The John Wayne Gacy show is tasteful

Seven years ago, the second season of the Ryan Murphy-produced anthology series “American Crime Story” dramatized “The Assassination of Gianni Versace,” but the name was somewhat of a misnomer. The story is told in the narration of screenwriter Tom Rob Smith started with the murder of the same name, but from there it worked backwards to profile the other, much less high-profile victims of Versace’s killer Andrew Cunanan. The bait-and-switch was a powerful response to how history has largely erased Cunanan’s victims, all of whom were other gay men who happened not to have created a successful fashion brand.

In 2023, the HBO docuseries “Last Call” made a similar argument about how homophobia shapes public memory and police response to serial killers who prey on marginalized groups. Working within a true-crime industrial complex that tends to fetishize monstrous killers and idealized victims (preferably white, female, and middle class), these shows swam against the current to elevate the lives lost above the man who took them. They lived within a larger subgenre — you might call it “anti-crime” — that includes works like “The Investigation,” the Scandinavian drama that refused to even name the killer of Swedish journalist Kim Wall, and the oeuvre of documentary filmmaker Liz Garbus, whose work on the Gilgo Beach and University of Idaho murders also focused on victims. But “Assassination” and “Last Call” took on a specific value by focusing on gay men, whether they were warped by closet pressures to incite violent criminals or ignored by a society that didn’t value their safety.

At first glance, the Peacock series “Devil in Disguise: John Wayne Gacy” seems inspired by another Murphy Project. (The scripted project is not to be confused with the 2021 docuseries “John Wayne Gacy: Devil in Disguise,” which also aired on Peacock. In addition to a nearly identical name, the shows share an executive producer, Liz Cole.) Like the Netflix hit “Monster,” which began with a Jeffrey Dahmer-focused season in 2022, “Devil in Disguise” is from plan to start a new season. seasonal anthology by piggybacking on the notoriety of a Midwestern monster—a modern-day bogeyman so infamous that his last name alone is synonymous with bloodshed. The Dahmer edition of ‘Monster’ shared some themes with ‘Last Call’ and the like, but leaned closer to more typical Murphy sensationalism. “Devil in Disguise,” on the other hand, is sharp and deliberate in its deconstruction of Gacy’s image, which almost single-handedly cemented the killer clown archetype in the shared subconscious of American culture. The series quickly settles into the ‘Assassination’ and ‘Last Call’ mindset, applying the same lens to an even more controversial example.

Run by Patrick Macmanus, a veteran of scripted true crime shows like “Dr. Death” and “The Girl From Plainville,” “Devil in Disguise” stands out mainly because of what it is. not shows it to the viewer, who is probably at least familiar with the broad outline of the case. For example, we never get a frontal look at Gacy (Michael Chernus) in his clown outfit. We never see Gacy actually kill his victims – only sparse, indirect hints of the lead-up to and aftermath of a select few of his 33 documented murders, all of them young men. And when Gacy goes on trial late in the eight-episode season, we never see any testimony in court. That’s not necessary; the conviction verdict and eventual death penalty have already been determined.

“Devil in Disguise” fills the space that follows with the victims and the families they left behind. The series begins with the disappearance of Gacy’s final victim, suburban Chicago teenager Rob Piest (Ryker Baloun), who was kidnapped from his workplace while his mother Elizabeth (Marin Ireland) waited in the car. Local detective Rafael Tovar (Gabriel Luna) and his boss Joe Kozenczak (James Badge Dale) make relatively short work of tracking down Gacy, in part because the contractor is so poor at covering his tracks; several witnesses saw him talking to Piest before his disappearance, and a previous conviction for sodomy only raises more suspicions. Once the jig is done, Gacy can’t stop talking, inviting the police into his house and helpfully pointing out where he’s hidden the bodies. The ease of Gacy’s eventual arrest provides a heartbreaking contrast to the dozens of human remains found in his crawl space. If Tovar and Kozenczak found him so quickly, why hadn’t anyone else bothered to do so in the past six years?

The story alternates between the investigation and prosecution that expose the full extent of Gacy’s crimes with flashbacks that give a face and a background to the victims, one or two of whom are named each episode. Some are children just beginning to discover their stigmatized sexuality; some are sex workers; some are dismissed as troublemakers; some are simply looking for honest, well-paid work. In many cases, “Devil in Disguise” doesn’t even show them interacting with Gacy, allowing the audience to fill in the gaps between their final moments on screen and the terrible fate that befell them shortly afterwards.

This approach achieves the desired emotional effect, decentralizing Gacy while highlighting the human cost of law enforcement crippled by their own biases and a lack of modern technology such as shared databases. Ireland generally does an excellent job as the grieving mother, moving from desperate panic to quiet anger and resigned acceptance as the season progresses. But at times “Devil in Disguise” borders on pedantic, as when a contrite Kozenczak admits, “I realize I have blind spots.” The structure can also be repetitive – not in the content of the specific flashbacks, which convey the individuality of the victims, but in the expected shift from the present to its context.

As for Gacy himself, Chernus is sparing with overt threats. The actor is best known for his supporting roles as comedic buffoons in shows like “Severance” and “Orange Is the New Black,” a quality that suits Gacy’s pathetic need for approval and over-the-top Midwestern folksiness. (“It’s colder in here than a witch’s little tit!”) His goal, and that of the show, is to reduce Gacy to the measure of legend as an ordinary, albeit terrible, man, subject to everyday influences like his father’s judgment and internalized bigotry. “He killed pieces of himself that he hated – that his father hated,” is how one psychologist reads bluntly about Gacy’s motivation. This analysis comes only halfway through the season and again encounters the issue of length and redundancy.

To put some distance between Gacy and the viewer, “Devil in Disguise” uses his lawyer Sam Amirante (Michael Angarano) as a kind of middleman. Amirante, who knew Gacy through the local community in Chicago before agreeing to represent him, is an odd character choice to be elevated to such prominence. His inner conflict over representing a man he knows to be guilty is not particularly convincing when set against the cumulative loss of life. Rather, Amirante comes across as a way for the show to observe Gacy up close without fully inhabiting his perspective. In that sense at least, it serves its purpose, offering a front-row seat to Gacy’s compulsive lies and ruthless self-deception, lending some credence to Amirante’s ultimately failed defense of insanity.

But even with these bumps in the road, “Devil in Disguise” maintains a clear purpose that the show supports throughout. There’s a well-articulated sense of it Why we revisit one of the most cherry-picked, thoroughly discussed massacres of the 20th century, and What the series wants to say something about the people and events depicted in it. That quality is lacking in so much true crime that it’s worth praising no matter what flaws emerge in the story.

All eight episodes of “Devil in Disguise: John Wayne Gacy” are now streaming on Peacock.