FX’s American Crime StorySeason 2, Episode 3: “A Random Killing”Directed by Gwyneth Horder-Payton
Written by Tom Rob Smith
* For a recap & review of the previous episode, “Manhunt” – click here* For a recap & reviews of the next episode, “House by the Lake” – click hereMay 1997 in Toronto, Canada. Marilyn Miglin (Judith Light) is CHSN with a presenter (Nicola Lambo) helping khổng lồ hawk her new fragrance. “Perfume is about our bodies talking to each other without words,” she tells the viewers. Later at the airport, she calls her husband Lee (Mike Farrell), who’s meant to lớn be picking her up. She has to lớn cab back home. There, she finds quiet, she can’t find her husband. On her counter is an xuất hiện can of Coca Cola và a melted ice cream carton. The neighbours happen by, so Marilyn tells them: “Something‘s wrong.” One of the neighbours checks the house, finding a knife sunk into a side of meat unwrapped from the fridge. Upstairs, the bathtub’s been used, a rim of dirt around the inside.But where’s hubby? When a cop arrives he checks the garage. In the kitchen, Marilyn hears a scream confirming what she already suspects. We can already tell, as the audience, that this is leading to lớn an Andrew Cunanan (Darren Criss) connection, too.Skip back a week.We’re in Chicago, Illinois where the Miglins are at a dinner with the governor. The happy couple seem, outwardly, to be the perfect pair, each of them proud to lớn be married to the other. After dinner, Marilyn gives her husband an emphatic introduction, then he gives a speech in tư vấn of Governor Jim Edgar (Matt Miller). I already know where this is going – Mr. Miglin’s got a second life, one seemingly diametrically opposed to his existence as the “American Dream,” the good old boy, the straight trắng Anglo-Saxon capitalist. The unfortunate life of a man in the closet.That night, Lee gets a hotline from none other than Cunanan. The young man’s coming khổng lồ Chicago, he claims. Naturally, they’re making plans together. Ah, the secret life is coming to lớn light gradually. Works out perfectly that Marilyn’s leaving the city for a couple days. But before she goes, she begins seeing that something with her husband is not quite right.Lee’s caught somewhere between true desire & his Christian faith. He kneels before a picture of Jesus Christ, the cross, looking to repent. At the same time, Andrew turns up in Chicago and on the Miglins’ doorstep. The older man sits his young friend down, makes him a sandwich. They talk, Lee begins a bit of romance, & you know Cunanan is merely biding his time until the right moment to lớn kill emerges. The married man’s infidelity is one thing, it’s also sad he has no idea with whom he’s spending the night.It is clear that Lee has done this quite a few times. Obviously, the same goes for young Cunanan. However, things get more intense than the old guy’s likely usually used to, as “intellectual Andrew” gets into his strange tape obsession, tying his – so far – willing partner up. Some BDSM. But that becomes actual violence. The killer explains he’s going khổng lồ murder him, dress him in ladies underwear, scatter gay porn everywhere. He wants to lớn take Mr. Miglin down as disgracefully as possible. This boy has serious problems with power, fame, authority, và father figures. Lee dies a vicious, brutal death on the floor of his garage.“You know disgrace isn‘t that bad. Once you settle into it.”Back lớn the discovery of Lee’s corpse, a grisly scene. Just as Andrew said it would be, the old man is lying there with gay magazines around him, the underwear on his corpse. Inside, Marilyn’s fairly measured, tracking down everything that was robbed, from money lớn jewellery lớn clothes & more. This is when she hears about the porn left at the scene, though she passes it off, wanting the police to lớn focus on finding her husband’s murderer. Still, she’s in shock, not quite dealing with the whole thing; yet. She’s dealing enough lớn push the narrative of “a random killing.”The Jeep that Cunanan drove is found by an officer, the one already connected to the killing of a man named Jeff Trail. The cops are also trying to track the killer’s calls: he’s going towards New York, they believe. But can they actually get khổng lồ him before he kills again? Well, we know the answer to that. Not to lớn mention the press has hold of the story that the Miglin car phone – which Andrew’s using – is activated and being tracked. The serial killer hears this over the radio, so the police efforts have been thwarted.Nevertheless, it does make their target paranoid. He’ll need a new vehicle, a familiar one lớn us that we’ve seen later in the timeline: the red truck he flees to lớn after gunning down Versace. Andrew follows the current driver, then pulls a gun on the man to lớn get the keys. He also takes the guy downstairs lớn lock him in, và he puts him on his eyes before blowing a hole through the back of his head. Ruthless.Back on TV, Marilyn laments her husband being killed just for a car. She speaks of their strong love, their relationship. Và of course this plays into the larger narrative, one which basically worked against the investigation. Because if Marilyn wasn’t so concerned about her image + the image of her husband, & people knew more of Cunanan, how the killer was targeting wealthy gay men, it might’ve been more obvious where he was heading/what he was doing/his ultimate, if not insane modus operandi. Instead, it took Versace’s death – the death of an openly gay man – for everyone to realise, all because of stigma against gay men, và everything wrapped up in that. So, so tragic.This second season is really doing some fascinating work. The first was a spectacular examination of race, through the lens of the O.J. Simpson trial. Here, via the death of Versace và the crimes of Cunanan, we’re getting an equally compelling look at certain gay issues in a time when being openly gay still wasn’t accepted widely, certainly not in the entertainment industry(etc) in America.“House by the Lake” is next week. Can’t get enough of Season 2.
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The 1997 murder of revered fashion designer Gianni Versace (Edgar Ramirez) at the hands of serial killer Andrew Cunanan (Darren Criss) is a lesser-known case than O.J.’s, và Murphy and writer Tom Rob Smith (London Spy) tell a much different story here, trading the drab L.A. Courtroom scenes of O.J. for the colorful environs of Miami’s South Beach. Versace’s opulent mansion is a study in decadence, drenched in saturated hues & loudly contrasting patterns, and the series itself follows suit: It’s almost operatic, và filled with grand emotional gestures. A triumph of mix design và cinematography, Versace is a feast for the eyes… even when the storytelling leaves you hungry for more.
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Cunanan is a fascinating character: a hustler, seducing older men và stealing their money, and a compulsive liar, constantly spinning impressive lies about his past. (“I tell people what they need to hear,” he explains early on.) Criss uses his natural charms as a finely honed weapon here, showing us how Cunanan was able to fake his way through life for so long, while also giving us fleeting glimpses of the crushing loneliness lying underneath. Plus, he doesn’t shy away from Cunanan’s ugly brand of sadism. A scene of Cunanan wrapping an elderly client’s face in duct tape lớn the strains of Phil Collins —part American Horror Story, part American Psycho —left me literally gasping for air.
Actually, it’s less than half: Later episodes — I’ve seen five of the nine installments — leave out Gianni almost entirely, focusing on Cunanan’s earlier life và crimes. (Episode 3 is a nice showcase for Judith Light, as the wife of Cunanan victim Lee Miglin, but otherwise is an unnecessary detour.) The FBI manhunt for Cunanan following Versace’s death should be thrilling, but it feels flat, almost obligatory, without any of the character nuance that Marcia Clark, et al received in O.J. & the further Smith’s scripts spin away from the central Versace murder — into a Cunanan victim’s struggles as a gay man in the military, và Versace’s days as a young designer — the thinner the narrative thread becomes.
After a while, as powerful as Criss’ performance is, even the Cunanan scenes start khổng lồ feel like overkill: repetitive và methodical, to lớn the point of becoming dull. There’s just not enough story here to justify nine hours of television. Maybe it’s unfair to lớn compare Versace lớn O.J.
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, one of the best seasons of TV in recent years. But even Paramount Network’s upcoming miniseries Waco, starring Taylor Kitsch as cult leader David Koresh, does a better job of transforming true-crime headlines into compelling drama. Overall, Versace ends up being an intensive character study of a complicated killer… và not much else.
THE mamnongautruc.edu.vn BOTTOM LINE: American Crime Story: Versacehas visual flair và a great performance from Darren Criss, but it’s lacking in drama và nuance.