Devil in Disguise: John Wayne Gacy Is True Crime Done Right

Critic’s Rating: 4.5 / 5.0

4.5

I haven’t felt this strongly about a true crime series in years. 

Maybe it’s because I’ve grown tired of killers turned into pop culture trophies, or maybe it’s because Peacock’s Devil in Disguise: John Wayne Gacy finally gets it right. 

Either way, it struck a nerve in me that I haven’t been able to shake. It didn’t do it with shock value; it did it with humanity.

We’ve been conditioned to consume murder as entertainment. Ryan Murphy built an empire on that with his glossy, gory, and hollow Monster series. 

Devil in Disguise is the antidote. It doesn’t feed off horror but mourns it. It reminds us that evil doesn’t deserve fascination. People do.

This series never asks why Gacy did what he did, because there’s no why that matters. What matters are the kids who took him at his word — who thought they were getting a decent job for five dollars an hour when minimum wage was half that. 

Some were hired to dig under his house, not knowing they were digging their own graves or those of friends they’d never see again. 

They weren’t turning to crime or trying to pull a fast one. They were trying to live better, and creator Patrick Macmanus ensures that this prevailing thought is always front and center on Devil in Disguise.

And when the press labeled them as “homosexuals looking for a good time who got more than they bargained for,” the cruelty doubled. 

They weren’t out prowling the streets — they were trusting a man who smiled like a neighbor and called himself a mentor. That’s what makes it unbearable.

The story of Samuel Stapleton haunts me most, although I’m sure every story, if they’d had time to tell every story of every one of the 33 boys and men Gacy murdered, would affect me similarly.

Samuel was just fourteen years old when he was murdered. He had convictions and a family who loved him. He was a boy, just a boy, when he welded a bracelet to his wrist because he loved it, and his family teased him about it. He was just a boy.

That bracelet, which proudly symbolized his burgeoning manhood, became his identification when his bones were found in the crawl space. He babysat his niece. He had a good mom. He just wanted to make a few dollars. And he wound up a victim instead.

Those dig scenes — the endless shoveling, the discovery of bones beneath a house that looked like every house on the block — are the most terrifying moments I’ve seen on television. 

They’re not terrifying because of gore, but because they’re humbling. They show the cost of indifference, the nightmare in part caused by a system that looked away.

Marin Ireland breaks your heart as Elizabeth Piest, the mother of Gacy’s final victim, living inside a moment that never ends. 

Gabriel Luna gives Detective Tovar the haunted steadiness of a man who knows justice comes too late. James Badge Dale grounds the investigation as the police chief who balances the weight of the crimes and the case they need to make a solid arrest.

Michael Arangalo and Chris Sullivan portray the empathetic attorneys on both sides of the case, working within the system’s parameters to do the right thing when many had looked the other way for so long.

And Michael Chernus plays a man so disturbingly ordinary, as Gacy, a reminder that monsters often wear kindness as camouflage.

That’s the card Gacy played, whether with wages too high to resist or the promise he’d look the other way if they took a beer from his fridge. 

He offered a safety net financially and through his good-hearted mirage, which turned into the worst nightmare for at least 33 young men, their friends, and their families.

It’s not easy to portray such darkness, let alone do it in a way that beautifully gives victims, families, and those who brought the killer to justice the humanity they deserve.

Devil in Disguise honors the victims, their families, the detectives, and the attorneys who stitched the truth together out of a nightmare. 

It’s what true crime should be — not voyeuristic, but reverent.

If you only watch one true crime series this year, make it this one. 

Watch it for Robert Piest. Watch it for Samuel Stapleton. Watch it for every kid who thought they’d found a break and met a monster instead.

All eight episodes of Devil in Disguise will be available on Peacock on Thursday, October 16.