Peacock’s Devil in Disguise: John Wayne Gacy tells the chilling true story of a Chicago contractor who hid behind the mask of a friendly neighbor and community volunteer while preying on vulnerable young men and boys. By day, John Wayne Gacy (Michael Chernus) shook hands with officials, attended fundraisers, and performed as “Pogo the Clown.” By night, he murdered (at least) 33 victims between 1972 and 1978, burying most beneath his home.
Based on the 2021 docuseries John Wayne Gacy: Devil in Disguise, the series recounts Gacy’s brutality as it exposes the systemic failures of authorities at the time, when victims from working-class families, immigrant backgrounds, and the gay community were too often dismissed by law enforcement. Devil in Disguise reveals how prejudice and neglect allowed a killer to thrive while the cries of the vulnerable went unheard.
In the series, detectives are often seen victim-blaming and dismissing crucial evidence, revealing a culture of prejudice that allowed Gacy’s crimes to continue unchecked. For example, in Episode 5, one of Gacy’s victims is called a “whore” by the investigating detective Joe Kozenczak (James Badge Dale) because his lack of financial stability forced him to stay with Gacy in his house of horrors. In Episode 8, a victim named Jeffrey (Augustus Prew) is blamed for his own attack due to his alternative lifestyle.
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Although it may seem like a story rooted in a bygone era, showrunner, writer, and executive producer Patrick Macmanus sees it as a cautionary tale about what happens when those meant to protect and serve look the other way — particularly when it came to the cries of marginalized groups of the times, such as women and LGBTQ+ individuals, the most vulnerable members of society.
“It is honestly sort of the main driving theme of the show,” said Macmanus. “Number one, the shows I’ve worked with before have all been driven by some semblance of systemic failure. It’s something that I am just interested in exploring. This one was absolutely the systemic failure of the police to be able to find and stop Gacy, specifically the Chicago Police Department.”
“Now, part of it was because of communications issues at the time that they were facing, that’s absolutely true,” clarified Macmanus. “But a large part of it was the fact that they were blinded and clouded by prejudice. That is a fact.”
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“I want to go on the record as saying that we are in no way, shape or form, demonizing police, because if you look on the flip side of the coin, you’re look you’re watching a whole other story of police who are in that pit every single day for months, trying to unearth and uncover and name every victim that was in John Wayne Gacy’s house. So we are lauding the police as much as we are critiquing and analyzing the failures of the system,” continued Macmanus.
“On the other hand, I believe that this is as relevant to the story as it’s ever been. I think that anybody who thinks that this is a story that time has passed, that we’re exploring some other time in which people were prejudiced and allowed these things to happen, is not paying attention to the world that we currently live in.”
“The world that we currently live in is, at present, driven oftentimes by prejudice,” said Macmanus. “And that prejudice is ultimately a driver of the degradation of our societies, the degradation of our citizens, no matter where they are in the world, and ultimately a driver of violence in our world. And that is fueled by more than anything, by social media.”
“And so I would say that actually, it is more dangerous now than it’s ever been — definitely in my lifetime,” Macmanus concluded.
Devil in Disguise: John Wayne Gacy, Premieres October 16, Peacock
