American Crime Story Season 2 Episode 8: Creator/Destroyer Review

If you would like to read my review of the last episode, click here.

Synopsis: A young Andrew Cunanan struggles with his oppressive father, as a young Gianni Versace becomes a designer. (IMDB)

Writer: Tom Rob Smith

Director: Matt Bomer

Rating: TV-MA

Running Time: 42mins

The bait and switch continues. The longer this season has gone, the more insufferable Cunanan has become but this episode feature another insufferable Cunanan.

There was some Versace here (only the first 3 minutes of the episode) as the episode started with a younger Versace learning about fashion design from his supportive mother. That was it.

The rest of the episode focused solely on Cunanan. Here we met his father Modesto (Jon Jon Briones) who was the cliche epitome of the American dream. He was insufferable from beginning to end, mostly because of his creepy relationship with his son which is where he got his ego and inflated sense of self-worth. Modesto would constantly tell him how special he was and giving him preferential treatment over his own wife who he would abuse and his other children that you didn’t know they existed based on the screen time they had here. He was pretty much grooming his son into a version of himself.

So Modesto actually was a stock broker after all. He liked money and being rich so much that he would often take liberties at his job that he moved around to other firms until it finally caught up to him and got the attention of the FBI who put a warrant out for his arrest. He then cleaned out the money from the family’s accounts and sold their house without their knowledge.

Despite this, Cunanan still believed in his father and was sure that he set aside money so he went to the Philippines after him. Once Cunanan found his father, he went back to putting on the charm and continued to lie to him about having set millions of dollars out of reach of the authorities. Eventually, he figured out that it was all a lie. Modesto told him what the real American dream was where he had to steal to get by. Cunanan did not want to be a lie like his father which was the ultimate insult to Modesto. Modesto lashed out at Cunanan but he couldn’t find the courage to stand up to his father.

Cunanan returned to his house being cleared out all while the neighbors were judging from a distance. Once inside, he went to his room to throw things in anger. Finally, he applied for a job at a pharmacy.

Overall, I can’t wait for this to be over. This season now is a shell of what it once was. Criss was great as Cunanan at first and now he’s insufferable to watch as the story has exclusively focused on him instead of Versace, the name in the title of the season. It has officially fallen off the rails but hopefully it can finish strong, however, the odds of that are low at best.

Score: 5.5/10

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Keith Noakes

The EIC of the coincidentally-named keithlovesmovies.com. A Canadian who prefers to get out of the cold and into the warmth of a movie theatre.