So much of author and iconoclast Bret Easton Ellis‘s brand is devoted to aesthetic beauty and how it can mask a festering, often violent, rot beneath. FX‘s The Shards — premiering tonight at 9 PM ET on FX and Hulu — is the latest manifestation of this: a glossy, glamorous Ryan Murphy joint following a group of the most deliriously beautiful teens as they emotionally torture one another and (maybe) actually physically torture and murder their way around 1981 Los Angeles.
The Shards is based on Ellis’s novel of the same name, a fictionalized memoir that imagines the author recounting his senior year attending Los Angeles’s iconic prep school Buckley Academy with a savage twist. What if young Bret (Igby Rigney) wasn’t just a wealthy teenaged wannabe writer trying to stifle his homosexuality in a much less forgiving world? What if he and his friends actually had a serial killer in their midst?
As Bret explains in his near omnipresent voiceover, growing up in the late ’70s and ’80s meant that you had to constantly worry about being slaughtered by a serial killer. The specific maniac hunting Bret and his peers is called The Trawler. He stalks his young, wealthy, and beautiful prey, stealing their pets and interrupting their nights with creepy, breathy phone calls. After he abducts them, the real fun begins. First there’s torture, then there’s death, and finally he displays their mutilated corpses someplace public that’s usually considered safe. Oh, and Bret thinks it’s obvious that the new kid in class — the magnetic Robert Mallory (Homer Gere) — is The Trawler.
Photo: FX
The Shards opens with Bret recounting the first time he saw Robert Mallory, a full year before the handsome young man would arrive at Buckley. Both teens were at a morning showing of The Shining and Bret was absolutely transfixed by Robert’s raw energy. Bret believed the two shared a moment, but when he point blank asks Robert about The Shining over lunch on the first day of school, the recent transplant denies ever having seen the Kubrick classic. This lie becomes the original sin that proves Robert Mallory isn’t just untrustworthy, but dangerously evil.
As Bret begins accumulating clues to bolster his theory, Robert infiltrates his long-time clique — much to our hero’s horror. Class president and golden girl Susan Reynolds (Kaia Gerber) continually champions Robert’s cause. She claims it’s to be kind, but even her long-time boyfriend, sweet, dumb, cute jock Thom Wright (Graham Campbell), begins to notice how Susan and Robert are drawn to one another.
Elsewhere, Bret’s girlfriend, the blonde and bratty Debbie Schaffer (Hayes Warner), is too concerned with riding her thoroughbred horse and snorting cocaine to even notice her classmates are disappearing and winding up dead. Bret stays with Debbie to keep up the appearances of being straight and to launch his own professional ambitions. He hopes that her handsy film producer father Terry (Wes Bentley) will adapt the novel he’s writing into a feature film. (That novel will one day be Less Than Zero.)
Photo: FX
On first glance, The Shards appears to be operating firmly in the horror genre. There are copious homages to classic slasher flicks, Stephen King shoutouts, and, yes, well-manufactured jump scares. However, as with all of Ellis’s works, appearances can be deceiving. The Shards works best when it’s in full dark comedy mode. Episode 5 is the single funniest episode of television I’ve seen since the equally deliciously bleak Widow’s Bay ended last spring. Written and directed by Ryan Murphy, it follows the kids as they go on a live dance competition show. The levels of camp had me absolutely howling.
Much has been made of the fact that two of The Shards‘s stars, Kaia Gerber and Homer Gere, are nepobabies whose famous parents were briefly married in the early ’90s. Gerber’s eerie resemblance to her mother, supermodel Cindy Crawford, definitely helps solidify Susan as the quintessential ’80s dream girl, and Gere is gifted a fun nod to his father’s big breakout film, American Gigolo. Yet, the big breakouts for me were Igby Rigney, Hayes Warner, and supporting player Jordan Roth. Rigney somehow manages to make Bret feel not only like an idealized version of the real man, but a wholly new character; a likable, yet untrustworthy, one at that. Warner’s Debbie is somehow simultaneously the most hilariously vapid rich girl I’ve ever seen on screen and a heartbreaking portrait of a young woman desperate for love. A huge feat, considering this is the musician’s acting debut. Finally, Jordan Roth, the seven-time Tony-winning theater producer, devours the scenery with his eccentric turn as the Schaffer’s major domo, Steven.
Photo: FX
If The Shards has a fault, it’s that — like young Bret himself — it’s a tad bit overambitious. The series tries to juggle every genre known to man, from murder mystery to movie musical, coming-of-age drama to sly satire. A lot of it works, thanks in huge part to its winsome cast and Ryan Murphy’s clearly focused attention. However, when The Shards attempts bigger swings later in its nine-episode-long run, it falters. The final episode veers massively from Ellis’s novel, in an obvious bid to win a second season order. Does it work creatively? Sort of? Do we want to watch The Shards Season 2? Absolutely!
The Shards works best as a horror comedy, when its gorgeous actors are hamming it up for the camera and the DP is staging shots that send chills down your spine. Addictive, decadent, and never boring, The Shards is Ryan Murphy’s next mega hit. Be there or be square.
The first two episodes of The Shards premiere on FX and Hulu tonight, August 5, at 9 PM ET (6 PM PT).
