American Crime Story: The Assassination Of Gianni Versace made its premiere on FX on Wednesday evening and it was as intense as TV gets.
Some of the more eye-opening images include Gianni, played by Edgar Ramirez, with two gun shot holes in his face as he lays dying on an operating table, and Andrew Cunanan, played by Darren Criss, showing off his naked backside after dropping a towel while getting dressed for a night out.
Fans were quick to take to social media to express their shock. ‘Chillingly tragic,’ noted one viewer on Twitter while another wrote, ‘Holy sh**! I knew we were gonna get some naked Darren but I wasn’t prepared.’
Too much for TV? There was plenty of gore on Wednesday’s premiere of The Assassination Of Gianni Versace
Down: And fans reacted with shock and horror, calling the FX series ‘chilling’
Nothing left behind: The show paid attention to detail, even showing the dead dove that happened to get killed by pieces of the shattered bullet
Distraught: Ricky Martin plays the designer’s lover Antonio D’Amico
Moved: Marti Heil called the show ‘chillingly tragic’ and noted how the series was ‘brilliantly cast’
The show opens with a scared and nervous Cunanan in Miami and it’s not long before he is seen shooting Gianni in the face as the Italian icon stands on the steps of his breathtakingly beautiful Miami villa.
Immediately Versace is seen bloodied and face down on his steps.
It only gets more dramatic when he is seen dying on an operating table with large wounds on his face and blood everywhere.
Yikes: Later, the most frightening image comes when the fashion designer is seen on an autopsy table with the gunshot wounds dried up and even larger
Alarming: Fans struggled with these images, with one saying, ‘so dark’ and another adding: ‘It’s almost surreal, so hard to look at and yet you can’t look away’
Later, the most frightening image comes when the fashion designer is seen on an autopsy table with the gunshot wounds dried up and even larger.
Fans struggled with these images, with one saying, ‘so dark’ and another adding: ‘It’s almost surreal, so hard to look at and yet you can’t look away.’
While the reactions to the gore were consistent there were mixed reactions to Criss’ Cunanan.
Some found his naked backside wonderful, gushing over how good he looked.
The killer: While the reactions to the gore were consistent there were mixed reactions to Criss’ Cunanan
The look: Some found his naked backside wonderful, gushing over how good he looked
One take: Jess wrote, ‘Holy sh**! I knew we were gonna get some naked Darren but I wasn’t prepared’
This fan said: ‘When @DarrenCriss dropped that towel’ and showed an image of Jon Cena in shock at an event
But others focused on how ‘creepy’ he was, making their skin crawl.
‘The man who was obsessed with Versace was so creepy,’ said one tweeter while another added, ‘Darren is so creepy in versace this show is so good holy wow.’
Another noted how incredible it was to see Cunanan mock shock when he watches the TV coverage of the murder, but he’s actually hiding a smile as he seems to feel proud of the murder.
Lots of ‘creepy’: Several tweeters noted how creepy the show and Darren’s Andrew was
Other fans not familiar with the story were shocked to learn that Andrew had actually met Gianni years before the murder at a San Francisco gay club in 1990.
They even got along.
The depiction of how Cunanan came to meet Versace is fairly close to how it was presented in the source material for the series, Maureen Orth’s book Vulgar Favors.
Operatic: The night Gianni Versace and Andrew Cunanan met is seen in the premiere episode of American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace
Recreation: The pair met in 1990 at the San Francisco gay club Colossus according to two eyewitnesses, who spoke with Maureen Orth for her book Vulgar Favors (Ramirez as Versace above)
Deadly friend: Versace, who was in town designing costumes for opening night of the opera, made his way over to Cunanan, and said: ‘I know you. Lago di Como, no?’ (Criss above as Cunanan)
Orth spoke to two people who saw Cunanan with Versace at Colossus, a popular San Francisco gay club.
Versace reportedly stopped by the club for three straight weeks on Saturday nights.
He was in the city designing costumes for the opening night of Capriccio at the San Francisco Opera.
Slain: Cunanan would shoot Versace dead on the steps of the designer’s Miami mansion seven years later after a cross-country killing spree
And one at least one of those nights, and possibly two, he was seen chatting with Versace.
The first source Orth spoke to about this was Eli Gould, a friend of Cunanan’s and high-profile lawyer who said he was with Cunanan the night he met Versace.
The two men were in the VIP section at Colossus when Versace walked in with his entourage.
He later made his way over to Cunanan, and said: ‘I know you. Lago di Como, no?’
Taking over: Penelope Cruz plays Gianni’s sister Donatella
She nailed it: Several fans thought Cruz did an incredible job as Gianni’s loyal sibling
Orth writes that this was how he would strike up conversations with strangers, and that Cunanan made no attempt to correct the famed designer.
‘Thank you for remembering, Signor Versace,’ said Cunanan, and he made small talk with the designer before Gould said the two went down to the dance floor.
Eric Gruenwald, another attorney, claims he too saw Versace and Cunanan speaking at the club one night, though it is unclear if that was the same night he was with Gould or another evening.
The rest however, was all a lie, with Cunanan’s claims that he accompanied Versace to opening night of the opera and claims that the two had dinner together once a year nothing more than a fantasy.