Jorge Molina continues his review of American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace
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.