‘Devil in Disguise: John Wayne Gacy’ Puts Michael Chernus in the Spotlight—With Two This Is Us Alums Along for the Ride

A fresh scripted take on one of America’s most notorious serial killers has arrived, and it’s aiming to upend the true-crime playbook. Michael Chernus leads Devil in Disguise: John Wayne Gacy, an eight-episode limited series now streaming on Peacock, with Chris Sullivan and Michael Angarano—both familiar to This Is Us fans—joining a stacked ensemble. The show shifts attention away from the killer’s mythology and toward the victims, their families, and the institutional failures that let the murders persist.

Michael Chernus Tackles Gacy—Without Glorifying Him

Known for layered, quietly unsettling performances, Chernus approaches John Wayne Gacy as a complicated human portrait rather than a monster-of-the-week caricature. The camera isn’t fixated on lurid thrills; instead, it tracks how a seemingly ordinary contractor, party clown, and community booster hid lethal predation in plain sight. Chernus’s restraint matters: it gives space to the victims’ stories and to the investigators whose blind spots—and breakthroughs—shaped the case.

The This Is Us Connection: Angarano and Sullivan Reunite in a Darker Register

Two alumni from the Emmy-winning family drama take pivotal roles here, offering built-in chemistry and emotional precision:

• Michael Angarano plays Sam Amirante, the rookie defense attorney who once worked with Gacy and was later drawn into an ethically fraught legal fight. Angarano threads the needle between duty to a client and the dawning horror of what the case reveals.

• Chris Sullivan appears as Bill Kunkle, the hard-nosed prosecutor tasked with turning a sprawling, chaotic investigation into a trial that could stand up to appellate scrutiny. His scenes trace how the state built a coherent narrative from fragmented evidence and traumatized witnesses.

Their presence anchors the series’ legal spine, showing how the justice system wrestled evidence out of confusion while grieving families demanded answers.

Reframing the Case: Victims First, System on Trial

Rather than fetishizing a killer’s “method,” the series maps the human toll and systemic breakdowns that allowed the murders to continue through the 1970s. Detectives and families share the narrative load:

• Gabriel Luna embodies a dogged investigator following threads others dismissed.

• James Badge Dale captures the grind—and the politics—of coordinating a search that eventually exposed the horrors beneath Gacy’s house.

• Marin Ireland and Greg Bryk portray Elizabeth and Harold Piest, parents whose relentless pressure after their son vanished forced authorities to see a pattern, not isolated runaways.

By foregrounding these perspectives, the show indicts the era’s biases—particularly toward working-class and queer youth—that made disappearances easier to ignore and patterns harder to see.

Craft Notes: Procedural Precision, Ethical True Crime

Stylistically, Devil in Disguise blends methodical police-procedural beats with a reflective tone. The writing resists neat catharsis, emphasizing documentation, chain-of-custody hurdles, and courtroom strategy over shock value. When the series ventures into the killer’s interiority, it does so to illuminate manipulation and denial—not to romanticize them. The result is a pointed counter to the genre’s worst habits: less spectacle, more accountability.

Why This Version Matters Now

True-crime saturation has bred audience fatigue and skepticism. This series answers that moment with a victim-centric lens, a rigorous sense of place, and performances that prioritize truth over thrills. For viewers who came for the headline name, the show offers something rarer: a case study in how institutions fail—and how persistence, often from grieving families, forces them to act.

How to Watch

All eight episodes are now streaming. The limited-series format means a complete arc from first tip to courtroom reckoning, making it binge-ready for a single weekend or a night-by-night slow burn.

Cast Snapshot

• Michael Chernus — John Wayne Gacy

• Michael Angarano — Sam Amirante (defense attorney)

• Chris Sullivan — Bill Kunkle (prosecutor)

• Gabriel Luna — Detective pursuing the crawl-space lead

• James Badge Dale — Lead investigator coordinating the search

• Marin Ireland & Greg Bryk — Elizabeth and Harold Piest, parents of Robert Piest

With its careful ethics and powerhouse cast—anchored by Chernus and boosted by This Is Us standouts—Devil in Disguise: John Wayne Gacy lands as a sobering, necessary retelling that refuses to let spectacle eclipse empathy.