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The Shards<\/a><\/p>\n Help Me! Rhonda!<\/p>\n \n Season 1<\/p>\n Episode 3\n <\/p>\n \n Editor\u2019s Rating<\/p>\n 2 stars<\/p>\n **\n <\/p>\n \n The series\u2019 shift into high-school satire takes out all the dread of a serial killer prowling just off-screen. Are you familiar with the \u201c3 Glees\u201d theory<\/a>? First coined by writer Emily St. James at the A.V. Club, it was an attempt to make sense of Glee\u2019s wildly divergent tones and inconsistent plotting from episode to episode. She believed the show\u2019s three creators \u2014 Ryan Murphy, Ian Brennan, and Brad Falchuk \u2014 and their respective styles resulted in weekly installments that felt completely different from what came before. Glee may be behind us (for now<\/a>!), but it\u2019s impossible not to think about the 3 Glees while watching the third episode of The Shards, which bears little resemblance to the first two installments and at times plays like a brand-new show. There\u2019s no need to theorize about what happened here because the obvious answer is Bret Easton Ellis signed off on the first two episodes and then abandoned the adaptation<\/a>. Without Ellis to tamp down Ryan Murphy\u2019s excesses or curb deviations from the source material, we\u2019re left with a take on The Shards that is suddenly much closer to Murphy\u2019s past work than it is to the novel. This is The Shards (Glee Cast Version).<\/p>\n This could not be more apparent in the cold open, which suddenly introduces a new Buckley classmate named Really Rhonda, played by the aggressively Gen-Z actress Ivy Wolk. Everything about the character \u2014 whose undiagnosed Tourette\u2019s makes her say things like \u201cI wanna fuck Chewbacca, motherfucker\u201d in class \u2014 has the flavor of Glee or Murphy\u2019s earlier high-school satire, Popular. My issue isn\u2019t with the fact the show is suddenly adding characters who aren\u2019t in the book but with the whiplash from the dramatic vibe shift. We\u2019re supposed to believe the elitist clique from the first two episodes wouldn\u2019t have completely shunned a girl like Rhonda, who, in addition to her disability, is obsessed with roller disco in a post\u2013\u201cdisco sucks\u201d era? Bret\u2019s explanation for his affection is that Rhonda never inadvertently outed him through her coprolalia but also that she didn\u2019t care what other people thought about her, as if that\u2019s a quality these kids value. Nevertheless, Really Rhonda is only here to be kidnapped by the Trawler while roller-skating to \u201cDon\u2019t Stand So Close to Me,\u201d then shoved into a dog cage, where she\u2019s forced to eat live animals \u2014 and to that end, she serves her purpose. Bret complains about how quickly the school forgets Matt Kellner following his disappearance<\/a>, but The Shards appears equally unmoved by him. Clearly unsatisfied with relying on Matt as a victim, the show is already delivering a new one.<\/p>\n \u201cIt took about three days for everything to go back to normal,\u201d Bret tells us, which means Debbie has moved on to talking about the welcome party for Robert and the group\u2019s impending appearance on Dance Off! Another new addition to The Shards that smacks of Glee, Dance Off! is an American Bandstand\u2013style teen dancing show and a Los Angeles institution, and Debbie is obsessed with getting on it. Ever since classmate Coraz\u00f3n \u201cCha Cha\u201d Rodriguez \u2014 now we\u2019re cribbing from Grease \u2014 kept the camera\u2019s attention for the entirety of Blondie\u2019s \u201cRapture,\u201d Debbie has craved her own breakout moment. As Bret shares via voice-over, \u201cBecoming a star was her secret ambition, but she was too cool to ever admit it.\u201d Meanwhile, he wonders aloud if it\u2019s not a bad look to be partying on television while two Buckley students are missing. Thom reasons that since no bodies have been found, Matt and Really Rhonda might just have run away. He wants to focus on tuxedo shopping for homecoming, even though Susan continues to register her disinterest. Robert suggests she would look great in a simple black slip dress, and if the others clock the spark between them, they don\u2019t acknowledge it. At least Bret\u2019s protestations seem to have some effect on Susan, who suggests they post flyers for the missing students. When Robert offers to help, Thom\u2019s expression is curiously muted. Bret did call out his \u201cintriguing blankness\u201d in the series premiere<\/a>, but who can say what\u2019s really going on in his head?<\/p>\n Back at school, Susan and Robert have escalated from flyers and instead put on a \u201cHelp Me – Rhonda\u201d assembly, where they ask anyone with information about Really Rhonda\u2019s appearance to come forward. Everything about this feels off: The Beach Boys reference and the branded water they hand out (\u201cIf you can\u2019t find a Perrier, reach for a bottle of Really Rhonda water\u201d) would fit in perfectly on a show like Popular but stick out like a sore thumb here. The Shards was already operating within a somewhat heightened reality, but this episode clumsily slides the show into broad satire. Turning this whole thing into a joke also undermines the danger of the Trawler \u2014 just how seriously are we supposed to take this threat? I\u2019m sort of on Bret\u2019s side when he tells Thom that his joking isn\u2019t funny, though I appreciate Thom saying, \u201cMy dad used to tell me to look on the sunny side, and that\u2019s what I\u2019m trying to do for you,\u201d which is a pretty good articulation of his whole deal. On the whole, The Shards would be better off sticking to subtler dark comedy. Reflecting on Susan from afar, Debbie tells Ryan, \u201cIf she wanted to, she could be such a slut. There\u2019s nothing stopping her. I\u2019ve always admired that.\u201d Ryan tells her she\u2019s a really good friend, which Debbie is quick to agree with. Reader, I laughed!<\/p>\n What would Debbie think if she knew her boyfriend was having another clandestine lunch with her dad? Nothing good, presumably, though Terry is at least pretending to be interested in Bret\u2019s script. This is a bit confusing \u2014 last we heard, Bret was working on the novel Less Than Zero, which Terry said he\u2019d option sight unseen. Now Bret is talking about a treatment he wrote for a movie based on his life where the main character is Bret Ellis, and that sounds much more like The Shards. (If this series ends with Bret writing the show, I will never forgive anyone involved.) Terry tells Bret that every great movie is about loss. What has Bret Ellis lost?, he wonders. Bret clunkily jumps right to his virginity, suggesting that whatever is going on between them isn\u2019t exactly one-sided. That doesn\u2019t mean he\u2019s willing to follow through on the light flirtation, however. Terry drives him home on an exclusive secret road between Beverly Hills and the Valley (the only other people who Terry knows have the gate code are Jack Nicholson and Warren Beatty) but pulls over to a scenic viewpoint on the way. It\u2019s a great place to be alone, Terry says, before getting bolder with a more pointed, \u201cWe could come be alone together.\u201d Bret looks tempted, if noncommittal. But when they\u2019re interrupted by the arrival of a mysterious beige van \u2014 the same one viewers may have spotted in the preceding episodes \u2014 Bret uses the opportunity to ask Terry to take him home.<\/p>\n I appreciate the way the show is branching out from Bret\u2019s perspective, including in the subsequent scene we get inside the Schaffer household, where Liz is doing coke and dreaming about winning an Oscar. Her fantasy acceptance speech is an excuse to excoriate her daughter (\u201cYou are the disappointment of my life\u201d) and the husband \u201cwho regularly reminds me that I am a worthless piece of shit.\u201d We see that nastier side of Terry when he returns home and mocks her for still picturing a future for herself as an actress. Wes Bentley and Evan Rachel Wood are the strongest actors on the show, so I\u2019m all for more of them. Wood is even able to sell the soap-opera histrionics of a line like, \u201cI know I could have been more than this, more than just your stupid wife rattling around this mausoleum like a fucking ghost.\u201d<\/p>\n Speaking of ghosts, after getting back from his outing with Terry, Bret finds himself drawn to Matt\u2019s house, where he\u2019s easily able to slip into the vacant pool house. His voice-over offers a defense of his increasingly reckless choices. \u201cI was suddenly struck with a fear I had never experienced before,\u201d he reveals. \u201cIt was an adrenaline that acted as a warning for me to save myself but also mixed with an overwhelming compulsion to move forward no matter how I felt.\u201d Bret is determined to find clues about Matt\u2019s disappearance in his room; instead, he stumbles on a school uniform he deeply inhales the scent of while weeping. Memory is a powerful thing, he notes, as he imagines Matt standing in the doorway. Watching the last episode, I complained the series had not done a great job of establishing the stakes of Bret and Matt\u2019s relationship before their breakup, so I\u2019m glad we\u2019re actually seeing the grief Bret feels in Matt\u2019s absence. I\u2019m also appreciative of the split-diopter shot we get when Matt\u2019s phone rings. Bret answers, and though there\u2019s nothing but heavy breathing on the other end, he\u2019s convinced he knows who he\u2019s talking to. \u201cWhy are you doing this, Robert?\u201d he demands.<\/p>\n At this point, Bret is confident he\u2019s fingered the perp, even if he\u2019s making a bit of a leap from a lie about not seeing The Shining to serial murder. \u201cI committed myself to the pursuit of a single goal: track Robert and prove he was the Trawler,\u201d he says, once again waiting in the Buckley parking lot so he can follow Robert\u2019s Porsche after school. As Peter Gabriel\u2019s \u201cGames Without Frontiers\u201d plays, he pursues the car to an unfamiliar house on Benedict Canyon, where he cautiously lurks outside. Why is he doing this? Bret paraphrases Joan Didion by way of an answer: He\u2019s telling himself a story in order to live. She meant crafting narratives to make sense of the chaos around us; he may be referring to actual survival. We learn from the voice-over that Bret will eventually discover this is Robert\u2019s aunt\u2019s rental property and he\u2019ll one day tell police he believes the bag he now watches Robert retrieve from the house contains a human head. After Robert leaves, Bret decides to investigate the home and finds his way in through an unlocked back door. Matt and Really Rhonda could be trapped within, he reasons, and he\u2019s not far off. Once inside, he makes his way down a set of dark stairs and into a creepy space below one could comfortably call a \u201cmurder basement.\u201d There\u2019s another door deeper inside, and after Bret pushes past the alarm bells in his head and walks through it, he discovers he\u2019s too late. In flashback, we see Rhonda being pulled from her cage by the Trawler. In the present, she\u2019s gone. When Bret finds the cage, it\u2019s empty \u2014 save for a Buckley uniform and a live iguana, both covered in blood.<\/p>\n \u2022 Episode three makes it clear there will be too many deviations from the novel to discuss them all, but I\u2019ll continue to focus on what the biggest changes mean for the show as a whole and the story it\u2019s telling. As I said above, my issue is less with the introduction of Really Rhonda and Dance Off! and more with the abrupt tonal shift to Glee territory.<\/p>\n \u2022 One thing this adaptation is really getting right: the music choices. \u201cDon\u2019t Stand So Close to Me,\u201d \u201cRapture,\u201d \u201cGames Without Frontiers,\u201d and \u201cEdge of Seventeen\u201d are all pulled from Ellis\u2019s reference-heavy writing.<\/p>\n \u2022 In the book, Bret gets excluded from Susan and Debbie\u2019s private conversations, so we don\u2019t know what Debbie is advising her bestie with regard to Robert Mallory. The show suggests Debbie wants Susan to expand her sexual horizons, which means we might see her actively pushing Susan in Robert\u2019s direction.<\/p>\n \u2022 At the same time, Robert is reading, well, gay. Yes, in the novel, there\u2019s deliberate ambiguity there, but he doesn\u2019t describe his party as \u201clike Capote\u2019s Black and White Ball.\u201d Maybe that\u2019s Murphy sneaking his Capote fixation<\/a> into the script; maybe it\u2019s something more. In the book, Thom assumes Robert is gay and therefore not a threat to his relationship; it\u2019s not yet clear what show Thom thinks.<\/p>\n \u2022 Drawing out the relationship between Bret and Terry makes sense, but I feel like The Shards is afraid to really go there with Terry\u2019s predation, particularly by including repeated reminders that Bret is 18 (and not 17, as he is in the novel). It\u2019s a notable tweak in that it makes Bret a legal adult instead of someone merely pretending to be grown-up. Of course, none of this makes Terry\u2019s behavior appropriate.<\/p>\n \u2022 Last week, I wondered where the show would go from here, given how early Bret gets the Matt tape. Now he\u2019s already gone into the Benedict Canyon house and found proof of Trawler victims being kept there, including a blood-soaked Buckley uniform. Wouldn\u2019t he just go to the police at this point? Even the useless adults of The Shards would surely act quickly to arrest Robert with this much evidence. From a plot perspective, it just doesn\u2019t work.<\/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: Ray Mickshaw\/FX\n <\/p>\n