Everything to Know About The Shards, TV’s New Sex-and-Serial-Killers Obsession
A serial killer, a Troye Sivan soundtrack, and the year’s most eyebrow-raising casting Ryan Murphy’s prep-school thriller has arrived.
Ryan Murphy and Bret Easton Ellis have teamed up for The Shards, and the premise alone sounds like a fever dream someone had after falling asleep to American Psycho,
The Shards is an FX adaptation of Ellis’s 2023 novel, set in Los Angeles in 1981. It follows Bret (Igby Rigney), an aspiring writer whose senior year at an elite prep school starts to unravel when a mysterious, magnetic new student arrives just as a serial killer called The Trawler starts targeting teenagers across the city. Expect closeted desire, sex, jealousy, obsession and what FX calls “the dangers lurking beneath the surface of American adolescence”. So yes, it’s exactly as Murphy as it sounds.
Kaia Gerber plays Susan Reynolds, one of Bret’s glamorous, deeply entangled inner circle, and starring alongside her is Homer Gere, son of Richard Gere. This means that Cindy Crawford’s daughter and Richard Gere’s son, whose parents were married from 1991 to 1995, are now sharing a screen three decades after their parents’ divorce. Hollywood loves a full-circle moment. Despite growing up in overlapping industry universes, the two had never met until the show Gerber said she’d “never met Homer until we started filming,” while Gere recalled the cast becoming friends at a bar two weeks before shooting. The premiere red carpet sent the internet into a ’90s nostalgia spiral.
Troye Sivan and longtime collaborator Leland are writing some original music for what Sivan has described as a “spooky sexy show”, alongside more original music from cast member and rising pop artist Hayes Warner.
The Shards premiered with two episodes on 5 August on FX and Hulu, landing in the UK on Disney+ on 6 August. Every summer has its dark side, indeed.
Credits:
Images courtesy of FX
Words: Roisin Teeling @roisinteeling
