The Assassination of Gianni Versace Episode 6
With episodes three through six, The Assassination of Gianni Versace has placed the lives of Cunanan’s victims front and center. They are used as a lens to explore Andrew, but they are also shown to be people in their own right, with their own lives and motivation before Cunanan was through. Listing the names at the opening of this episode was a stark reminder of the stakes of the series. However, it’s the absence of an episode devoted to victim number four, cemetary caretake William Reese, that exposes the show’s intentions more clearly: he is the only victim who (undisputedly) had absolutely nothing to do with Andrew Cunanan. It’s purely a situation of the wrong place at the wrong time, which means there’s little his death (or life) can do to shed life on who Andrew Cunanan was, or why he became a spree killer. Therein lies the rub of true crime: even when it endeavors to honor the victims of a particular crime, it’s almost always in service to more exposure for, and a better understanding of, the perpetrator of the crime, rather than their victims. Andrew’s host is an interesting figure, as is his friend who clearly has Andrew’s number. Andrew clearly isn’t fooling anyone; his older lover has no delusions about their situation. Yet he is firm when Andrew tries to overstep with his extravagant requests, and the incentive to value the older man more dead than alive. “If you want to live this life, you have to work for it. Or you can share it with me. There is no third way.” Much of Andrew’s actions could be seen as looking for that third way. More troubling still, is the fact that in spite of his taste for the good life, he clearly didn’t kill for it. So what, then? The Andrew Cunanan of “Descent” is fittingly desperate and sad. He’s modeling his life around the kind of person he thinks David could love, which is heartbreak to watch when it’s played so well, but Ryan Murphy and Darren Criss won’t let us forget what’s to follow, even for a second. Andrew is transparent in his attempts to thwart David and Jeff’s chemistry upon meeting, doing everything he can to keep them apart, appear single to David without alienating any of his older patrons too much, and scrambling to project the kind of life that he mistakenly thinks will appeal to David. Much of Andrew’s behavior comes from the classic power and control wheel of the world of intimate partner violence and sexual assault – I’m thinking here of the way he plays the victim when Jeff gets physical in response to Andrew sending the postcard to Jeff’s father to out him, which is itself an act of abuse. Andrew tries to gaslight Jeff and whatever audience he may have, real or imagined, into thinking that Jeff’s actions were more aggressive and threatening than they really were. Andrew effectively flips the conversation so that instead of answering for his betrayal, Jeff has to answer for his reaction to it. There’s an interesting dynamic at play here that’s not often discussed on mainstream media, that of abuse between members of the LGBTQ community. Andrew’s reaction to Jeff plays up the idea that Jeff is larger and more masculine, making himself seem more vulnerable. Further, so many of the red flags that David, Jeff, and others noticed about Andrew’s behavior would have been easily dismissed due to myths related to intimate partner violence. For example, Andrew lacked a physical advantage, one that is often credited with so much of the imbalance in heterosexual power dynamics. In earlier episodes, Jeff and David shrugged Andrew off as harmless though annoying, or even cruel. Unfortunately, the downplaying of emotional and verbal abuse is all too common, and it allows more intimate partner violence to flourish. Andrew’s ability to manipulate myths and assumptions around homosexuality and intimate partner violence helped him fly under the radar and ultimately hurt more people.
