My Review of The Assassination Of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story - Creator/Destroyer

Written by Tom Rob Smith & Maggie Cohn
Directed by Matt Bomer

Modesto: "You're not upset because I stole, you're upset because I stopped."

So for the penultimate episode of this series, it's case of Mommy knows best and Daddy is quite literally the worst for both Gianni and Andrew but mostly the latter's past was emphasised as Gianni's brief scenes as a child in Milan discovering his love for fashion and gaining his mother support generated the least amount of focus in favour of Andrew once again.

I know it's been the main focus of the season - the Andrew side of things but I was really hoping that with the title for this one, there would've been something of an even focus on both him and Gianni but I digress. On one hand, there's some terrific acting in this episode like there has been all season long but on the other hand, this was an episode that needed a trim.

I'm not sure we needed to see so much detail on Andrew and his family leaving Manila and coming to America as well as the focus on his father, Modesto and the role he played in Andrew's sense of entitlement. That said, a genuinely riveting performance from Jon Jon Briones as Modesto certainly did help the episode along though.

It was easy to see why Andrew went from fearing and idolising his manipulative father to loathing him when he realised that Modesto's stealing didn't leave to much in the way of actually saving money, considering how quickly Modesto had abandoned his family when he was caught out in the end.

It was also this realisation about his father that somewhat sent Andrew down on his own path of lying as well, given the whoppers he told the pharmacy manager at the end when applying for a job at Thriftys. Now that we've gotten Andrew's fairly elongated backstory out of the way, next week can actually focus on the aftermath of his most famous and final of kills and conclude the series.

- Good guest actors with both Edouard Holdener and Billy Cruz playing younger versions of both Cunanan and Versace this week.
- Again no Gianni, Donatella and Antonio in current day scenes but there's always the finale for that.
- Matt Bomer directed this episode, so it's nice to see he's still involved in the Ryan Murphy TV universe while this is the only episode co-written as well.
- Chronology: Both 1957 Milan for Gianni and 1980 and 1987 in Manila and the US for Andrew and his family alone.

Creator/Destroyer felt like a filler episode at times with too much focus on Andrew and not a desired split between both him and Gianni when it comes to origin stories. It's not a bad episode as such with some great guest performances but it certainly could've done with a shorter running time in order to convey the same message. Hopefully the finale will give the series a good conclusion.

Rating: 6 out of 10