Coming off the heels of two solid, yet slightly underwhelming episodes of The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story is the next chapter in the saga titled “A Random Killing” directed by Gwyneth Horder-Payton.
Despite having his name in the title of the show, Gianni Versace only makes a cameo of sorts in this episode. In fact, it has very little to do with the Versace family as a whole. One thing mentioned in the review of the season premiere was the discovery that instead of the show focusing on Gianni Versace, as the first season did with its premiere character, O.J. Simpson, the show focuses on Andrew Cunanen (Darren Criss), the murderer of Versace and the lead-up to the murder, which occurred in the season premiere.
This particular episode is the show’s version of a flashback to May 1997 – before the assassination of Gianni Versace – and is about a “random” murder that takes place in Chicago, Illinois.
The opening scene is brilliantly done. It begins in Chicago with a lady, Marilyn Migland (Judith Light), returning home to discover something wrong in the house – and the disappearance of her husband, Lee (Mike Farrell). The suspense during the entire sequence is crafted magnificently. The police and one of her neighbors eventually find Lee’s body in the garage. The episode then shifts back in time to when Marilyn was leaving out of town and to Lee meeting Cunanen for his “services.”
As the show has done thus far, it highlights Lee’s struggle with his sexuality in private and this is explored in a scene that takes place in a room in his basement that appears to look like his small version of a church. During this scene, he tells the painting of Christ on the wall that he is “trying so hard,” which, in hindsight, is to be about him trying to be a straight man for his wife, but cannot contain himself and invites Cunanen over, which eventually leads to Lee’s death in which he is found wearing women’s panties and surrounded by homosexual pornographic magazines.
The episode then takes a turn that makes this one easily the best in the season so far. It focuses on Marilyn trying to process and deal with her husband’s death and how she tries to hide from it, but cannot do so. The episode also spends a great deal of time with the police and their efforts to track down Cunanen after Lee Migland’s death and the trouble they continue to have in that department. Cunanen is also a central point in the episode (since he is the show’s main character) as he is on the move.
Even though Cunanen is viewed as the “bad guy,” we see through his eyes how he is escaping and the tension-filled choices he makes, which might not necessarily make us care more for him, but rather keep us on the edge of our seats to see what he does to get out of a bad or dangerous situation for him. Cunanen also takes another life in an attempt to steal a man’s truck to lose the police, in which he is obviously successful.
With this episode embracing and highlighting the troubled efforts of the police and FBI tracking down Cunanen, spending time with the loss’s loved ones and their attempts to grieve, and Cunanen himself on the move, the intensity has picked up and the so has the quality. This episode felt much more like the suspenseful, murderous, manhunt version I was expecting to see when I started, which is clearly a big positive for me.
To make a comparison, this episode was much more in the vain of acclaimed films such as Zodiac and Se7en. In this particular episode, the performances were all fantastic and the cinematography was top-notch as always. It will be interesting to see where the next installment in this season ventures into and if it will continue to increase the tension and have enough of a backstory to fulfill the season’s mandate – although so far, the show is on track to do so.
A Random Killing Rating: 8.5 / 10
-Daryn Kirscht
