S02.E07: Ascent

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Quote

Andrew Cunanan leaves behind a troubled family life as Donatella Versace struggles to find her role within the Versace empire.

Promo:

[Spartan Girl]

The second I saw that the guy at the bar was David, I screamed at the TV, "NO! Don't turn around! Run, dude, RUN!" Poor guy never stood a chance.

Kind of liked seeing the softer side of Donatella.

[sashayshante]

This episode made the reverse storytelling worth it. First, the scenes with Jeff and hearing him tell Andrew he loves him...ugh.  There was such genuine affection between them at one time.

Then to see David so shy and tentative and watch how tender he and Andrew were to each other. Those scenes made his death that much more tragic. We also see why people found him so charming.

I'll be so pissed if Cody Fern isn't nominated for an Emmy.

[Primetimer]

Andrew Cunanan and Donatella Versace both begin to come into their own -- but only one of them feels entitled, and only one of them is correct -- in this Epic Old-School Recap of S02.E07, 'Ascent.'

View the full article

[voiceover]

I like Edgar's Gianni so much!!  He just fills up every room he's in -- and that seems about right.  I would wish for more of him and his performance.

All in all, an improvement from the past couple of eps.  Andrew surely destroyed some good people.

And wow -- didn't know about Lincoln, so his murder shocked me.

eta: How could I forget Molly Price (the escort service madam)??  She makes everything better.  Loved her expression at Andrew's "big reveal".

Edited March 8, 2018 by voiceover

[Chaos Theory]

I am not sure why but the Versace scenes are the least interesting for me.  I did get that while Gianni and Donatella got their fame and fortune honestly Andrew lied and seduced his.    

I liked how the episode filled in some of the things we already knew.  The one perfect night between Andrew and David.   And Andrew meeting Norman.   Of course we knew these things but seeing them happen put them into context.  

Edited March 8, 2018 by Chaos Theory

[CeeBeeGee]

Another fantastic episode. Loved seeing Versace's lover order him to apologize to Donatella.

Is there some reason why Andrew's 3 sibling's couldn't also help out with Mom after Dad bailed (fuck Modesto, he is garbage)? I am also one of 4 siblings and if something similar had happened ALL of us would've leaped in to help my father and stepmother.

OMG poor Lincoln. I have been doing my historical due diligence (like Norman!) and at the back of my mind I knew what would happen to Lincoln but still, it took me by surprise. When I realized what was about to happen I forced myself to watch--if he had to suffer it, the least I could do was bear witness. Poor Lincoln. You were a good person. You didn't deserve this. May flights of angels sing thee to thy rest. 

"For me being told is like being told I don't exist." David says no in '96/7. Andrew stops being Andrew?

Seeing Andrew being reduced to a clever Asian with a big dick was brutal.

David and Andrew were so sweet together. But poor David, stable, normal, midwestern David never would've had a chance with wannabe cosmopolitan Andrew.

[voiceover]

Maybe the problem with the Versace scenes (obviously I don't think it's Edgar) is that Penelope Cruz carries the bulk of the convo, and as much as I like her, I don't like her much in this.

[Shadow Wave]

My problem with the Versace scenes is that they just seem too...random, in what is really a story about Andrew Cunanan. No, it isn't right that we should be interested in him because he was a monster who happened to pick somebody famous to assassinate, but that's what it is. The viewer is curious about Cunanan's weird backstory, and the innocent people who were sucked into his vortex, but Gianni's and Donatella's creative journey is tangential and not too compelling, honestly. 

Edited March 8, 2018 by Shadow Wave

[voiceover]

Mileage, obviously.  I looked forward to the series because I thought it would give me a glimpse into the designer's life.  Now I'm intrigued by the stories of everyone who's NotAndrew.  Even though I applaud Criss's performance.

[hoodooznoodooz]

Nope. I still want someone to kick Andrew in the head. 

On a shallow note, they sure did cast a lot of beautiful men for this series. 

How eerie that Donatella says, “We must be talked about, or we are nothing.” That could be written on AC’s headstone.

[TheOtherOne]

The Assassination of Gianni Versace: Fact-checking Episode 7, ‘Ascent’

How Donatella Versace Overcame Her Demons and Stepped Out From Her Brother’s Shadow

[LennieBriscoe]

5 hours ago, Shadow Wave said:

Gianni's and Donatella's creative journey is tangential and not too compelling, honestly. 

Creative vs. Destructive. Perhaps not tangential.

[vixenbynight]

6 hours ago, sashayshante said:

This episode made the reverse storytelling worth it. First, the scenes with Jeff and hearing him tell Andrew he loves him...ugh. There was such genuine affection between them at one time.

Then to see David so shy and tentative and watch how tender he and Andrew were to each other. Those scenes made his death that much more tragic. We also see why people found him so charming.

I'll be so pissed if Cody Fern isn't nominated for an Emmy.

I think that Andrew wanted to have real connections, relationships with people and to be loved, but he also needed to be the center of everybody's world. That he felt like he always had to elaborate aka lie about his life is disturbing. 

6 hours ago, CeeBeeGee said:

Another fantastic episode. Loved seeing Versace's lover order him to apologize to Donatella.

Is there some reason why Andrew's 3 sibling's couldn't also help out with Mom after Dad bailed (fuck Modesto, he is garbage)? I am also one of 4 siblings and if something similar had happened ALL of us would've leaped in to help my father and stepmother.

OMG poor Lincoln. I have been doing my historical due diligence (like Norman!) and at the back of my mind I knew what would happen to Lincoln but still, it took me by surprise. When I realized what was about to happen I forced myself to watch--if he had to suffer it, the least I could do was bear witness. Poor Lincoln. You were a good person. You didn't deserve this. May flights of angels sing thee to thy rest. 

"For me being told is like being told I don't exist." David says no in '96/7. Andrew stops being Andrew?

Seeing Andrew being reduced to a clever Asian with a big dick was brutal.

David and Andrew were so sweet together. But poor David, stable, normal, midwestern David never would've had a chance with wannabe cosmopolitan Andrew.

I think we will see more of Andrew's family life in the next couple of episodes.

I think it was very important to bring up the issue of race, preference and how that affected Andrew. He did seem to be very popular and liked, but the young, attractive and sexually desirous men that he wanted aka preppy white boys in San Diego, did not go for him. They went for Jeff.

As dehumanizing as the scene with the escort scout (amazing Molly Price) was, she was being truthful. A specific sort of escort is what appeals to an older clientele. 

Being told no, just added another layer of not getting who and what Andrew wanted for his life.

Andrew never really wanted David as the "poor, normal midwesterner" that he was. He wanted the "most successful architect, who would build them the most perfect house". When David started fantasizing, Andrew went on that magic carpet ride with him.

The scene with Lincoln and the "I AM STRAIGHT!!!" dude, made me think of the 70s film, "Looking for Mr. Goodbar". I knew that he was going to be murdered.

4 hours ago, hoodooznoodooz said:

Nope. I still want someone to kick Andrew in the head.

On a shallow note, they sure did cast a lot of beautiful men for this series. 

How eerie that Donatella says, “We must be talked about, or we are nothing.” That could be written on AC’s headstone.

He wanted to be known, but did not want to really work for it.

Edited March 8, 2018 by vixenbynight

[ElectricBoogaloo]

It annoys me that Penelope Cruz still lets her natural accent through when she's supposed to be Donatella. Prime example: "I'm escared." Spanish speakers often put an E in front of words that begin with S. Italians do not.

Edgar Ramírez, on the other hand, is amazing as Gianni. He never seems like he's acting or trying to be Gianni. He is so charming and sincere and he makes it look so effortless.

As someone who used to live in San Diego, I had a lot of nitpicks about this episode.

I seriously had to pause the episode to laugh at the storefront they used for Thrifty (where Andrew worked circa 1991-1994). Just a big RX pill bottle and the word PHARMACY in giant letters and then sandwiches, malts, sundaes, and floats in smaller letters on the overhang. First of all Thrifty did not serve sandwiches. Ice cream, yes, but not sandwiches. Secondly, no Thrifty had a sign like that. But third of all, the combination of the parking lot and the storefront they used made it look like a 7/11. Thrifty on Bernardo Center Road (where Andrew actually worked in Rancho Bernardo) was in a strip mall with a big parking lot and lots of other stores. The store is actually still there but it's a CVS now. Thrifty's logo and uniforms were read (not like the blue vest that Andrew was wearing).

The San Diego sweatshirt that the customer was wearing was hilarious. The words "San Diego" were in red and there was a school crest so it was obviously supposed to be SDSU, except it wasn't. Then Andrew tries to show off by saying that he's doing his PhD at UCSD, which is a totally different school (the school colors there are blue and gold). There's really no rivalry between the two schools because they're so different, so trying to make conversation about one to the other would elicit just about the response that was shown. I guess this was before Andrew learned how to make casual conversation because "I like that toothpaste"? Really, Andrew?

Andrew's encyclopedic knowledge of the Häagen Dazs story before wikipedia existed was impressive. But dude, quit yelling at your mom for buying the wrong ice cream. You can go to the grocery store yourself and buy the exact ice cream you want. He was 23 at the time, not 13.

The newspaper Andrew was highlighting said "La Jolla Playhouse Presents 'Triumph of Loving' By Marivaux." I was taught never to capitalize prepositions with four or less letters but on top of that, the Marivaux play (which was shown at the La Jolla Playhouse in 1994 starring then unknowns Paul Giamatti, Silas Weir Mitchell aka Monroe on Grimm, and Tony Amendola aka Geppetto on OUAT) is known as "Triumph of Love" (not "Loving"). The play was shown at the Mandell Weiss Forum (one of the theaters at the La Jolla Playhouse) and it looks nothing like that red and gold place they showed as the lobby and the theater. The Mandall Weiss Forum is very modern and spare in design. The San Diego Daily Post (the newspaper that Andrew was shown highlighting) has never been a real thing. There was the San Diego Union and the San Diego Evening Tribune, which merged in 1992 to become the San Diego Union-Tribune.

I can't really blame Lincoln for cutting off Andrew after his shitty behavior. He ignored his phone calls and then spent Lincoln's money on an expensive hotel room and champagne so he could hook up with someone else.

According to this 1997 article from the San Diego Reader (the local alternative paper), Andrew convinced Norman to move from Phoenix to San Diego in 1995. Fun fact: Lincoln Aston once owned the house where Norman lived. Lincoln sold it to someone in 1995 and Norman then bought it from that someone in 1996. The same SDR article also has testimony from a 21 year old guy named Adam Grein who was living with Lincoln when Kevin Bond killed him in May 1995.

Molly Price was the most principled madame I've ever seen on tv. She absolutely refused to lie about Andrew's ethnicity to her clients even though she didn't think he looked Asian.

Edited March 8, 2018 by ElectricBoogaloo

[Ailianna]

50 minutes ago, ElectricBoogaloo said:

It annoys me that Penelope Cruz still lets her natural accent through when she's supposed to be Donatella. Prime example: "I'm escared." Spanish speakers often put an E in front of words that begin with S. Italians do not.

It has kind of bothered me from the beginning that all the Italians on this show are portrayed by Spanish speakers of various stripes.  The accent is just one reason, but in her case it's a big reason.

50 minutes ago, ElectricBoogaloo said:

I seriously had to pause the episode to laugh at the storefront they used for Thrifty (where Andrew worked circa 1991-1994). Just a big RX pill bottle and the word PHARMACY in giant letters and then sandwiches, malts, sundaes, and floats in smaller letters on the overhang. First of all Thrifty did not serve sandwiches. Ice cream, yes, but not sandwiches. Secondly, no Thrifty had a sign like that. But third of all, the combination of the parking lot and the storefront they used made it look like a 7/11. Thrifty on Bernardo Center Road (where Andrew actually worked in Rancho Bernardo) was in a strip mall with a big parking lot and lots of other stores. The store is actually still there but it's a CVS now. Thrifty's logo and uniforms were read (not like the blue vest that Andrew was wearing).

Even though in real life it was a Thrifty, it was not one in the show.  It was Mercado Drug Store, as evidenced by not only the different location, signage and uniform, but by Mr. Mercado specifically telling us it was his store.  I think they didn't want to deal with getting whatever permissions would be required to use the real things, when it would not affect the story and would not even be noticed by the vast majority of viewers.

I was not enthralled by the Versace scenes, and i was surprised that Gianni was so rude and abrupt--even cruel as Antonio said--when dealing with his sister.  He was way nicer to the drag queen a few episodes ago.  And then in the previous (future) episode, he was all about things women would want to wear--and here he didn't even seem to get that not everyone wants to dress in High Dungeon.  I feel like they are changing his character to fit the story theme of the episode, rather than serving the character.

I also wondered at the portrayal of Lincoln's murder--it almost felt like the show was validating the gay panic defense through the way the actor portrayed the emotions of the killer.  I also wondered if this was going to be a robbery instead of sex set up, and if Andrew would get the idea to get guys to bring him to their rooms so he could steal from them--like the guy in Florida.  Just the thought in my head at the beginning of the sequence.

[sashayshante]

Quote

It has kind of bothered me from the beginning that all the Italians on this show are portrayed by Spanish speakers of various stripes. 

 

As an Italian, I'm extremely pissed that the leads were cast with Spanish actors.  It's offensive. It really speaks to Murphy's ignorance.

Edgar, I think, was cast for his resemblance to Versace as well as his dead-on portrayal of him. With Cruz I think it was a case of Murphy wanting to work with Penelope Cruz. Her accent is awful to the point where it's insulting to the audience that we're expect to suspend disbelief.

What I do appreciate is how they focus so much on Versace's commitment to and  passion for his work. Also, Gianni's relationship with Donatella is pitch perfect in how they go at each other with a fierce passion when they fight and yet - in the end - always end up supporting each other. Family, loyalty, passion, creativity, work ethic: these are tenets of Italian culture that get very little attention because they aren't splashy.

[Florinaldo]

8 hours ago, Chaos Theory said:

I am not sure why but the Versace scenes are the least interesting for me.  I did get that while Gianni and Donatella got their fame and fortune honestly Andrew lied and seduced his.    

Same for me. The Versace portion across comes across as standard glamour biopic, whereas the Cunanan portion is a much more fascinating territory that has not been explored as frequently.

The last three episodes have been very strong and this one did an excellent job of filling in some of the details of what happened to the characters earlier in their lives and how some of them met. It also showed JT and AC were really close friends, with AC as the envious and admiring half of the relationship.

The scene in the hotel room was especially touching, but also very sad; as much as you can see AC falling in love while listening to the story about DM drawing a picture of a house for his friend, you know that these people are already doomed. Plus, I could not help but think that AC was falling in love with the story itself, more than with the person telling it. Quite fitting for someone who spent his days telling stories and lies.

He recycles that story, with appropriate adjustments, in his beach conversation with Norman. He also used it last episode with his female friend from San Francisco (why was she not in the restaurant scene?), with many embellishments, as if he has been spinning it many times in his head and adding to the fantasy with each iteration.

The "I am a nice guy" from the first episode makes a brief reappearance at dinner.

Two nitpicks though. Since when is complete honesty required in the escort business? Do clients require a verified ethnic profile of the product they are buying? DC's Eurasian looks are very subtle and many people miss them so his portrayal of AC could easily have passed for someone with Portuguese or French ancestry for example. Cunanan as well judging from many of the photographs of him. Also, AC stumbling on the murder makes for a very dramatic scene but would not the killer have reported it in his statement to the police, which would have implicated AC as obstructing justice since he told the killer to flee?

Vanity Fair issues a podcast after each episode; DC is a guest on the latest one. He recounts how many good snippets or scenes were deleted in the episodes' final cuts, including a whole sequence with a celebrity guest actor and a phone call to DM after their encounter in San Francisco. A few extra details in this article. The previous episodes also look interesting.

Edited March 8, 2018 by Florinaldo

[Sarah D. Bunting]

I'm still a little irritated that they speak in English to each other, in Milan, while fighting, even though I understand as a citizen of the TV-watching world why this is so.

[CofCinci]

Penelope Cruz is terrible. Does she have fake teeth in her mouth?  All I hear is a terrible lisp.  It really detracts from the scenes. 

[darkestboy]

A strong episode, nice that there was a sizeable amount of focus on Gianni and Donatella this week and I liked seeing their relationship being somewhat more explored with both Edgar Ramirez and Penelope Cruz doing well in their scenes together.

Andrew continues to get more the screen time though it's being used reasonably well. Interesting to look at his relationship with his mother and the rejection he got from that madame as well at the escorting agency he tried to apply for.

Lincoln's death was grisly and I wasn't expecting it but I'm not surprised that Andrew was able to use it to his advantage in order to get closer to Norman though.

Loved the brief scenes with David in this one as well, 7/10

[LennieBriscoe]

Electric Boogaloo, The "errors" you note might just be deliberate alterations to avoid lawsuits, to reduce the need to obtain permissions of use for readily-identifiable entities, and/or to highlight Cunanan's lies (his "Ph.D."). We don't need to know exactly what the original Thrift drugstore looked like; we don't need to know the accurate menu, employee uniforms,  or parking lot configuration. As for your criticism of the capitalization of the word "By," as a former English teacher I agree with you; as a television viewer, I find this to be another irrelevant nitpick (and perhaps the original newspaper ad had it wrong).

But more to the point: I thought "reality outside the episodes" was verboten.

And Andrew yelled at his mother over the ice-cream instead of getting it himself because---SPOILER ALERT!---he was an entitled sociopath.

33 minutes ago, CofCinci said:

Penelope Cruz is terrible. Does she have fake teeth in her mouth?  All I hear is a terrible lisp.  It really detracts from the scenes. 

It's been established that Donatella has a lisp.

[CofCinci]

9 minutes ago, LennieBriscoe said:

It's been established that Donatella has a lisp.

Donatella is also Italian portrayed by a non-Italian.... they could take liberties to lessen the lisp. I have a hard time hearing it because of the terrible sound editing/looping during her scenes. 

[Florinaldo]

1 hour ago, Sarah D. Bunting said:

I'm still a little irritated that they speak in English to each other, in Milan, while fighting, even though I understand as a citizen of the TV-watching world why this is so.

The general convention that characters speak in the main language of a movie or TV show, even if their mother tongue is different, does seem absurd when they are talking to each other, but audiences, especially U.S. ones, do not like subtitles. In this instance most of the Spanish actors are not very good at mimicking an Italian accent so that one can only wonder what sort of gibberish would have come out of PC's mouth for example if they had tried extended passages in Italian.

 

4 hours ago, vixenbynight said:

As dehumanizing as the scene with the escort scout (amazing Molly Price) was, she was being truthful. A specific sort of escort is what appeals to an older clientele. 

But would clients not be ready to accept the hustler they are provided with as long as he looks the part? It is a fantasy after all. In previous episodes, both Lee and Norman said they were ready to accept a certain amount of lies, in exchange for time spent with AC and the pleasure or comfort it provided them with.

 

3 hours ago, ElectricBoogaloo said:

the Marivaux play (which was shown at the La Jolla Playhouse in 1994 starring then unknowns Paul Giamatti, Silas Weir Mitchell aka Monroe on Grimm, and Tony Amendola aka Geppetto on OUAT)

That page also confirms that Thérèse Raquin was indeed part of the same repertory program; I had to rewind to make sure that was the title mentioned by AC. I do not know if that is the way DC thinks it is really pronounced in French or if he was trying to show that despite AC's apparent culture and knowledge, it was all surface stuff.

Edited March 8, 2018 by Florinaldo

[Chaos Theory]

Men like Norman would be willing to accept a certain amount of lies and fantasy but like Norman said he wouldn’t accept being made to look like a fool.  If he did use a service and paid for something he didn’t get and it happened more then once he would likely feel like a fool.  Add to that the community Norman came from was relatively small.  Rich white mostly closeted gay men.  It is better to be as honest with them as possible and give them as close to their fantasy as possible.   I wouldn’t lie to them either and possibly offend one of them enough to be shut out of what was probably a lucrative business.

Edited March 8, 2018 by Chaos Theory

[Florinaldo]

In my circle of gay men, if any of them would ever hire a hustler I don't think they would expect full truth in advertising as long as the fantasy is persuasive. How could a client detect AC's real ethnicity; the name would not be a clue since hustlers must use false names, as porn stars do (and can also convincingly lie about their specifics like age and ancestry). As one the articles linked to above indicates, AC did find employment with an escort agency, perhaps one less principled than the one in the episode. I do understand that the scene has a useful dramatic purpose and was a narrative shortcut to steer his story towards him freelancing.

The shot of AC tenderly cuddling to DM in bed was a chilling prefiguration to a similar image after the latter's murder, as AC lies on the grass besides his victim. Two quiet moments in their relationship, so different in tone and context.

[vixenbynight]

21 minutes ago, Florinaldo said:

But would clients not be ready to accept the hustler they are provided with as long as he looks the part? It is a fantasy after all. In previous episodes, both Lee and Norman said they were ready to accept a certain amount of lies, in exchange for time spent with AC and the pleasure or comfort it provided them with.

In regards to escorts, clients are paying to have a certain type of man (or woman) for whatever time frame that they want. An escort service has to be able to give them what the client wants and usually, it is not always a person of color, regardless of how good-looking or endowed he was. It looked like the scout had a stable of hot young dudes, the majority of them looked to be Caucasian or light-skinned Latinos. I did not see any photos of dark-skinned POC on her wall.

As for Lee and Norman, Andrew sought them out and established his own relationship with them. Especially as Norman wanted to continue to help with Andrew's potential future, if he accepted his role as a kept man, solely to Norman.

[Florinaldo]

9 minutes ago, vixenbynight said:

An escort service has to be able to give them what the client wants and usually, it is not always a person of color, regardless of how good-looking or endowed he was. It looked like the scout had a stable of hot young dudes, the majority of them looked to be Caucasian or light-skinned Latinos. I did not see any photos of dark-skinned POC on her wall.

I understand your point: a client who does not want a black man will balk if he is provided with a dark-skinned hustler. My point was that AC would easily have been able to pass for Caucasian, just as DC's Filipino heritage is not readily apparent. "Passing" is a concept well known to mixed-race people, just as it is for LGBT who are perceived as "straight-acting". A good madam would have been able to recognize that and make use of that skill, but it is not what they needed for their narrative goal.

[Chaos Theory]

10 minutes ago, Florinaldo said:

I understand your point: a client who does not want a black man will balk if he is provided with a dark-skinned hustler. My point was that AC would easily have been able to pass for Caucasian, just as DC's Filipino heritage is not readily apparent. "Passing" is a concept well known to mixed-race people, just as it is for LGBT who are perceived as "straight-acting". A good madam would have been able to recognize that and make use of that skill, but it is not what they needed for their narrative goal.

And if/when she got caught?  Is it worth the risk to offend any of these guys just for another hot young guy with a decent personality when you already have a stable full of them?  If just one of these guys took it personally they could ruin your business.  No one is saying Andrew couldn’t have passed as white or Latino but is it worth the risk of a lucrative business to lie to your very wealthy clients when you have legitimate white and Latino young men who probably also had decent personalities.

Edited March 8, 2018 by Chaos Theory

[ElectricBoogaloo]

35 minutes ago, LennieBriscoe said:

Electric Boogaloo, The "errors" you note might just be deliberate alterations to avoid lawsuits, to reduce the need to obtain permissions of use for readily-identifiable entities, and/or to highlight Cunanan's lies (his "Ph.D."). We don't need to know exactly what the original Thrift drugstore looked like; we don't need to know the accurate menu, employee uniforms,  or parking lot configuration. As for your criticism of the capitalization of the word "By," as a former English teacher I agree with you; as a television viewer, I find this to be another irrelevant nitpick (and perhaps the original newspaper ad had it wrong).

When anyone makes a tv show or movie based on real people/places/events and they choose to change things, people are going to nitpick. That's just the nature of seeing what you know being depicted incorrectly. There have been all kinds of nitpicks about anachronisms from the time periods shown in This Is Us, Stranger Things, Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, etc. (as well as some factual errors in the first season of American Crime Story) because people DO notice these things. Anyone who lived in California through the mid-90s knows what the Thrifty logo looks like. As for the newspaper article, it wasn't that the original newspaper had it wrong. What they showed was a fake article from a non-existent newspaper so that error is on the art department.

What I don't understand is when the show makes very deliberate errors. When they showed Jeff going to Flicks for the first time (last week or the week before), they deliberately showed the front of the club to establish the location but it wasn't actually Flicks. It was a random bar with a big FLICKS sign. Flicks is a very well known gay bar in Hillcrest so showing an establishing shot of a place that clearly isn't Flicks with a sign that says it is makes no sense. They could have avoided the problem of people from San Diego yelling, "That isn't Flicks!" at their tvs if they had simply not shown the front of the fake bar. The same could have been avoided if they hadn't shown the big PHARMACY sign. If they hadn't shown those establishing shots, would we have been able to tell that the following scenes took place inside a bar and a drugstore? Yup. Or could they have simply written "Flicks" on the screen (as they wrote "San Francisco" on the screen in this episode). There were 2.5 million people living in San Diego in the mid-90s so I'm pretty sure I'm not the only viewer who noticed some of these "creative choices." One of my friends messaged me after the first episode with Flicks to mention the fake sign too!

3 minutes ago, Florinaldo said:

I understand your point: a client who does not want a black man will balk if he is provided with a dark-skinned hustler. My point was that AC would easily have been able to pass for Caucasian, just as DC's Filipino heritage is not readily apparent. "Passing" is a concept well known to mixed-race people, just as it is for LGBT who are perceived as "straight-acting". A good madam would have been able to recognize that and make use of that skill, but it is not what they needed for their narrative goal.

I agree that the madame could have passed him off as being Caucasian/of European descent. There are lots of Europeans with dark hair and brown eyes. And everyone in San Diego is tan from the constant sunny weather, so no one would have looked at his skin tone and assumed he wasn't white based on that. She didn't initially think he was Asian when she met him, so why would anyone else? But obviously they wanted to create a reason for her to turn him down because Andrew being told no made him feel like he didn't exist. There is some blatant racism in the gay community though. A few seasons ago on RuPaul's Drag Race, one of the queens said that a lot of gay ads will specify "no Asians or fatties."

[sashayshante]

 

59 minutes ago, ElectricBoogaloo said:

What I don't understand is when the show makes very deliberate errors.

I see your point, but I think people are smart enough to understand the concept of creative license. I also think most people don't care about a logo or fabricated newspaper.  If the show can't get permission to use a brand name or logo, they have to get creative.

I can't tell you how many times I've watched documentaries about The Preppy Murder and seen the various locations used in place of the real Dorian's Red Hand, which is a couple blocks from my apartment. I don't get worked up about it because, I don't know, I don't feel a need to prove to everybody that I live in Manhattan. 

[dubbel zout]

11 hours ago, hoodooznoodooz said:

How eerie that Donatella says, “We must be talked about, or we are nothing.” That could be written on AC’s headstone.

For a fashion business, she was completely right. (Not saying you're contradicting her.) I liked the inside peek at the business itself, but I found it hard to believe Gianni was so contemptuous of and unwilling to design more wearable clothing, the runway vs. what women wore every day. I can totally believe he was uninterested in that part, but that hissy fit seemed a bit much to me. 

6 hours ago, vixenbynight said:

I think that Andrew wanted to have real connections, relationships with people and to be loved, but he also needed to be the center of everybody's world. That he felt like he always had to elaborate aka lie about his life is disturbing. 

He seemed kind of exhausting to be around, what with always having to be front and center and being so obviously needy about it once he got going.

5 hours ago, ElectricBoogaloo said:

As someone who used to live in San Diego, I had a lot of nitpicks about this episode.

As someone who currently lives in NYC, the scene at the Vogue 100th anniversary party had me on the floor laughing. The NYPL doesn't look anything like what they showed. It's like the location scout just looked for someplace with decent stairs. The light was all wrong for NYC, too. 

3 hours ago, Florinaldo said:

Since when is complete honesty required in the escort business? Do clients require a verified ethnic profile of the product they are buying?

It's not, of course, especially because one thing escorts are selling is fantasy. The madam did make a point of saying she had Latino escorts who were "studs," which I took to mean Andrew wasn't in their league as far as looks go. Or at least didn't have the necessary Latino look. The point of those scenes were to show us that Andrew couldn't use charm to get him everything he wanted (this is near the beginning, remember) and to reinforce his own fears of being ordinary.

[Joimiaroxeu]

It's a wonder the red-headed guy didn't end up dead too. He not only saw through Andrew from the very beginning, he wasn't shy about telling him.

David was such a sweetheart. Fate really screwed him over by putting him in Andrew's orbit.

It's mindboggling to me how Andrew was able to keep all his elaborate stories straight. He really had to rely on being able to keep the different parts of his life carefully compartmentalized, or quickly moving on when he got burnt in a given situation and couldn't cover his lies any more.

[Florinaldo]

2 hours ago, ElectricBoogaloo said:

A few seasons ago on RuPaul's Drag Race, one of the queens said that a lot of gay ads will specify "no Asians or fatties."

A notorious variation on that in such ads is "no fats, no fems". So lots of people do have some very specific and definite expectations when it comes to their sexual fantasies and wants. But they have to be fools if they expect strict truth in representations made by sex workers or their agents; anyone who believes such puffery is open to getting hoodwinked and exploited.

Perhaps I will raise the issue next time our gay group of friends has dinner, asking whether they as gay men believe that a client who finds out a particular hustler is racially mixed would be furious enough to take it out on the agency and its reputation, even though he found the wares enjoyable and satisfactory before learning the truth. I will of course have to be very diplomatic and not imply that they have experience using escorts.   ;-)

 

1 hour ago, dubbel zout said:

The madam did make a point of saying she had Latino escorts who were "studs," which I took to mean Andrew wasn't in their league as far as looks go.

I understand there's a high turnover in that profession because people age, either naturally or under the effect of drugs and hard living, which is exactly what happened to AC at the very end, gaining weight and looking much rougher (something they did not really try with DC, except dressing him in baggy clothes and looking all sweaty). Clients may also tire of a particular guy and wish for diversity. It did not make good business sense for the madam to pass up on an opportunity to add to her stable without at least testing if AC was in the required league or not; she could have called on another of her guys to perform that audition.

But the scene did the job required, i.e. transitioning AC to his status as a free agent, researching possible marks on his own and then moving on them, without bothering to note that he was employed by an agency at one point. But since as DC pointed out in the podcast I linked to upthread they edited out some interesting portions in most episodes to avoid running over, they had to be parsimonious in what details they decided were important or necessary enough for telling their story.

 

1 hour ago, dubbel zout said:

I found it hard to believe Gianni was so contemptuous of and unwilling to design more wearable clothing, the runway vs. what women wore every day. I can totally believe he was uninterested in that part, but that hissy fit seemed a bit much to me. 

Yes, he was portrayed as a stereotypical clueless artiste, who does not understand why customers can't bend to the absolute purity of his vision. I doubt that GV was really like that considering how he built up an international fashion house, but perhaps he had many pragmatic advisors around him to compensate for such an attitude.

The most revealing line in the episode was probably the last exchange between Norman and AC on the terrace: not only did AC not feel ordinary anymore, for a while at least, but he craved an audience ("Everyone") to witness it.

Edited March 8, 2018 by Florinaldo

[scarynikki12]

I think Gianni was acting like that because of his illness. If he wasn’t sick, or wasn’t feeling sick, he may have disagreed with Donatella but not thrown the fit. They could have gone back and forth and figured out a win win. But he felt lousy and took their disagreement as an excuse to have the tantrum. 

[Blakeston]

I have an extremely hard time believing that an agency that provides gay escorts would have no use for a guy who looks like Darren Criss (or Andrew Cunanan, who was quite attractive when he was in his prime.) Especially if he was very well endowed, and the interviewer was impressed by his personality.

I have a close friend who was a rent boy (and I've met plenty of current and former rent boys through him.) They'll tell you that they do what they can to appeal to the client's fantasy, but that doesn't mean the client always gets exactly what they're asking for. Hiring an escort isn't like buying a purebred dog, where you get a detailed layout of their entire family background.

Having slightly Asian-looking features isn't going to be the death knell of a gorgeous 23-year-old's escorting career. If a client is absolutely adamant that their escort be 100% Caucasian, then the agency would send someone else. But not all clients are so hung up on race.

I get the point that the writers were going for - that people who sell their bodies are subject to all sorts of racist stereotyping, and that in the US there's a white-centric standard of beauty. But that doesn't mean the scene played out in a particularly realistic way.

It would have been more believable if Cunanan had called an escort agency, and described himself as Filipino, and they said "we don't have much demand for Filipinos." But I guess that wouldn't have been as dramatic.

[CeeBeeGee]

11 hours ago, vixenbynight said:

The scene with Lincoln and the "I AM STRAIGHT!!!" dude, made me think of the 70s film, "Looking for Mr. Goodbar". I knew that he was going to be murdered.

Yep. I knew what was going to happen to Lincoln but as soon as it started I too thought of Looking for Mr. Goodbar--which was of course based on a true story, the murder of Roseann Quinn on the Upper West Side.

[Glade]

I was piqued earlier in the season when David/Andrew got into the shower together with their clothes on (thinking that the show was really going to be that prude)--but that moment paid off last night when I realized it was meant to be a stark parallel to the nude sex scene in the shower they had on their first date.   The murder of Lincoln was very shocking--and it made me wonder how much of an impact witnessing that scene of horrific violence may have had on Andrew and his later actions.

I admit that the Donatella scenes dragged a bit for me here--maybe if they took up just a little less screen time and tied more clearly into the scenes we were seeing of Andrew it would have been more effective, but it seems late in the season to highlight Donatella to this degree.  I suppose that look is what inspired the drag queen to impersonate her on the night of the murder.

[tennisgurl]

Even in a show filled to the brim with brutality, Lincoln getting murdered was especially nasty. His face didn't even seem to be there anymore. Lord, I thought this show will never let me take a damn break, even when Andrew isn't murdering his way across the country. Poor Lincoln. So many decent people were destroyed due to this never ending insanity and senseless violence. 

Andrew and David were actually quite adorable at in their scenes, and that makes the scenes even more fascinating, in a creepy way. Andrew seemed so really into him, but...well we know where this all ends, and at this point, we know Andrew. He does have the capacity to enjoy being with people or care about them, but he is terrifyingly self centered in a way that makes it impossible for him to really love anyone in a healthy, real way. Even if shit didn't go sideways the way it did, David wouldn't have kept Andrews interest forever anyway. Davis was a sweet, hard working, simple living Midwesterner, he never would have been really comfortable with the ritsy, jet set life Andrew wanted. But I have, increasingly, been able to see why people fell for Andrew. He really could be charming as hell...as long as he didn't spend too much time with them, and people start to see the emptiness in his eyes, and his endless bullshit. 

I enjoyed seeing more of Versace this week, and his relationship with Donnetella. I am kind of meh on Penelope as Donnetella, but you really can see the sibling relationship between them, and how they fight, but also love each other very much. I also liked seeing a glimpse into this part of Versaces life, as he was trying to keep it together while he thought he was dying and his health was failing. It makes him being randomly murdered by this asshole when he had his life back again even more tragic. 

I felt bad for Andrews mom. You can tell she is in total denile over what a piece of crap her son is (even before he started his murder spree) and how, while he may love her in his way, he will just never love her due to his intense self centeredness and sociopathy. She might not have been the best mom ever, but she clearly loved Andrew, even when he didn't deserve it, and she certainly isn't to blame for what he became. 

Edited March 9, 2018 by tennisgurl

[Bama]

1 hour ago, tennisgurl said:

I am kind of meh on Penile as Donnetella

I love auto-correct so much lol.  It always brings the funny. :)

[tennisgurl]

Damn you autocorrect! @Bama ;)

[Florinaldo]

3 hours ago, Blakeston said:

I have an extremely hard time believing that an agency that provides gay escorts would have no use for a guy who looks like Darren Criss (or Andrew Cunanan, who was quite attractive when he was in his prime.) Especially if he was very well endowed, and the interviewer was impressed by his personality.

Yes. I do not know the San Diego gay community very well since I have been there only twice, but I doubt that all gay men who patronise SD escort agencies, even wealthy closeted ones, have such restrictive and pointed sexual tastes that they would have rejected a proposed rent boy simply on the basis of "one drop of Asian blood"; a few perhaps, but not all. As in any other group of people, there must be a spectrum and variety of wants and preferences.

I understand that the show wanted to make a socio-political point, but that was simplistic and lacked credibility. However, it's not a crucial turning point of the plot and it does not detract significantly from the overall impact of the episode.

1 hour ago, Glade said:

that moment paid off last night when I realized it was meant to be a stark parallel to the nude sex scene in the shower they had on their first date.

Good catch. Another visual parallel to a later event in their relationship, like AC cuddling to DM in this episode and then to his corpse in episode 4, again differentiated by blood and violence.

[sashayshante]

I rewatched the shower scene from last night's episode. (For research,okay???)  Anyone else notice how David is in the corner of the shower, hands hanging by his side, sort of cornered by Andrew? It's very odd blocking. 

I truly think Andrew fell in love with David's pureness. He was surrounded by phonies and rich people he felt like he had to impress. With David he could just be himself.. Not that he was, of course, but I think Andrew felt like David was someone for whom he could drop the facade. Holding tight to my theory Andrew only killed Madson because David tried to leave him and escape. Hello, abandonment issues.

[J.D.]

I'm oddly going to miss this series when it's over.  Especially after reading all of your commentaries.  You guys are quite good at picking up on some of the subtleties I didn't notice.  For example, the sweet -vs- dark shower scenes between Andrew and David .... the former having viewed "for research," of course.  ;p

I agree with the poster up thread who theorized that Gianni's petulant mood was probably a product of his illness. 

I don't have the same discomfort with PC as Donatella as some of you, but then again, I wouldn't know a Spanish accent from and Italian accent from the Jamaican accent from a British accent.  Lol.

I also wasn't bothered by the drugstore scene nor Flicks inconsistencies, although I completely understand why some of you were.   Recently, one of those true crime shows you see on TV showcased a well known murder that took place many years ago, but not too far from where I live and virtually nothing rang of truth.  The outdoor scenery, neighborhood, victim's home, circle of friends, family and coworkers -- nothing paralleled the actual victim's world.  About all they got correct was the victim and assailant's name....and since I'm familiar with that case, that totally irked me!  Someone unfamiliar with the story wouldn't have noticed they'd been duped, but I saw flaws and inconsistencies and so I completely understand how parts of this series could annoy a viewer.

[J-Man]

The thing that surprised me the most in this episode was the fact that Vogue was 100 years old! What kind of fashion could they have been featuring in the 1890s? And I can't imagine there were any magazines that featured a lot of photography back then. Did it start out as a completely different type of magazine?

[dubbel zout]

Illustrations were used to show the fashions. 

[Lorna Mae]

The hotel slippers -- was there a callback (callforward?) to them in an earlier episode?

[sashayshante]

3 hours ago, Lorna Mae said:

The hotel slippers -- was there a callback (callforward?) to them in an earlier episode?

Yes, in episode 4 (House By The Lake).

[hoodooznoodooz]

23 hours ago, Florinaldo said:

The general convention that characters speak in the main language of a movie or TV show, even if their mother tongue is different, does seem absurd when they are talking to each other, but audiences, especially U.S. ones, do not like subtitles. In this instance most of the Spanish actors are not very good at mimicking an Italian accent so that one can only wonder what sort of gibberish would have come out of PC's mouth for example if they had tried extended passages in Italian.

 

But would clients not be ready to accept the hustler they are provided with as long as he looks the part? It is a fantasy after all. In previous episodes, both Lee and Norman said they were ready to accept a certain amount of lies, in exchange for time spent with AC and the pleasure or comfort it provided them with.

 

That page also confirms that Thérèse Raquin was indeed part of the same repertory program; I had to rewind to make sure that was the title mentioned by AC. I do not know if that is the way DC thinks it is really pronounced in French or if he was trying to show that despite AC's apparent culture and knowledge, it was all surface stuff.

 

Can you remind me of how AC pronounced Therese Raquin? Thank you.

I thought it was odd that AC was telling this story (David’s story), and describes how he promised that he would get the girl a house, they would live there together and be happy forever. Then he offers Norman the same. When it’s obvious (if it were in fact DC’s story) that he broke the promise to the girl. Wouldn’t most people think, This guy breaks promises very easily. How trustworthy is this guy? At least DM took the time to clarify that once he realizes that he was gay, he had to disappoint her. AC just pivots casually to make this proposal to Norman.

Edited March 9, 2018 by hoodooznoodooz

[sugarbaker design]

28 minutes ago, hoodooznoodooz said:

I thought it was odd that AC was telling this story (David’s story), and describes how he promised that he would get the girl a house, they would live there together and be happy forever. Then he offers Norman the same. When it’s obvious (if it were in fact DC’s story) that he broke the promise to the girl. Wouldn’t most people think, This guy breaks promises very easily. How trustworthy is this guy? At least DM took the time to clarify that once he realizes that he was gay, he had to disappoint her. AC just pivots casually to make this proposal to Norman.

I can understand AC's mindset (horrifiying as that seems!).  Of course DM would break his promise to the girl, he was gay!  But he wouldn't break his promise to me because I'm the real love of his life!  It's destiny!