress, and it is an immediate sensation. The scene in which Gianni gently releases his sister’s hand, letting her inhabit the limelight alone as he moves to the side, is affecting.
It will be a five years until he is murdered in Miami Beach, but it is a premonition of what is to come.
Back in California, we learn more about Cunanan’s career as a rent boy in the years before the 1997 killings. In an unusually amusing scene in this fairly grim series, Andrew, played by Darren Criss, is working behind the counter at a Thrifty drugstore. (He tells a nonplused customer that he is holding down the job while completing a Ph.D. at the University of California, San Diego; in fact, he is a college dropout.)
Andrew’s boss, a man named Mr. Mercado, is an immigrant from the Philippines (like Andrew’s father, Modesto, whom we have not met), a map of which hangs in his sparsely furnished office. Mercado tells him to stop looking at Vogue while he’s on the clock.
“Does it ever bother you that the customers only know you as ‘That Helpful Man’?” Andrew asks Mercado. Mercado shrugs. Later, back at his mother’s apartment, Andrew reacts violently after discovering that she has bought a tub of Safeway ice cream rather than his preferred brand, Häagen-Dazs. His spite toward anything everyday — what in last week’s episode he derided as “ordinary” — is visceral and explosive. He slams the tub onto the kitchen floor, making a mess.
When his mother asks why it matters, Andrew tells her about Reuben Mattus, the brand’s founder, who made up its Danish-sounding name. It’s a brief but sad moment, one that reveals how consumer abundance, or the illusion of it, has made Andrew so petulant, childish and self-indulgent that he despises his own mother.
In the gay world, we soon learn, Andrew is more Safeway than Häagen-Dazs.
At a gay bar with his handsome friend Jeff, a Navy veteran, Andrew laments that he isn’t approached more by men; Jeff urges him to take the initiative, but Andrew fears rejection in the same way he fears getting his hands dirty. For him, it’s existential. “Being told no is like being told I don’t exist,” he says. “It’s like I’ve disappeared or something.”
People get rejected every day, and we may never truly understand why most move on with their lives while Andrew moved on to become a killer. But we’re learning more about just how pernicious his fear of invisibility is, even at this early stage. When Andrew visits an escort agency, its brusque manager wastes no time in informing Andrew about the customers’ preferences — another rejection. (“My clients never ask for Asians,” she says after asking him to drop his trousers. “And they never ask for Asians with attitude.”) Deciding he doesn’t need help finding a sugar daddy, he browses a local newspaper, studying the arts and philanthropy pages to identify suitable targets.
A target found, he stalks the La Jolla Playhouse for a performance of Marivaux’s 18th-century comic play “The Triumph of Love.” Just as planned, he catches the eye of Norman Blachford, a wealthy entrepreneur whose partner, as we know from last week’s episode, has recently died of AIDS. Andrew ends up becoming the kept man of Lincoln Aston, a friend of Norman’s.
It’s on Lincoln’s dime — purportedly to look into art acquisitions — that Andrew travels to San Francisco and buys a fateful drink for a handsome young man sitting alone at the bar. That man turns out to be David, the Minneapolis architect, who is visiting San Francisco for work. (Frustratingly, we never learn more about the friends with whom Andrew is dining.)
Up in Andrew’s suite, we get an inside look at that passionate night at the Mandarin Oriental — the one which meant so much to Andrew and, fatally, so much less to David. Dressed in their bathrobes after a steamy shower together, David tells Andrew about a childhood friend, Leah, who was tormented at school. He had promised to build her a house where they could escape from bullies. But later, when he told her he was gay, she never spoke to him again. “She must have felt betrayed,” he says.
Andrew looks as if he is ready to cry, and for the first time in this series, one sees traces of real empathy in him — an ability to take seriously the pain of others and to look beyond himself.
It is a fleeting moment. Back in San Diego, Lincoln is outraged to see a hotel bill that includes midnight Champagne. He cuts off the flow of funds.
Sadly, it was an unwise move: Lincoln returns to a gay bar, where he picks up a hustler and takes him home. The encounter does not end well: The man bludgeons Lincoln to death. Andrew, who was inside the apartment, evidently waiting for Lincoln, cowers in fear; the hustler, after a moment’s hesitation, does not attack him. “He tried to kiss me,” he tells Andrew, previewing the “gay panic” defense he will use to justify the attack.
Returning to Norman, Andrew feigns aggrievement over Lincoln’s gruesome death. “We fall sick, it’s our fault,” he says. “We’re murdered, it’s our fault. You can rob us, you can beat us, you can kill us and get away with it.”
But this moment of political awakening — if it can be called that — is short-lived. When Andrew tries to persuade Norman to come live with him in San Diego, it’s obvious he just wants the money. And the pool.
Loose Threads:
• According to Orth’s book, Lincoln Aston was, in fact, a wealthy gay man who was murdered in May 1995, after his relationship with Cunanan had cooled, but there is nothing to suggest that Cunanan was present for the crime. A man named Kevin Bond was convicted of the murder. The case was re-examined after Cunanan’s 1997 serial killings, but the police found no evidence that he was involved.
• Andrew tells his mother, MaryAnn, that he met Versace in San Francisco and now plans to travel the world with him. (We know from an early episode that the first part, at least, is true.) But when she begs Andrew to take her to Paris, she risks exposing his lies and clearly stokes his guilt. He lashes out, shoving her into a wall and fracturing her shoulder blade. It’s an ugly scene, and it reminds us just how dangerous Andrew’s hair-trigger temper is. He has a genius for rage, manipulation and deception, but not for basic human decency.
‘The Assassination of Gianni Versace’ Episode 7: Asians With Attitude
American Crime Story: Gianni Versace Season 2 Episode 7 Review & Reaction | AfterBuzz TV
Hosts discuss American Crime Story for the episode “Ascent.” | 7 March 2018
(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)
The Assassination of Gianni Versace Recap: Getting the Belt
Rating: ★★☆☆☆
I’ll just say it: This was my least favorite episode of the series so far. First of all, it looks so cheap. Versace’s Milan office looks like it was hastily assembled from a bunch of plywood and a rough coat of paint by four guys named Ted who do all the sets for regional productions of Brigadoon. And the dress that Donatella wears to the Vogue anniversary party? The original dress was dainty, chic, and had just a touch of the S&M about it. The one in “Ascent” looks like it was made out of a bunch of clearance belts that a someone in the wardrobe department scooped up at Marshall’s. This is probably because Gianni later throws a fit and chops it to bits, but also because the production couldn’t get access to the Versace archives. Still, everything that isn’t shot on location looks straight out of a Lifetime movie.
The real reason why this episode is boring is due to the show’s structure of telling the story backwards. Initially, this was a very interesting and original way for the series to play out, but now we’re so deep into it that we’ve intuited everything that we didn’t already know. We already knew that Andrew met David for one great night in San Francisco, took him to his suite at the Mandarin Oriental, and fell in love with him. Does it matter that he met him by calling him over at a fancy restaurant because he thought David was lonely? Not really. Do we need to see them getting busy in the shower? No, but I’m never going to tell attractive people to have less sex and be less naked on my television screen.
We also already knew that Andrew was working in a pharmacy in San Diego and that his mother was crazy and needy. Did we need to know that his mother thought she was going to travel around the world with him as he “assisted Signore Versace?” No. Did we need to know that he insisted she buy Häagen-Dazs and when she bought the cheap generic ice cream that comes in a tub so big that it has its own handle, he threw it on the ground in a fit of pique? Not really, even though it sure is fun to watch.
We also already knew that he stalked his sugar daddy Norman and convinced him to build a life for them both in San Diego. Do we need to know that it was at the La Jolla playhouse? Not really. Do we need to know that he was first with Norman’s friend Lincoln Aston, who was murdered by a piece of trade that he picked up at a local bar for hustlers? Actually, yeah, we do need to know that.
The few bright spots in the episode are the surprising details that we didn’t know at all. Lincoln being beaten to death by someone who had a case of “gay panic” actually happened (here’s a great article about it), but whether or not Andrew witnessed the crime and didn’t report it is up to interpretation. It certainly helps Andrew get what he wants, and it happened through violence and deceit, which seems to be Andrew’s M.O. But while Andrew and Norman say that they can get murdered and people get away with it, Lincoln’s killer went to prison for 15 years, so that seems a little blown out of proportion.
Lincoln’s murder and that conversation do set the tone for the gay community that Andrew was living in at the time. With the rise of AIDS and homophobia at its height, he was living in a time where fear and violence seeped into everything about the gay community, sometimes when they least expect it, like when Lincoln brought that man home. No wonder it managed to warp Andrew into thinking that was the only way he could get ahead. It was almost as if he was taking revenge for the way straight people were treating gay people, except his crimes were against those wouldn’t (or couldn’t) love him the way he wanted.
Another surprising and humiliating moment is when Andrew goes to the escort agency and the madam tells him that she can’t sell an Asian with a bad attitude, “even if he does have a big dick.” We already knew Andrew worked as an escort, but this scene reveals how hard it was for him to be seen as worthy, even as a sex worker. It also shows how he learned to manufacture his own identity and where those details came from — saying he was Portuguese rather than Filipino, for example.
The one bonus of the scene between Andrew and David at the hotel is that David tells Andrew the story of his friend Leah: She was always getting picked on, so David promised to build her a house that they could live in together. Andrew then takes that same story, embellishes and exaggerates the details, and uses it to sell Norman on a move from Phoenix to San Diego. It is a nice glimpse into how Andrew is always connecting the dots, grabbing the things that make him feel emotion and adjusting them to manipulate other people.
But even that’s something we’ve seen plenty of times on this show. As the story starts to come close to its end — or in this case, the beginning — it’s reaching a sort of anti-climax.
So, yeah, I found this chapter of the Versace story dreadfully boring and a total rehash. It also lacked the glamour and opulence of the first episode, when we got to see Gianni lolling around his villa in all of those very expensive fabrics. A lot of people have called for more Versace in this show that bears his name, but cutting their story out of this already bloated episode might have been what it needed to move along more briskly.
It’s just so much of the same. We already knew that Donatella was always going to be in charge of the business after Gianni was gone. We learn that the plans were put in motion before his assassination, but still, the plan was the plan. Maybe some of Dontella’s anger and resentment for her brother and his partner comes from thinking that she’d be in charge. She had that yanked away from her, only to have it return in such a tragic and unexpected way.
The one good thing about knowing the ending before the beginning is that it offers instances of dramatic irony. For instance, the only good part of Gianni and Donatella’s storyline is learning that, at one point, Diego actually stood up for Gianni’s sister. Sure, she would eventually come to despise him (and lock him out of the company), but initially he was her champion.
The ultimate instance of dramatic irony, however, comes at the end. Andrew is furnishing Norman’s house and says to him, like the old Carnival Cruise commercial, “If they could see me now.” Norman asks who “they” are. “Everybody,” Andrew says, thinking that he finally played being rich and sophisticated long enough that he achieved it. He actually faked it until he made it. But he’s staring off of the balcony not into a bright future, but a sad fall into drug addiction, obsession, and death.
https://ia601507.us.archive.org/13/items/PPY2076140036/PPY2076140036.mp3?plead=please-dont-download-this-or-our-lawyers-wont-let-us-host-audio
https://acsversace-news.tumblr.com/post/171647655994/audio_player_iframe/acsversace-news/tumblr_p598dy67TZ1wcyxsb?audio_file=https%3A%2F%2Fia601507.us.archive.org%2F13%2Fitems%2FPPY2076140036%2FPPY2076140036.mp3
Joanna Robinson and Richard Lawson discuss “Ascent,” the seventh episode of The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story, delving even deeper into the past to show the problems surrounding the rise of Andrew Cunanan and the world of Versace. This week’s featured interview is series star Darren Criss, who discusses bringing the spree killer to life, some little known facts, and some deleted scenes. | 7 March 2018
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