soundtrackofversace

[soundtrackofversace]

“Freedom! ‘90” by George Michael

Obviously this song is a staple of the era, so its inclusion only makes sense; it’s the way the song is used that’s important. A big part of Andrew’s unraveling comes from his discovery of crystal meth, which obviously would fuck anyone’s mental state up, let alone a clever narcissistic sociopath. While it’s not talked about much the whole season, it’s clear that his drug dependence affects his mental state and causes delusions and breaks from reality (all not the best sign). The lyrics are a testament to his freedom from his problems (that he thinks meth will fix? interesting) and from the life he knew when he first met Jeff in the bar. This plays as he talks to a dealer in that same bar about buying for the first time. 

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“Self-Control” by Laura Branigan

Yet again we have a song whose lyrics and overall message seem to resonate with the character on the screen, in this case Andrew. This song plays during the first scene of Episode 6, in which we see Andrew living the life he’s always dreamed of; this scene also seems to be a parallel to the introduction to Episode 1, where we see Versace going about his morning routine in a lavish mansion with private chefs, commissioned mosaics and gold plated everything. The music playing there is classical, and if we’re going to hypothetically buy into the Western canon as is for a second, you could venture to guess that the music choice is intentional; the classical music for Versace is meant to indicate the ‘true’ genius, someone successful on merit, someone with genuine depth, where the pop music for Cunanan is meant to show his peacock nature, the surface level, almost ‘new money’ vibes. Try as he might, Cunanan will always come up short to Versace, despite thinking they’re at the same level. 

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“Fascinated” by Company B

When we hear this song, Jeff Trail is walking into a gay bar for the first time. Just from the title alone you can tell that the content of the song is meant to reflect what Jeff is experiencing; there’s a level of ‘fascination’ in Jeff, because this is one of the first overtly queer experiences he’s had and it’s clear that the exotic dancers and intimate ambience has piqued his curiosity. Particularly the lyrics in the chorus, “Cause I, I'm fascinated by your love, boy / And I'm fascinated by your love toy / I'm fascinated by the way you make me feel” speak to the way that Jeff is feeling about both the environment he’s in and eventually how he feels about Andrew. 

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Episodes 5 & 6 Summary

Okay so we’re going to try and cover a lot in a little, because a lot of good music examples span a few episodes, not to mention that this is the juicy part (we really start to see the foundations of a lot of relationships and personality traits). Last we left off, Andrew was butting his head in where it didn’t belong in David’s personal life, trying to marry him in a last ditch effort to ‘fix’ his life and inflating his role in their relationship. Because the show operates retroactively, I think it’s worth reminding exactly who Andrew has killed at this point, especially because I’m about to talk about them when they were alive. In chronological order, we’ve got Jeff Trail, David Madsen, Lee Miglin, William Reese, and Gianni Versace (the entirety of his victims), so now we’re getting into the time in Andrew’s life prior to becoming a killer.

In the rest of Episode 5, we get to learn more about Jeff Trail and understand the nature of he and Andrew’s relationship. Not only that, but we also get our first glimpse of Versace in a while, albeit still only included as a framing device for Cunanan’s storyline (or more accurately here Jeff’s storyline). Both Versace and Jeff are dealing with life as a queer man in the 90’s, but they each have very different experiences. Due to his fame and fortune, Versace must contemplate coming out to the public from a business standpoint, with Donatella concerned it will affect the business and Gianni not having a care in the world about it; he’s certain that those who deserve his business would remain loyal. While he has to consider the business, for the most part his wealth and influence allows him to go relatively unscathed; he’s able to give an interview for a queer magazine offically coming out without any real concern for his close relationships or personal safety. 

Jeff, on the other hand, is a retired Naval officer who is very much in the closet; only his sister and close friends know anything about his sexuality. Instead of a reaffirming interview celebrating his sexuality, Jeff gives a 48 Hours interview about life in the military during Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, a super bigoted and ignorant tactic that the government used in the 80s and 90s to ‘allow’ gays in the military, they just couldn’t talk about it. This obviously meant that being gay was looked down upon, leading to a really crappy life for queers in the military. Jeff gave his interview anonymously, only making the shame he was supposed to feel more painfully obvious. In the interview Jeff discusses his reasons for leaving the military; at one point during his service he witnessed a group of officers beating up a presumably gay man and intervened, which called his sexuality into question (which just baffles me like...because I don’t think you should actually beat another person, I’m gay? ok buddy). From there, Trail himself was bullied and pressured out of the military, fearing for his own safety. As someone who had idolized the military from a young age, Jeff was torn; while he knows it was the right choice to intervene in that fight (that one gay guy would have definitely died), there’s also some serious regret about saving him, because it clearly outed him and prevented him from having a future in the military. There’s an encounter between Trail and his superiors where they seem to be trying to get him to out himself under the guise of sensitivity training (what a fucking joke, I truly scream-laughed when I watched that), which seems to be the final straw for Trail to officially feel unsafe. 

Also in Episode 5, we see the inception of Jeff and Andrew’s relationship: while patronizing a gay bar for the first time, Jeff meets Andrew and is pretty immediately intoxicated by his worldliness and mysteriousness that Jeff has equated to queer culture. There’s a manic pixie dream girl vibe to Andrew, and now it’s clearer how it could have taken so long for Andrew’s friends to catch on to his bullshit. If Andrew had actually taken the time to achieve any of the goals he claimed to have already achieved, he just might have stopped lying long enough for people to actually like him, but obviously we’ll never know for sure. 

Episode 6 helps to indicate how Andrew was able to transition from life at home with his middle class family that embodies the ordinary life Andrew thought he was too good for. We see the way that Andrew has managed to seem as rich and successful as he has is because he acts as a gigolo to Norman Blachford, a wealthy older man that Andrew lives with and gets large sums of money from in exchange for intimacy. Well, Andrew is determined to get his money and yet still get the guy, so at his birthday party he has to juggle satiating Norman and that relationship while also trying to woo David. Throughout the party Andrew also does anything and everything to make himself seem important and rich, including giving Jeff a new gift that is more expensive than the one he actually brought and making him change his shoes into designer shoes Andrew bought for him to wear. It’s clear that this is the beginning of the end of their friendship, as Jeff clearly thinks Andrew is on some shit for that behavior. This episode is truly the only stretch in Andrew’s life (besides his teenage years when his father did it for him) where his life seems to be going exactly how he wants it to; very little responsibility, loads of discretionary spending, pretentious and boujee company and activities and an absolutely crazy and grandiose mansion to live in rent free. He appears to others the way he has always thought he should, and without a stitch of genuine effort or determination on his part (except determination to manipulate maybe). 

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“Tick Tock Polka” by The Official Ocktoberfest Band

Okay so we know at this point that Andrew has randomly flown into Minneapolis to propose to David in some grand gesture, wasting literally no time once they get home and using a very expensive watch; David was able to buy some time, and begrudgingly brigns Andrew along to a night out at a polka club with some of his coworkers. Andrew spends the evening inflating his role in David’s life, talking about making Titanic’s movie sets and spending $10,000 on the watch on David’s wrist. The general atmosphere of the club is exciting and warm, with the live band playing polka music that has everyone dancing, so Andrew drags him onto the dance floor to dance (but really to get out of answering for all of the lies he’s told about his life and success). It’s here that David officially tells Andrew they can’t get married; Andrew tries to play it off like he can’t hear, to which David gets more frustrated and clear. Everyone’s dancing around them, whirling around in circles around the two of them, and the music is as cheerful as ever, juxtaposed with the intensity of the conversation they’re having, which makes it even more cringy and hard to watch.

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“Drive” by Aimee Mann

So Andrew and David are on the run from the police for Jeff’s murder, and up until this point it’s been a lot of Andrew feeling very self-assured and confident; the pair stop at a pub to grab some food and rest for a few minutes, and there’s a woman on a stage singing a ballad on acoustic guitar. David has excused himself to go to the bathroom (lowkey trying to skrrt out of there, but that doesn’t pan out), so Andrew is left alone at their table, listening to this woman singing; this becomes an introspective moment for Andrew, a moment for him to reflect on the loneliness he feels from David’s rejection, the fallout from Jeff’s murder (who he also was in love with), and the general state of his life. The lyrics seem to speak to him directly, using a lot of ‘you’ statements that Andrew surely could have related to: “Who's gonna hold you down / When you shake? / Who's gonna come around / When you break?” and “You can't go on / Thinking nothing's wrong, ohh / Who's gonna drive you home / Tonight?” are really pointed questions implying a situation a lot like Andrew’s, so it hits home. There’s a moment where Andrew is just digesting the lyrics, but soon enough, silent tears begin to stream down his face and he becomes more and more choked up; this is one of the few instances in which we see Andrew put his wall down in public, which is clearly unusual for him because he even looks around to see if anyone caught him feeling these genuine emotions.

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“Pump Up the Jam” by Technotronic

This song is intended to parallel the ‘jam sess’ Andrew has by himself while driving from killing Lee Miglin in Chicago to kill Versace in Miami; when alone, Andrew is able to fully revel in his kills and the adrenaline rush that it gives him. When he was able to get away with the murder of Lee, his demeanor is upbeat and triumphant, feeling the success of getting away with murder. It’s a demeanor that only a serial killer could have, so when Andrew begins to repeat the same ritual with David in the car after Jeff’s murder, David is less than excited to go along. Andrew turns the radio on and “Pump Up the Jam” plays (a very upbeat party song), which causes him to begin singing along and dancing, while David stares at him in shock and confusion; he still doesn’t quite understand why Andrew has killed Jeff or know what to do next, so there’s little else he could do at this point, but the creepy and jarring nature of Andrew dancing to club music after the murder is really tripping David up. 

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Episodes 3-5(ish) Summary

Alright guys, buckle up because we’ve got multiple episodes to cover and I don’t want to make this an absolute novel of a post. I’m going to cover episodes 3 and 4, with a sprinkling of 5, but that’s mainly due to a lack of worthy and Shazam-able music (as fun as the untitled orchestral instrumentals behind a lot of the dialogue are, that’s not really what I’m trying to focus on). By now, we’ve figured out that each episode goes further and further back chronologically in an attempt to unravel the origins of Andrew Cunanan and his serial killer tendencies, so we’re tracing each murder before Versace in reverse chronological order. 

Episode 3 is all about the murder of Lee Miglin, a closeted, wealthy man from Chicago who occasionally hired Andrew as a male escort. The show switches back and forth between the events that transpired right after Lee’s death and those that led to it, which can get confusing so I’ll try to keep it clear. The opening scene involves his wife coming home from a business trip to a townhouse with some bad vibes. Like ice-cream-left-out and ham-stabbed-with-a-carving-knife-on-her-husband’s-desk bad. So as any sensible, rational human would, she enlists the help of some neighbors and eventually the police to scout out the rest of the house. Only when a cop searches the garage do we see Lee Miglin, bludgeoned to death, head completely duct taped, left in a compromising position and surrounded by gay porn (o o f.). 

So how did we get there? Let’s go back a few days; after Marilyn leaves for a business trip, we see Andrew and Lee have a slightly (very) awkward evening of Lee’s naivete surrounding intimacy with men and Andrew’s ego and vanity sporadically popping out. Once they’ve exhausted all their small talk, they move to the garage to engage in what seems to be consensual BDSM (poor Lee), which quickly turns wrong as Andrew begins duct taping his head and tying up his limbs. Cunanan doesn’t disappoint with his terrifying M.O. of degrading his victims, telling Lee he’s going to kill him and leave him in women’s underwear surrounded by gay porn; the camera eventually pans away as he bashes Lee’s head in with a bag of cement. In between scenes of Lee’s murder, there are intimate moments of his wife Marilyn grieving his loss and dealing with the fallout of the scandalous nature of his discovery, which just breaks the heart even more, in addition to watching this poor sweet old man get killed for finally allowing himself to be with another man. But wait! There’s more! Senseless murder, I mean. And not that any of these killings are justified whatsoever, but the person he kills right at the end is truly not a part of Cunanan’s life; he’s just a guy with a car and an impulsive sociopath needed that car. I can’t lie, that was a rough scene to watch without a few tears. So let’s move on!

Episode 4 brings a real love interest of Andrew’s into the mix, not just someone he’s chosen to manipulate under the guise of affection: David Madsen. We start off in Madsen’s loft in Minneapolis, where a clearly tense and vague discussion has gone down between him and Andrew; by clearly tense, I mean David seems to be apprehensive and walking on eggshells while Andrew is unnecessarily cheerful and easygoing (like truly, it’s creepy). We’re not kept in suspense for long when the buzzer rings, signaling the arrival of their mutual friend Jeff, and David goes down to get him. There’s also clearly tension between Jeff and Andrew because Jeff and David spend the way up talking about his erratic behavior, their conversation ending with Jeff confiding that Andrew has stolen his gun. 

No sooner do they open the door does Andrew start repeatedly beating Jeff over the head with a hammer in front of David, who immediately goes into shock and stays that way for hours. Instead of gunning for David, Andrew instead tries to comfort him, bathing him, dressing him and reassuring him that he’s safe and taken care of, which is one of the first instances of Cunanan showing real affection for another person. Once David recovers from the initial shock of watching his friend get murdered, he tries to gently convince Andrew to go to the police, to which Andrew comes up with just about every excuse in the book for why that’s a bad idea and would implicate David for Jeff’s murder as much as Andrew. Unable to escape, David is forced to go on the run with Andrew, leaving Jeff’s body at his loft for coworkers and eventually the police to find. 

They spend the driving hours having conversations that give David a glimpse of who Andrew really is, and it’s clearly jarring and shocking for him, because Andrew had done a pretty good job of masking his sociopathic tendencies and unsuccessful life. While on the run, the pair stop by a bar to eat; while Andrew has a cathartic experience listening to the woman singing a sad song with an acoustic guitar, David sets out trying to escape Andrew. He excuses himself for the restroom, finds a stall with a window, breaks the glass, and looks out at the world. But due to what I’m guessing are feelings of helplessness (lack of money or transportation), the shame he’d bring upon his family (for being outed to the world as gay), and fear of being charged as an accomplice, he doesn’t go. We get some flashbacks of David as a child with his father fishing on a lake; this relationship gives us an insight into his nature as a kind and hardwork kid with respect for life, or the antithesis of Andrew Cunanan. These scenes become symbolic as the two fugitives end up near a lake similar to that of David’s childhood, but first, David’s got to fully realize what happened with Jeff. 

As they’re driving, David realizes that Andrew orchestrated the night of Jeff’s murder to make it easy to implicate David so that he’d have to come on the run with him, and that Andrew murdered Jeff because he had figured out exactly who Andrew was first. These revelations cause a break in Andrew, so he pulls off the road to the side of a lake where he descends into this angry rant about how David has spoiled their future. After a few chaotic minutes, Andrew pulls his gun on David and fires several times; the camera shows David escaping to a fishing shack like that of his childhood, with his father sitting by the fire offering him coffee. From this scene, you get the gut feeling that David did not in fact escape to a little shack, and what do you know, he didn’t. He bleeds silently in the grass for a minute until Cunanan shoots him square in the eye and lays with his body. This is one of the first time we also see some remorse and sadness in Andrew from someone’s murder, which just further shows how much David meant to him. 

Bored yet?

Too bad, here’s episode 5.

Just kidding, we’re not going to go over loads of it, because this post is mainly about the relationship between Andrew and David. But we see the explanation of the tense conversation that the pair of them were talking about right before Jeff’s murder. Turns out, Andrew has manipulated his way into a plane ticket to Minneapolis to have what he thinks will be a weekend of the ‘Three Amigos’; these dreams are soon dashed when both David and Jeff say they have plans for a lot of the weekend and won’t be around too much. Andrew takes advantage of the small amount of time he has alone with David to propose to him (!!), in both a profession of his affection for him and a desperate attempt on Andrew’s part to regain some sort of stability and perpetual ego-booster. And of course, instead of a ring Andrew has chosen a completely over-the-top, extravagant and solid gold watch, which shows his need to show his ‘wealth’ (which doesn’t exist because he actually is completely broke due to his need to prove how rich he is all the time). David manages to fend Andrew off by claiming that because they can’t legally marry, they shouldn’t, but of course Andrew pressures him to take time to think about it. 

Later in the episode, David has to cart Andrew along on a night out at a polka club (fun?) with his coworkers, and Andrew wastes no time making everyone uncomfortable. When David introduces Andrew as a friend, Andrew seems to be immediately offended, and takes the chance to tell everyone that the watch David’s wearing is worth 10 grand and indicative of how much he means to him. Once they’ve sat down at a table, Andrew launches into a diatribe about his work on the Titanic movie sets in Mexico (obviously bullshit, and different from what he’s told David) and is forced to drag David onto the dance floor to avoid explaining his inconsistencies. Only on the dance floor with polka dancers swirling around them does David officially reject Andrew’s proposal, solidifying the reason there would be tension between them.

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“Be My Lover” by La Bouche

This song plays over the various shots at the end of the episode while Cunanan and Versace are in the club. Versace is outside, finally hearing the love of his live say the words he’s been wanting to hear (let’s get hitched), and we hear the lyrics “Before I make you mine, baby, you have to be sure”, reflecting the struggle Versace has had indulging the idea of marriage knowing that Antonio wasn’t sure. But when we cut to Cunanan walking aimlessly around the club, presumably looking for Versace, we hear the lyrics “Looking back on all the time we spent together/You oughta know by now if you wanna be my lover”, possibly reflecting the delusion of Andrew’s that he and Versace were meant to be together and that the lies Andrew told somehow swayed Versace into loving him (as if that’s how Versace thought). The song symbolizes Versace finally having his love fully reciprocated, and Andrew’s love for Versace remaining unrequited. 

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“Back To Life” by Soul II Soul

Okay yes, this song represents the 90’s pop era that this show is set in, but the use of the phrase ‘back to life, back to reality’ is symbolic of Versace’s zest for life. As Cunanan represents death and delusion, Versace represents life and reality, and the use of this phrase during a transition between a heavy scene of Andrew’s into a scene about Versace’s love for living is intentional. When Versace goes on to argue with Donatella about why he doesn’t like the models she chose for the runway, he keeps bringing up his desire to celebrate life and echo vitality through his clothes, which comes from this second chance he’s been given since ‘conquering’ AIDS. Versace at his core believed that we should be celebrating all that makes us human, celebrating our strength and resilience, and this song helps us understand that about his character. 

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“Easy Lover” by Phil Collins and Philip Bailey

This song plays during the hotel scene with Andrew and the old man from the beach, and boy does it just add to the unsettling vibes. We’ve got a man who clearly has spent his whole life in the closet, is here alone, and has told a sociopath that they’re down to be submissive. Cunanan already has the upper hand, and the added shame that this man would feel being exposed as gay gives Cunanan way more leniency (in his eyes) than he should have. Once the older man’s entire head is duct taped, this song plays as Cunanan dances, blatantly ignoring the suffocation occurring right in front of him. The lyrics talk about a woman with the habit of breaking hearts and putting a spell on the men around her, and it’s not hard to see how that trope appeals to Cunanan. By preying on the submissive nature of this man, Cunanan lives up to the idea of “leaving and deceiving” talked about throughout the song, and as he finally allows this guy a little bit of air, we hear the lyric ‘She’ll have you down on your knees’, symbolizing the way that Cunanan ‘has’ this man. 

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Episode 2 Recap

The episode opens with a pretty solemn vibe, showing a feeble Versace walking the halls of a hospital and seeing terminally ill patients suffering from AIDS. The camerawork and editing implies that Versace was also dealing with AIDS and was empathizing with them, but the estate of Versace maintains that the ailment that plagued Gianni’s later years was actually ear cancer. Making that up to cover up the ‘shame’ of a gay man in such a powerful role of the fashion industry? Sounds plausible. Even though it’s not a stretch that Versace was gay and that obviously trivializes the unique trauma he possibly endured having AIDS, this is all hearsay and can’t be confirmed. 

We move on to see Gianni bedridden with his illness, having a heartfelt conversation with Donatella essentially about how she’s a badass who can survive anything, even the loss of her brother if he should in fact, die. She leaves the room and we see a more telling interaction between Donatella and Antonio, Gianni’s lover. Gianni had already told the two of them to get the fuck over their differences because he needs family, and they stubbornly agreed, showing what we already knew, that she looked down on him. But now we know a little more about why: in her eyes, Antonio has provided little for Gianni, saying “What have you given him? Stability? Safety? Family?” and telling him that his desire to bring a multitude of men into their bedroom is too big a compromise for Versace to make. Once we’re brought back to the time of Versace’s death, Donatella eventually turns to Antonio saying that they had no reason to pretend anymore because Gianni was dead. Oof.

Where’s the guy who killed him? Well, he’s stealing license plates off random cars in Walmart parking lots, of course! There’s a spooky strings motif that accompanies Cunanan’s creepiest actions, and we hear it during this, when he smiles at a child mid-theft in a bone-chilling way. Once he delays the cops for a bit with a new license, he ends up driving on the highway headed to Miami, vibing to “Gloria” by Laura Branigan with his head out the window like a puppy, which is cute and all until you remember he’s all excited to go kill Versace. He also overhears a radio station talking about a certain Andrew Cunanan being wanted for murder, but that doesn’t do a thing to his spirit.

Once Cunanan gets to Miami, he promptly goes about utilizing his handy lil manipulation tactics by schmoozing the front desk lady of a hotel into a cheap room (and eventually into an oceanside view with no additional fee, which is just not realistic but ok). This hotel is where he meets Ronnie, a man told he had a few months to live when diagnosed with AIDS, spent everything he had, got treatment and didn’t die, and then ended up strung out in this dingy Miami hotel (and also is played by Schmidt of New Girl, which adds so much). He talks to Ronnie anecdotally and asks where he can score, when they end up walking down to the beachfront. They sit for a bit, but Cunanan suddenly gets up and walks over to a lone, older gentleman lounging on the beach; they talk, and eventually they both walk off the beach, with Cunanan giving Ronnie a creepy smile on the way. 

There are several shots of the FBI agents who have been tracking Andrew Cunanan throughout his murder spree (spoiler I think? but also you kinda could have guessed and you knew he already killed two people, so what’s a few more), and they’re trying to alert the Miami police that Cunanan has been moved to the Top Ten Most Wanted list, and they need to distribute the flyers with his information ASAP. The Miami cops don’t seem too concerned about him or getting those flyers out, which lowkey bites them in the ass later because Cunanan could have been found pre-Versace death, but we’ll get to that. 

Back to Cunanan and the older gentleman we don’t know but are very scared for: they’ve entered a hotel room belonging to the old guy, and it’s clear that this guy has never acted on his desire to be involved with anyone other than the wife he probably has. Cunanan gets right to the freaky, rapidly dict taping the top of this guy’s head (yes, he’s bald but we still gotta think about eyelashes/eyebrows because yike), which might just be kinky, but then he DUCT TAPES OVER HIS NOSE AND MOUTH. TIGHTLY. I don’t know what this guy thought he was getting but I know it wasn’t that, and instead of helping this older man who is desperately trying to fucking breath, Andrew decides that now is the best time for a little dance party. Playing Phil Collins’ “Easy Lover” loudly, he nonchalantly dances around the room, sporadically shouting “Embrace it!” at this poor man going through it. Suddenly he jumps on top of this man’s chest and uses a pair of scissors to stab a hole (from VERY far above the head too, so not sure how he didn’t do a boatload of damage) into his mouth so he can *just barely* breathe. The only reason that Cunanan doesn’t get arrested right then and here is because the older guy is too ashamed that he invited Cunanan inside in the first place. BIG oof.

Cut to the moments before a Versace runway: Gianni doesn’t like the models chosen because of their gaunt and ‘emaciated’ appearance, while Donatella believes that because this is what’s popular, that’s what they should look like. Gianni goes off on a cute lil rant about life and how looking ‘alive’ should be embraced, that standing out from the crowd should be embraced, that strength and confidence should be embraced. It’s lowkey inspiring, and very needed after that whole duct tape assault. 

But now we go back to Andrew and Ronnie, in their hotel room smoking meth (kind of an assumption based on the paraphernalia, but they haven’t explicitly said, so don’t quote me there) when Andrew abruptly gets up and quickly walks into the bathroom and shuts the door. While Ronnie gets up to check on him and be there for him (cute), Cunanan begins to duct tape the top of his head, just like he did to the old guy. After a few minutes he walks outside the bathroom just to say to Ronnie “I need to shower” (yes, with the duct tape still on), and walk right back in. He eventually comes out, sans tape, and when Ronnie asks what he’s done (presumably to cause him to act this way), Cunanan replies, “Nothing. I’ve done absolutely nothing.”

Now we’re in Versace’s bedroom: he’s designing various pieces at his desk, and Antonio is very openly sexually involved with another man in the bed (bold). When Antonio invites Versace to join, he politely declines and even encourages Antonio to go on ahead, but we see his lil longing stare at the pair of them and we know it’s because it secretly hurts his heart. In the morning, Antonio tells Versace that he wants to give up that life and just get married, but Versace doesn’t buy it, saying “you’ll say it in the morning, but will you say it in the evening?”.

Hey, remember those FBI Most Wanted posters for Andrew Cunanan? The ones that were supposed to be distributed throughout the city, but stayed in the trunk of a car? Yeah, here’s where those would have been handy. Had they made it out, at least one of those flyers would have gotten on the Most Wanted board at the pawn shop Cunanan goes into a few days before Versace’s death. He wants to pawn a gold coin (we know that coin is sketchy), and the owner takes a look at that board, but when there’s no fresh-faced brown haired young man named Andrew Cunanan (yeah, he used his real name, but hey he’s bold) doesn’t appear, she doesn’t call the cops. If she had, he might have been in custody before he was able to shoot Versace.

After seeing a brief interaction between a fake Donatella and real Gianni outside Versace’s villa, Cunanan begins to spiral, and I mean spiral. Like ‘rip all the meticulously printed and tacked pictures of Versace and his clothing off the wall, pack all belongings up from the hotel, and pay Ronnie to act like they never met’ spiral. It seems that Cunanan has officially decided to quit fucking around in Miami and just kill Versace already, so naturally he begins to stalk the outside of his house. When he sees Gianni and Antonio leave and head for a club, Cunanan follows them to that same club and tries to look for him? talk to him? I don’t know, but he looks kinda manic and sweaty, so I don’t necessarily think it was nice. They somehow miss each other, but good thing, because Gianni and Antonio are outside having a cute little moment; to respond to Versace’s statement that he can’t want monogamy at night, Antonio reaffirms his desires to marry Versace and that he just wants a life with him alone. It’s a cute moment that shows the true love and joy between the two, and it sucks to know that Cunanan came in and RUINED IT a few days later, but alas. 

While Versace’s getting it, Andrew’s still on the dance floor and is approached by an average looking guy asking what he does for a living. Cunanan initially responds with “I’m a serial killer” (CREEPY) but the loud music muffles him so the guy asks him to repeat himself. And man, when he does, he just starts listing off all kinds of professions and lifestyles that were just unrealistic and grandiose, making this guy uncomfortable as fuck. But the cherry on top comes with the last few lines of the show:

“I’m the person least likely to be forgotten. I’m Andrew Cunanan.”

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“Oh quanto volte!” from Bellini’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi

The music playing right after doctors cover his lifeless body with a sheet is a classic example of a lamento bassline, commonly used to denote sadness and heartbreak. “Oh quanto volte!” from Bellini’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi helps convey to the audience the heartbreak felt by the loss of Versace, and the depth to the meaning of his death. Similar to an opera (ironic because he designed for one), this piece shows a change of pace and vibe, from frantic, anxious yet hopeful, to resigned, defeated and solemn. 

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“Last Night a DJ Saved My Life” by Indeep

The club scene has the only diegetic example of TV music, with “Last Night a DJ Saved My Life” by Indeep pulsing in the background. This excerpt is a classic example of music you’d hear in a Miami nightclub in the 90’s (despite its release in the 80’s), helping to ground the audience’s understanding of pop culture for the time, and indicating of the queer atmosphere of this club, with lyrics that designate music as an escape. Queer clubs were a place for embracing black music and sexual ambiguity, and this song embodies that. 

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Adagio in G minor by Tomaso Albinoni

The opening scenes are accompanied by Adagio in G minor by Tomaso Albinoni, a piece famously used for angsty, emotional acting. Originally written for organ but performed by strings, Adagio perfectly captures the aesthetic value, the drama, the turmoil, the prestige, and the heartbreak that takes place in those six minutes: the beginning of Versace’s morning, the mental breakdown of Cunanan, the beauty of the villa, and the murder of Versace are all felt that much stronger in the heart with the addition of suspensions and call and response between upper and lower strings. It’s who Versace is and who Cunanan wants to be, and it fits them both for very different reasons. 

[soundtrackofversace]

Episode One: Plot Summary

The show opens in Miami, Florida on July 15, 1997 and depicts Gianni Versace starting his day like any other. We see the dichotomy of Versace and Andrew Cunanan’s life unfold: He awakens in a lavish gold house with multiple Versace Medusa monograms and expensive furnishings that convey grandeur, firmly establishing the brand and experience that is life as Gianni Versace, while Cunanan sits on the beach, pulls out a Vogue book and a gun from his backpack, looks at a scar on his leg, and then heads into the water, fully clothed and screaming. Versace comes down to his courtyard full of wait staff, who he greets politely, and retires in his garden to eat a custom made breakfast; Cunanan walks along the beachfront tossing his meager liquid breakfast in the trash. The camera cuts to Cunanan running into a public restroom; he vomits profusely and sits up to see “filthy f*ggots” carved into the bathroom wall. Versace, leaving his home, says hi to everyone he passes, buys a healthy amount of fashion magazines from a little stall, and walks back toward his house. As he gets to his front gate, Cunanan approaches Versace’s home, holding the pistol from his backpack; he walks toward Versace and shoots twice at point blank range.

In the next scene, Cunanan abruptly wakes up his friend and her boyfriend to talk about how he met Versace. We flashback to October 15, 1990 in San Francisco and see Cunanan in the VIP section of a private, members-only, gay nightclub, seeming slightly uncomfortable but trying to fit in with the crowd, when he sees Versace. Cunanan uses grandiose and pretentious language to address him while Versace seems uninterested yet polite, forcing interaction until Versace relents and engages. We cut back to Cunanan telling a different story; he mentions that this club was too fancy to allow people to approach celebrities, and calls those that do “tacky”, showing inconsistencies between his actions and his opinions, because in his version of the story he was the one approached by Versace. He then goes on a mini-rant that reads as him trying to downplay the talent of Versace to seem better and cooler than him. We see a further flashback of him being in college where he’s confronted by a classmate that he’s been lying about multiple things (being gay, being Jewish, etc.), to which Cunanan replies, “I tell people what they need to hear”.

Cut to Versace fitting a opera singer for her costume: as he talks about his mother, Versace says “My clothes serve you”, showing his philosophy as a designer. We fast-forward to the ‘date’ between Versace and Cunanan, where Versace pops champagne and Cunanan immediately goes into a delusional spiel about his father owning a pineapple plantation and his mother being the First Lady of the Philippines. We go back right after Versace was shot, seeing his lover clutching his lifeless body, his body loaded onto a stretcher and taken to the hospital, doctors working on him, and eventually calling time of death at 9:21 AM. While the cops are trying to track down the shooter, they find Cunanan’s red pickup truck in an empty parking garage and find out that it’s linked to the homicide of a man named William Reese, and that the suspect’s name is Andrew Cunanan. 

Once Cunanan has gone to clean himself up in the bathroom of a fancy hotel, he notices a woman reacting in horror by putting her hand up to her mouth, thinks for a second, and then mirrors her actions exactly. We cut back to the arrival of Donatella Versace, who immediately goes into business mode, dealing with the press’ reporting of Versace, the stock of the company, etc. She cuts off the detective’s interview with Gianni’s lover, implying he will spill Gianni’s secrets, and cuts him out of the business meetings held soon after her arrival. After an unsuccessful SWAT attack on the assumed residence of Cunanan, the camera cuts to him in monochromatic yellow, buying a stack of newspapers about Versace’s death, like Versace buying all of the fashion magazines; they were both proud of their ‘work’.