Ryan Murphy has practically become a genre in and of himself that’s become synonymous with camp-driven maximalism with a particular penchant for murder and remixing history to be even more twisted than it already is. Murphy has tackled witches, aliens, plastic surgeons with God complexes, age-defying pharmaceuticals, the literal apocalypse, and every serial killer imaginable.
That being said, it’s only fitting to have Ryan Murphy return to high school, the very place where his television career began, for his latest ode to excess and emptiness. In fact, The Shards operates as a bizarro counterpoint to Murphy’s first series, Popular. The stark differences – and similarities – between these two programs highlight how much Murphy has and hasn’t evolved as a storyteller and filmmaker.
The Shards is certainly having a lot of fun with its detached take on 1980s Los Angeles, but it plays like a sarcastic sizzle reel of Murphy’s past triumphs.
Murphy’s adaptations of other people’s works can be hit or miss and are never a guarantee that he’ll rein in his signature sensationalist impulses. However, Ryan Murphy and Bret Easton Ellis working together is a pairing that makes too much sense. It’s like the peanut butter and jelly of superficial societal satire. Murphy’s opulent extremism radicalizes Easton Ellis’ minimalist and detached storytelling. The Shards is an enthusiastic fetishization of not just the pop culture and fashion of the ‘80s, but also how it was a golden era for serial killers and new societal terrors. It’s the perfect marriage of Murphy’s past extremes as shallow prep school woes like parties and dances are juxtaposed against curfews, ritualistic sacrifices, and serial killer attacks.
The series adapts Bret Easton Ellis’ autofiction of the same name, which chronicles a fictionalized version of Ellis (Igby Rigney) in 1981 Los Angeles as he juggles his prep school duties with a growing obsession over a local serial killer, The Trawler. The arrival of a mysterious new student, Robert Mallory (Homer Gere), coincides with this string of killings. A darkness descends over Los Angeles, and Bret is left to wonder if Robert Mallory and these massacres are actually connected or just a symptom of his own toxic thought process.
This all amounts to harmless entertainment if it’s not taken too seriously. It still lacks the juice of something like Euphoria or even Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin. Murphy finds himself increasingly out of touch in this world of teens. It’s enormously heightened, because of course it is, but it doesn’t feel as special in this oversaturated genre that’s naturally become so exaggerated on its own. Murphy’s trademark hyper-maximalism barely leaves an impression in a world where Riverdale and Gossip Girl are the baseline for heightened high school dramas.
Bret is at the center of a group of vapid characters who just want to survive senior year, graduate high school, and get out of Los Angeles, which makes the prospect of a serial killer a real drag. The Shards argues that kidnappings, killings, and ritualistic cults are the greatest dangers faced by children as they head into adulthood. It’s like Ryan Murphy’s own twisted version of Ned’s Declassified School Survival Guide, only it’s covering serial killers, cults, and stalkers. A lot of tangential clout-chasing frivolity is covered as the hypnotic pull between Bret and Robert acts as the nucleus to it all.
The Shards is consumed with the death of the ‘70s and how this marks the start of a ruthless and vicious new generation of disturbing detachment. It’s drenched in tropes, cliches, endless ‘80s needle drops, and hard bodies. It is exactly what you’d expect from a joint collaboration between Murphy and Easton Ellis. At the same time, it’s also not trying to be anything deeper. Its superficial slayings and takedowns of society are all exceedingly surface level, but it’s sure sleek and pretty. Murphy wants the audience to get lost in the hollow hyper-sexuality. That’s the point. It just doesn’t touch on anything that hasn’t been done many times before, and better, including in Murphy’s own productions. There’s even a hamfisted riff on Shakespeare – specifically Hamlet – that argues that ultra-trashy camp is the new classic lit and theater.
The serial killer sequences with the Trawler, while genuinely disturbing, are similarly sapped of life. You know something is amiss in a Ryan Murphy production when gratuitous murder setpieces aren’t even properly crossing lines and generating enthusiasm. In the end, it’s The Shards’ moody score by Troye Sivan and Leland, alongside unhinged performances by Evan Rachel Wood, Jordan Roth, and Wes Bentley, that stand out as highlights. Bentley in particular chews – and snorts – the scenery.
The Shards is content to languish among its flashy hedonism, the likes of which don’t even have the decency to provide its audience with closure or answers. These episodes feel like a piece of a greater whole that will inevitably become even more pointless if The Shards gets canceled or prematurely ends. This has increasingly become Murphy’s style with his latest horror programs. It doesn’t do The Shards any favors and only highlights the season’s narrative problems and how little gets accomplished across these nine episodes. A flashy finish that’s full of answers, but also sets up new terrors, would help The Shards feel more essential and complete. As it stands, it struggles to even reach the middling heights of Grotesquerie and The Beauty, and certainly has much less to say.
The Shards is set in an empty world where adaptations have greater value than stories. It bombards the audience with fabricated boogeymen like The Trawler and the Riders of the Afterlife cult. It’s a series that’s full of derivative imitations of better and more iconic ideas. In a way, that’s exactly what The Shards is like. It’s a slap-dash amalgamation of what’s worked for Ryan Murphy in the past, without bringing anything new to the table.
Self-aware meta commentary on ambivalence and diminishing returns aside, this doesn’t change the fact that The Shards is still guilty of the same things that it pokes fun at. It’s a fading Xerox of a once-interesting idea that struggles to stand out. There are fleeting moments of brilliance, like in most Murphy programs, but there’s not enough to cling to here once the shock factor and eye candy wear out their welcome.
The Shards premiere on FX and Hulu on August 5 at 6 p.m. PT.
