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The Shards<\/a><\/p>\n Pilot<\/p>\n \n Season 1<\/p>\n Episode 1\n <\/p>\n \n Editor\u2019s Rating<\/p>\n 4 stars<\/p>\n ****\n <\/p>\n \n FX\u2019s adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis\u2019s \u2018The Shards\u2019 depicts a Los Angeles that is equal parts enchanting and crawling with danger. New shows rarely open with a disclaimer, particularly not one as boilerplate as \u201cThis story is fictional. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.\u201d But most new shows aren\u2019t The Shards, adapted from Bret Easton Ellis\u2019s 2023 autofiction novel of the same name. The character at its center is Bret Easton Ellis \u2014 played here by Igby Rigney, who does look eerily like the author\u2019s high-school yearbook photo<\/a> \u2014 and the book and series are largely inspired by Ellis\u2019s real-life senior year at the Buckley School. You can understand the need for a clarifying statement because it\u2019s important to recognize where The Shards deviates from reality. This isn\u2019t a coming-of-age story so much as a descent into hell, balancing its teenage angst with one of Ellis\u2019s recurring fixations: a sadistic serial killer. The series\u2019 pilot, co-written by show creators Ellis and Ryan Murphy, does an admirable job of introducing the characters and their fraught dynamics along with the threat of a murderer known only as the Trawler.<\/p>\n As a Shards the novel obsessive, a person who has read every Bret Easton Ellis book (okay, minus the anti-wokeness screed White), and an L.A. native, I\u2019ve been approaching this adaptation with a healthy amount of trepidation, so I\u2019m relieved to report the premiere made me confident we\u2019re in good hands. (Don\u2019t worry, I\u2019ll be writing these recaps for newcomers and book fans alike \u2014 though I will include a notes section for readers only at the very bottom.) The cold open is something of a prologue in which we watch Bret take a solo trip to Westwood to see The Shining in May 1980. The movie itself disappoints him for its deviations from the Stephen King novel (including this detail may help preempt criticisms over this adaptation), but he\u2019s also distracted by the presence of a strikingly handsome stranger (Homer Gere). \u201cThis boy aroused something primal in me that I\u2019d never felt before,\u201d Bret\u2019s voice-over reveals. \u201cI needed to be his friend. I had to own him.\u201d That\u2019s heavy stuff, if not as heavy as what happens next. There\u2019s someone else seeing The Shining on a Saturday morning, a redhead who doesn\u2019t realize she\u2019s got a date with the Trawler. Back at home, her dog, Shadow, is missing. Everything in her medicine cabinet has been rearranged. And there are phone calls in which she hears nothing but static and heavy breathing. We\u2019ll come to learn these are the serial killer\u2019s trademarks \u2014 but the girl is merely confused until she\u2019s abducted by a person in all black while getting into her car.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is our story,\u201d Bret says. \u201cSome of us survived high school, some of us died, but none of us made it out alive.\u201d In other words, try not to get too attached to anyone. The story picks up in 1981 as we meet Bret\u2019s inner circle and potential Trawler victims. He\u2019s en route to the Westridge Stables, where his girlfriend, Debbie Schaffer (Hayes Warner), is boarding her horse, Spirit. (The track he\u2019s blasting as he drives down the PCH is Ultravox\u2019s \u201cVienna,\u201d the closest thing the Shards book has to a theme song.) Bret and Debbie have been dating since she abruptly had sex with him on a chaise lounge at a party earlier in the summer, and though he hadn\u2019t planned on having a girlfriend his senior year, he\u2019s making an effort to be attracted to the opposite sex. If Bret\u2019s in love with any girl, however, it\u2019s his best friend, Susan Reynolds (Kaia Gerber) \u2014 in fact, he calls her, \u201cto this very day, the person I think I\u2019ve loved the most in my entire life.\u201d<\/p>\n Of course, he\u2019s also a little in love with Susan\u2019s jock boyfriend, Thom Wright (Graham Campbell), and his \u201cintriguing blankness.\u201d Thom and Susan have been dating since sophomore year and are now the most popular kids in school thanks to the fact they\u2019re \u201ccasually beautiful, all-American, and they both came from wealthy families.\u201d Bret, Thom, and Susan are all at the stables to support Debbie \u2014 and because getting their licenses has given them unprecedented freedom, with parents who have essentially left their children to fend for themselves. Bret\u2019s parents are off on a monthslong European vacation; his housekeeper, Rosa, is the only adult he sees at home. But despite the independence they\u2019re taking full advantage of, and Thom\u2019s insistence they\u2019re going to rule the school senior year, there\u2019s an undercurrent of melancholy. When the trio talks about Debbie\u2019s last party of the summer \u2014 they\u2019ll be attending even though Debbie\u2019s Oscar-winning producer dad has made Thom uncomfortable by hitting on him \u2014 Susan admits the Labor Day gathering has her feeling blue. \u201cIt\u2019s the end of something,\u201d she muses.<\/p>\n That\u2019s certainly true for Bret. The first thing we see at Debbie\u2019s party is Bret\u2019s classmate Ryan Vaughn (Daniel Dale) telling him things have gotten out of hand and they need to \u201ccool it.\u201d While Bret purports to understand, there are unmistakable tears in his eyes. (Rigney does a great job of allowing emotion to seep into Bret\u2019s performance of practiced nonchalance.) Bret shakes it off once he reconvenes with his friends, with further declarations of a great year to come. \u201cWe\u2019ve all worked so hard,\u201d Debbie insists. \u201cWe deserve a nice time. We deserve nice things.\u201d Sure, there are hints of potential strife ahead \u2014 Susan admitting she doesn\u2019t want to be homecoming queen and the mention of a new student intruding on their senior year \u2014 but there\u2019s enough coke to numb any bad feelings. As \u201cThis Town\u201d by the Go-Go\u2019s plays, Bret reflects via voice-over, \u201cThat night in September was one of the last nights where there was no fear.\u201d<\/p>\n Later on, Bret wanders away from his friends and runs into Debbie\u2019s father, Terry Schaffer (Wes Bentley), entertaining handsome young men in the hot tub. The gay rumors about Terry are obviously true \u2014 not to mention his predilection for his daughter\u2019s friends \u2014 but that doesn\u2019t faze Bret, who is hoping Terry might buy the novel he\u2019s writing and let him adapt it for the screen. It\u2019s probably a good sign Terry suggests a lunch at Le Dome, noting that he\u2019s always on the lookout for \u201cnew young voices.\u201d Whatever subtext is there bubbles to the surface in the next scene, when Bret is ambushed by Debbie\u2019s mother, Liz (Evan Rachel Wood), who is too sloshed to bite her tongue and starts asking after her husband. \u201cWas he in the bushes sucking some guy\u2019s dick?\u201d she demands. \u201cOr did he proposition you?\u201d Bret deflects just long enough to be saved by Terry\u2019s assistant, Steven Reinhardt (Jordan Roth), a man whose alien appearance and stilted demeanor are unnerving in their own right.<\/p>\n None of this stops Bret from keeping his date with Debbie in her shockingly pink bedroom upstairs. And it will take more than the strange phone call she receives (more static and heavy breathing) to dampen her libido. The two begin to have sex to Joan Jett\u2019s cover of \u201cCrimson and Clover,\u201d but they don\u2019t get far before we cut to Bret in a different bed with someone else, Buckley class stoner Matt Kellner (Owen Painter). Bret\u2019s voice-over explains his relationship with Debbie was part of his public persona, while his relationship with Matt was a secret. In 1981, \u201cyou had to be two people, which was fucking exhausting,\u201d he notes. \u201cYou had to compartmentalize.\u201d They\u2019re in Matt\u2019s bedroom after Debbie\u2019s party, and though Bret chastises Matt for not attending, it\u2019s clear they\u2019re both having more fun here than they would be there. The conversation is illuminating for what goes unspoken with both boys refusing to acknowledge whatever is going on between them. When Bret suggests they \u201cstop this,\u201d Matt acts like there\u2019s nothing to stop. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t want you to think that I don\u2019t care,\u201d Bret shares with rare vulnerability. All Matt can say is \u201cI don\u2019t think anything.\u201d It might be denial, or it might be that Matt is too stoned to hold coherent thoughts. He\u2019s oddly nonchalant when Bret asks why all his fish are missing from his fish tank. Bret asks if the cat might have eaten them, and while they laugh about it, Matt has to admit the cat is missing, too.<\/p>\n It\u2019s an unsettling end to the summer, and the ominous vibes continue into the first day of senior year. While getting ready for school in the morning, Bret sees a news report about the mutilated body of a teenage girl found on a tennis court in Woodland Hills. He arrives at Buckley to more carnage: The statue of the school\u2019s griffin mascot has been desecrated with the butchered bodies of koi fish from the pond below. Probably just a prank by Harvard kids, Susan assures him. And by lunch, the bloody tableau has been forgotten, right on time for the arrival of Robert Mallory, the new student Susan had warned the others about. Bret is stunned to discover Robert is the boy he saw at The Shining, yet despite the undeniable attraction Bret feels, something is off from the jump. Robert\u2019s backstory \u2014 his life in Chicago, his mother\u2019s tragic accidental death, his dad wanting to send him to military school, his aunt in Century City offering to take him in \u2014 sounds overly rehearsed. And when Bret brings up having spotted Robert in Westwood last May, Robert insists it wasn\u2019t him, which means he\u2019s a liar. Rigney and Gere play this back-and-forth perfectly, the instantly emerging tension between them barely concealed behind tight smiles. Homer Gere is especially smart casting<\/a> for Robert. In real life, he\u2019s the son of Richard Gere, an object of Bret\u2019s masturbatory fantasies in the book. Bret\u2019s obsession with the movie American Gigolo is a heavy influence on the novel he\u2019s writing, down to naming the hustler at its center Julian.<\/p>\n Although Bret has been fixated on Robert from the moment they first locked eyes, his obsession turns adversarial over the course of the day, made worse when he spots Robert talking to both of Bret\u2019s secret lovers, Ryan and Matt. \u201cRobert Mallory was like a virus, a new kind of insidious invading agent who was here to destroy the very cellular structure of my friends, my school, and me,\u201d Bret intones. He decides Robert must be up to something and spontaneously follows him after school to find out more. What starts as harmless tailing quickly evolves into something much more dangerous \u2014 Bret\u2019s high-speed pursuit isn\u2019t subtle, and Robert turns the tables on him by pulling over and then tapping Bret\u2019s Mercedes 450SL from behind. They both end up at the Sherman Oaks Galleria, where Bret weakly denies he was following Robert in the first place. For his part, Robert confesses he doesn\u2019t like being followed. Bret is too on edge to play this scene with any sort of chill. He tries to confront Robert about talking to Matt, but as soon as Robert asks if the two are friends, Bret can\u2019t help but blurt out an overly revealing \u201cIs that innuendo?\u201d By the time Robert is calling Susan \u201cquite the little honey\u201d and asking how serious she is with Thom, Bret is having trouble breathing. He leaves the mall abruptly but not before Robert hits him with a haunting diagnosis: \u201cWhen you talk to me, you\u2019re really talking to yourself, dude.\u201d<\/p>\n There\u2019s no time to puzzle over what it means. When Bret returns home, he faces the news of a new Trawler victim found behind a Tower Records. We see flashes of what\u2019s been done to her \u2014 fish shoved into her eye sockets, a dog\u2019s severed head sewn onto her shoulder \u2014 which is enough for a nearby cop (and possibly some sensitive audience members) to vomit on the spot. \u201cThe city had become paralyzed with fear,\u201d Bret\u2019s voice-over announces. Meanwhile, whatever distance he might feel from the Trawler all but disappears when he gets a phone call of his own. This time, it\u2019s more than just static and heavy breathing \u2014 someone is screaming and sobbing on the other end of the line. \u201cHelp me,\u201d the voice pleads. \u201cPlease help me.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2022 In order not to ruin things for those who haven\u2019t read The Shards, I\u2019ll be using this section to talk about the show as an adaptation, including any major changes from the novel. Please be cautious about spoiling things in the comments \u2014 and make sure to use the \u201cspoiler\u201d tag if you do include any plot points from the book!<\/p>\n \u2022 Very curious to know how the casting of the show matches (or doesn\u2019t match) the images in your head. For me, Bret, Robert, Matt, Terry, Liz, and Steven all feel true enough to the source material, and while Gerber doesn\u2019t look like book Susan, she\u2019s another smart bit of \u201980s nepo casting as the look-alike daughter of Cindy Crawford. I\u2019m not yet sold on Thom, Debbie, or Ryan.<\/p>\n \u2022 I am, however, really impressed by the attention to detail when it comes to capturing \u201980s L.A. As someone who grew up going to movies in Westwood and eating at Hamburger Hamlet (in the \u201990s, but still), I felt a rush of nostalgia in that opening scene.<\/p>\n \u2022 Overall, the pilot is remarkably faithful to the novel, which I imagine will be less true as the season progresses. The only real change thus far seems to be the increased presence of the Trawler with earlier phone calls to Debbie and Bret. Everyone is also aware of the desecration of the griffin, though I\u2019m not sure anyone but Bret will make any connection to the serial killer.<\/p>\n \u2022 Speaking of, the Trawler\u2019s \u201calterations\u201d are as graphic here as they are in the book. I really wasn\u2019t sure the show would go there, given the horrific animal cruelty involved, but Murphy has never been one to hold back on stomach-turning gore.<\/p>\n Sign Up for the Vulture Newsletter<\/p>\n Entertainment news, for the pop-culture obsessed.<\/p>\n Vox Media, LLC Terms and Privacy Notice<\/p>\n
\n Photo: FX\n <\/p>\n