The Shards is a 2026 FX and Hulu series created by Ryan Murphy and Bret Easton Ellis, adapted from Ellis’ novel of the same name. It follows Bret, a senior at a wealthy Los Angeles prep school in 1981, navigating a secret gay identity, a girlfriend he is not attracted to, a friend group too busy snorting cocaine and planning homecoming to notice anything, and a serial killer he believes is connected to the mysterious new student Robert Mallory. 

Honestly I had no intentions of watching The Shards just based on the cover alone. It looked so vapid and I just couldn’t do another Ryan Murphy production with nepo babies front and center? Hard pass. I still had a bad taste in my mouth from The Beauty, which was truly one of the worst shows I’ve seen in a long time. But then Reddit and TikTok started buzzing. The critics gave it glowing reviews, which I ignored because marketing budgets do a lot of heavy lifting when nepo babies are involved. But when the consumer reviews started rolling in and the FOMO set in, I gave in. Give me some grace. I’m just a girl.

The first three episodes are actually strong. Aesthetically the show is stunning, all swimming pool blues and 80s lighting and a soundtrack that plays every hit straight through rather than just teasing it. The serial killer plot is unsettling in the early episodes and Igby Rigney is doing real work as Bret, playing the dual performance of who he wants people to think he is and who he actually is with a stillness that draws you in. I was hooked.

But I am now five episodes in and I am starting to ask myself, Is this show actually good or is it just very, very pretty?

Because somewhere around episode four the serial killer, the thing that made the show interesting, started fading into the background. It gets brought back just enough to remind you it exists but the urgency is gone. What replaced it is extended drama between the friend group that feels stretched to fill a nine episode order that probably should have been four or five episodes maximum. This is a very specific Ryan Murphy problem. The man is a maximalist who does not know when to stop. The Hollywood Reporter review made an interesting observation that the show feels like Ellis was an active creative force for the first four episodes and then Murphy took over entirely, because the tonal shifts are that dramatic. By episode five the show is doing something almost completely different from what it started as.

The show has gotten a lot of press mostly due to its decision to cast Kaia Gerber and Homer Gere, the children of Cindy Crawford and Richard Gere respectively. The nepo baby casting is very much intentional to attract the audience’s attention and it worked. But to me the real stand out casting is the star of the show, Igby Rigney as Bret, and Hayes Warner as Debbie. I was not expecting much from a newcomer surrounded by legacy casting but he is quietly the most compelling person on screen. The narration alone could have been insufferable in less capable hands, all that snooty retrospective commentary from an older Bret looking back on his teenage self, but Rigney carries it without making it feel like a performance.

As for Hayes, her character might not have enough range to showcase her true talent but she has such strong screen presence that I almost wonder if she should have been cast as Susan instead. I don’t think Homer Gere and Kaia Gerber are doing a “bad job” but we do see the powers of nepotism at work here with them being the only two being celebrated with featured on the cover of Vogue. Although unlike Homer Gere, I do enjoy Kaia Gerber on screen and as much as I hate to give men their flowers (they get enough) I just wish the actual star of the show was getting the attention he deserves.  

But the show is not for everyone and it knows it. It is dense with 80s cultural references that require a certain level of knowledge to appreciate. It is self aware about its own excess in a way that sometimes works and sometimes just feels like an excuse for the excess. So is it good? It is better than I expected and not as good as the buzz suggested. It is a show that is very confident in its own aesthetic and much less confident in its story. If you can make peace with beautiful people doing beautiful things while a serial killer occasionally lurks in the background, you will probably enjoy it. If you need the plot to actually deliver on its promises, you might feel the same FOMO hangover I am currently experiencing five episodes in.

After all is said and done I plan on finishing it but would I recommend it? Meh.