by Jorge Molina
Because of the backwards narrative style, the entire second season of American Crime Story has been one big origin story for Andrew Cunanan, his relationships, and the motives that eventually led to his string of murders. The seventh episode, titled “Ascent”, was the episode that we’ve been leading up to all along to fully get a changing point in Andrew’s life.
Last week’s episode (titled “Descent”, in parallels that were evident throughout) was about Andrew losing everything he built for himself. This week we get a peek into how he started putting it together...
Episode 7: “Ascent”
1992, Milan. The episode opens with Donatella Versace, which is always a welcome change. The the further we go back in time, the more the Versace appearances are more thematic tie-ins to Andrew’s journey than a look into their personal lives. But Penelope Cruz in a platinum blonde wig is always a vision to behold.
Donatella is anxious that she can’t seem to design a dress by himself. Gianni can see the potential and talent in his younger sister, and decides to guide her; he proposes they design a dress together. He will show her the ropes. Learning to adapt to your environment will be a big theme of the episode.
We then go to a San Diego pharmacy, where Andrew is working as a cashier. Every week, we see Andrew being stripped more and more of the egocentric, glamorized monster of the first episodes. He’s slightly less delusional, less hurt, less polished; somehow more human, which is reinforces the weird moral statement the show is making out about a murderer.
The Andrew we meet this week is an Andrew that is fueled by dreams. This is something that has always pushed him forward (and what eventually pushed him over the edge), but here we see someone who has yet to accomplish what he set out to do. He’s just a cashier reading a Vogue magazine.
We also see more of the relationship with his mother, who was first introduced last week. In real life, this woman was severely mentally ill, which the show hints at in small, hardly overt ways. We see a tremendous dependency she has not only on her son, but on her son’s success. His value under her eyes is measured on how much he can accomplish.
“You can tell lies, but you either have money or you don’t”, a man at his regular dive bar tells Andrew, perhaps pulling the final trigger inside him to activate him and make him go pursue his dream life. For Andrew, this naturally means to join an escort service. After all, he is well-versed, can carry a conversation, and older guys are keen on him.
The following scene, where Andrew interviews for an escort position, is the only scene so far in the series in which Andrew’s Asian-American identity takes a hard toll on him. “I can’t sell a smartass Filipino,” the escort manager tells him, after she’s asked him to put himself in every box the potential clients might check. “Then I will sell myself.” The idea of not being desired or wanted is something that will chase him for life.
Andrew insinuates himself into the life of Lincoln Ascot, an older millionaire, by charming him and his group of wealthy gays in an opera playhouse. Soon, they have reached an arrangement; he will get monthly allowances, expense credits, and travel benefits, in exchange for redecorating Lincoln’s house and social life. A bargain that benefits both of them.
And then we finally witness the fated encounter between Andrew and David Madson in San Francisco; the night that has been hinted to since David’s introduction in episode four, and that would define the rest of their lives. What starts as Andrew buying a drink for the lonely blond gentlemen at the bar, ends as one of those nights; a night of endless conversation and opening yourself completely. Andrew is hooked. The way Cody Fern portrays David as a wide-eyed dreamer, talking endlessly about his goals, is so much painful and traffic knowing his end. The show has been very effective in highlighting the theme of hope and lost dreams via the backwards narrative.
But Lincoln is not pleased with Andrew taking in new lovers, and breaks off the arrangement. That very same night, he picks up a straight-identified man at a bar, perhaps for the sake of company and drowning his sorrows. But this man, terrified of Lincoln but more terrified at himself, freaks out at the slight touch of Lincoln’s hand, bashes his head, and brutally murders him. “An act of self-defense.” Andrew witnesses this from afar.
While this murder actually took place in reality (and the man later confessed to it to committing it out of gay panic), there is no evidence of Andrew ever being there, but his placement in the room makes for an interesting addition. It allowed Andrew to be a passive bystander for something that he would later commit himself more than once. He would also use this to underline the fatality of not being able to speak up as a gay man against a crime. We all had it coming; it’s always our fault.
Andrew mourns Lincoln with Norman, one of his closest friends and (because we’ve seen last week’s episode), the next man he will be kept under. As they work through their grief on a beach, Andrew offers Norman what he had with Lincoln. A dream that he can build for them.
But he’s not telling his mom he’s become a kept boy. He’s telling her that he’s going after a bigger dream; he’s travelling the world with Gianni Versace as his costuming assistant. His mother assumes that she’s coming along with them. But Andrew has to shed everything from his previous identity, including her. In what has now become the peak trope for selfish behavior, he ends up hurting his own mother, pushing her away and making her fracture her shoulder blade. But she still thinks he’s such a good boy. Andrew cries at this. He will never be a good boy again.
In between Andrew’s titular ascent, segments of the Versaces are peppered throughout. Donatella takes the red carpet spotlight for the first time and becomes a public face for the company. Gianni goes deeper into an illness he will never be cured off, and eventually has to leave Milan for Miami, and Donatella takes over the day-to-day operations. “If we are not talked about, we are nothing,” she says to her new employees after Gianni’s departure. This is another reminder that the Versace’s presence has mostly been used for thematic underlining.
There are two episodes of this season left. According to early critical coverage, next week’s episode we will go back in time one last time, to fully understand Andrew’s life motivation to social climb his way towards murder. And as much as I’ve enjoyed the backwards narrative and the emotional places it takes the audience, I hope the finale puts us back where the premiere left off, with Andrew after the last murder. There needs to be a conclusion to Andrew’s life, as he ended it shortly after.
It’s been a bittersweet journey to explore the lives of people whose fates we already know. I’m enjoying the deep exploration of their characters, but also question them. I get the necessity (and, in a way, the debt) to humanize the victims that have become footnotes in a larger story. I get the necessity of painting the world of prejudice around them, and the decisions that led them to meet and need this man. I thank that we’ve gotten to explores the themes of isolation, longing for connection, and community in the gay sphere that still permeate today. It’s almost a pity, though, that in the way we are also getting a human, almost relatable portrait of a killer. But I guess if there was a way to do it, taking all factors around it into consideration was the way to go.