Episode 2: ‘Manhunt’
Like the 2001 film “Memento,” the second season of “American Crime Story” unfolds in reverse chronological order: Each episode recounts events preceding those of the episode before.
So here we are in Episode 2, just before the murderous rampage of Andrew Cunanan reaches its climax. We learn of his sadism: A chilling bedroom scene involving duct tape, scissors and a would-be sugar daddy contains a sublime mix of comedy and terror. We learn of his lies: He tells absurd yarns more easily and smoothly than most people tell the truth. We learn of his jealousies: He seems more interested in the accomplishments of the men he stalks than in notching any accomplishments of his own.
What we have yet to learn is what this all adds up to — what makes Cunanan distinctive from any other serial killer, other than his lively intelligence and large vocabulary — or the answer to, in my view, the crucial question: Did Cunanan’s experience as a gay man in the ’80s and ’90s inform his violent psychopathy? And if so, why and how?
Perhaps I’m too interested in causation — I’m a newsman, keep in mind — but isn’t that what we want to know? If sexuality winds up being to “Versace” what race was to “The People v. O.J. Simpson,” the first season of “American Crime Story,” we will need a framework for understanding its role in the crime. There are still seven episodes to go, so I’m hoping that what right now are tantalizing but scattered hints cohere into a whole.
To its credit, the episode does make clear that law enforcement was reticent, if not downright homophobic, about using the gay community to find Cunanan, who was wanted for four killings before he murdered Versace. An F.B.I. agent insists that their target is an expert predator targeting wealthier, closeted older gay men and unlikely to frequent clubs. Lori Wieder (Dascha Polanco), a Miami Beach police detective, urges investigators to canvas the South Beach clubs with fliers and pleas for the public’s help, but she is overruled.
Continue reading the main storyCunanan emerges as a truly terrifying figure in this episode, thanks to the strong performance by Darren Criss (“Glee”), whose emotional range is put to effective use. He steals license plates in a Walmart parking lot and breaks into a deranged smile when a little girl stares at him in suspicion. He switches the radio station when a newscaster says he is wanted for the murder of Lee Miglin — a victim we haven’t yet met — and manically sings along to Laura Branigan’s “Gloria.” He checks into a seedy South Beach hotel and smooth-talks the receptionist. Scoping out the Versace mansion, he comes face to face with a life-size medallion of Medusa, the mythical Gorgon whose image Versace adopted as a logo, on the front gate. It’s an even match; Cunanan is scary as hell.
I’m struck by his verbosity — has any serial killer ever had so much to say? His monologues reflect an eye for detail and, of course, a penchant for self-promotion, even delusion.
“I need to make my way in the world,” he tells the hotel receptionist, explaining his interest in being mentored by the Italian designer. “I think Mr. Versace will find my conversation very excellent. I would say, ‘Sir, nothing is more inspiring to me than that one outfit that Carla Bruni wore. It was a skirt of crinoline, like a giant floral handkerchief fastened with a gold belt and daringly mismatched with a denim shirt.’”
He lies with abandon, not caring whether his fabrications are even remotely plausible. Befriending a drifter — Ron (Max Greenfield), a fellow gay man who is hanging out at the hotel — Cunanan discusses with him the loved ones they’ve lost to AIDS and other tragedies. Even the most personal statements seem hard to believe, as when he insists that he “lost the best friend and the love of my life” — both that very year.
He tells Ron that he and Versace met in San Francisco and that the two were once an item and that Versace had proposed — almost certainly a lie. He gushes about Versace’s talent: “The man invented his own fabrics. When they told him what he wanted wasn’t possible, he just created it himself.”
He adds: “I don’t see something nice. I see the man behind it. A great creator. A man I could have been.”
Ron asks: “Or been with?”
Later, as if to complete the occupational tour d’horizon we’ve been on, he tells a young man named Brad (what else?) at a noisy gay dance club that he’s a serial killer, the only definite truth he’s uttered thus far.
When Brad looks confused, Cunanan spins again, in a monologue so wondrous it deserves reproduction:
I said I’m a banker. I’m a stockbroker. I’m a shareholder. I’m a paperback writer. I’m a cop. I’m a naval officer. Sometimes I’m a spy. I build movie sets in Mexico and skyscrapers in Chicago. I sell propane in Minneapolis, import pineapples from the Philippines. You know, I’m the person least likely to be forgotten. I’m Andrew Cunanan.
This Whitmanesque survey of economic possibility took my breath away. What if this young, handsome, eloquent man had pursued dreams that didn’t involve duct tape and scissors? Such a pity.
The other story in this episode is of Versace’s final weeks, focused in particular on his relationships with his longtime partner, Antonio D’Amico, and his sister and muse, Donatella. Played by a sultry, terrific Penélope Cruz, she worries — unnecessarily we are told — that her brother’s brand needs refreshing, lest it be overtaken by new designers like Alexander McQueen and John Galliano.
Of greater emotional consequence is Donatella’s stabilizing influence on her brother and on his partner, whom she scorns for not demonstrating greater fidelity or a willingness to start a family. Whether it’s because of her chiding or a premonition of imminent doom or simply the result of getting older, D’Amico relents. “I want to marry you,” he tells Versace. The designer is skeptical.
“You can say it in the morning,” he asks. “But can you say it in the evening?”
Earlier in the episode, the couple visit a hospital — Versace in the celebrity semi-disguise of a hoodie and sunglasses — where two AIDS patients, emaciated and deathly ill, can be seen. Lifesaving “cocktails” of antiretroviral therapies had become available, lifting the death sentence the epidemic had imposed on a generation of gay men. Versace, who takes a blood test, recalls that before Donatella was born, he lost an older sister, Tina, to peritonitis.
“Until that moment, I always believed that if you get sick you can also get better,” he says.
The episode doesn’t explicitly state that Versace was HIV-positive, as the journalist Maureen Orth contended in her book “Vulgar Favors,” on which this television series is loosely based. The implication is certainly strong. But from a dramatic perspective, it’s not important what his illness was — what matters is that the prospect of premature death hung over these men, who grappled with questions of loyalty, commitment and family, years before same-sex marriage seemed possible, much less became the law of the land. It’s poignant and well worth pondering how Versace’s genius and relationships might have evolved had his life not been cut short at age 50.
Fragments:
• Race has so far been a subsidiary theme, but for brief references to Cunanan’s Asian heritage. (His father was Filipino.) But there’s a telling moment when Cunanan is at a pizzeria and an employee, who has seen the most-wanted poster, goes to the back and dials 911. “Is he black or white?” the dispatcher asks the pizza worker, who is himself black and looks confused. “White guy — he killed four white guys,” the worker pleads. As if any greater urgency were needed.
• A post-mortem scene — in which Versace’s body is lovingly dressed by his sister before cremation — is arguably this episode’s most elegant. His ashes are scooped into an ornate metal box, which flies back to Italy with Donatella. Impeccably tasteful.
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