all my thoughts on this Versace show

They are not particularly ordered …

1.  There is a lot of interesting stuff going on here around the closets.  Like, the obvious stuff regarding The Closet and the 90s, but also as symbols of success, of containing the things you want but can’t have, of containing things you used to have but no longer do.  It’s interesting, to me, how often we see Andrew Cunanan in this context of closets–Lizzie’s husband’s, the crappy tiny ones in his crappy motel rooms, his super-fancy sugar-daddy provided closet … and the one in the master bedroom of his childhood home, where Andrew got the biggest bedroom, but his father got the closet.  Closets with secrets, too: we have Modesto’s stash of money and Andrew’s collages of Versace.
2. I think the reverse structure works for and against the show (but it’s really working for me)–on the one hand, it makes things (like that very first closet) resonate in a different way than if we saw it progress rather than regress.  But one thing I’ve seen in reviews is this expectation that there will be an answer to the enigma of Andrew Cunanan, which the reviewers aren’t finding, and I think part of that expectation comes from the added emphasis of the backwards narrative.  We have to be leading to something, and if the ultimate murder of Gianni Versace isn’t it, surely it must be why Cunanan killed him (and David Madsen, and Jeff Trail, and Lee Miglin, and William Reese).  But I’m not sure an answer is what the show is going for.  I think it’s more a series of portraits–the overarching one is Cunanan’s, but within that framework are portraits of other people that are just as, and sometimes more, compelling.  (Interestingly, as amazing a job as I think Edgar Ramirez is doing as Versace, I find Versace the least compelling character in the show.)
3. There’s a lot of really good work in this thing.  I think Darren Criss is creepy as hell, and that scene in the jumpsuit was perhaps some of the best non-verbal acting I’ve ever seen: you watch him work through like eight different emotions in five minutes.  And then Cody Fern as David Madsen doing this dissection of discomfort–he hits every beat, from the “I am traveling cross country with an actual murderer” kind of discomfort through the “wow, you thought we were a lot more serious than I did” discomfort, to the “oh, this guy is so out of my league but he’s bought me a drink and invited me to sit down” awkwardness.   Penelope Cruz acting through Donatella’s accent; Ricky Martin looking exhausted down to his bones in the first episode; Mike Farrell in Lee Miglin’s basement; JUDITH LIGHT HOLY CATS.  And Jon Jon Briones as Modesto Cunanan–honestly, if you want to skip every other episode and just watch the one he’s in, it’s ridiculously good.
4. The costuming gives me college flashbacks.  It’s disturbing.

So, yeah, I’ve been enjoying it.  It didn’t go anywhere near the way I expected–I was expecting something more back-and-forth between the manhunt and the past–but I think I’ve dug it more because of that.