After gobbling up every single episode of the Ryan Murphy-produced Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette like so much movie-theater candy, I was obviously locked in for The Shards, a brand-new FX thriller co-created by Murphy and Bret Easton Ellis and based on Ellis’s semi-autobiographical novel of the same name.
The first episode of The Shards is big, blockbuster-y, baroque, and glossy, and although I don’t quite get what makes the show tick yet, I’m committed to going along for the ride and finding out. Below, find absolutely every thought I had about Episode 1 of The Shards.
- Oh hell yeah, we’re in 1980.
- And with a panoramic overhead shot of LA, no less!
- I hear from reliable sources (who may or may not be my mom) that this was a great time to be young, blonde, and doing recreational drugs—that weren’t yet fentanyl-tainted—in Hollywood.
- Sorry, I’m going to be so irritating about every single location they use on this show, but is that movie theater…the Vista?
- Or Los Feliz 3?
- Los-Feliz-as-Westwood?
- God, I want to go to the movies (and somehow, watching an FX screener on my laptop doesn’t scratch the itch).
- Good thing I’m seeing One Night Only at 8:35 a.m. in North Hollywood in what hopefully remains an empty theater on Friday.
- “I needed to be his friend. I had to own him.” Okay, Gatsby!
- Liking the book of The Shining more than the movie? Blasphemy!
- I was wondering why Ellis kept referring to the guy he cruised at the movies as “this boy,” but it turns out they are in literal high school.
- “Kids today have it fucking easy”…said nobody who’s ever logged onto TikTok, ever.
- Oh God, this redhead is going to be brutally killed, isn’t she?
- Why is all the stuff in the medicine cabinet upside down?!?
- I famously hate horror! Somebody help me!
- Not the missing-pet flyer!
- Those alone have the capacity to make me cry if I’m in my luteal phase.
- I don’t know what’s happening right now, because I’m hiding beneath a blanket.
- Seriously, even American Horror Story: Asylum was too much for me (I still shudder thinking about that scene where the lesbian is frozen into a block of ice or whatever). How am I to handle this?
- LA really was a dreamscape in the ‘80s, huh?
- This blonde horse girl is doomed to die, isn’t she?
- Ah, the sad determination of closeted high-school homosexuality.
- People really don’t get named “Susan” anymore, do they…much to think about.
- Hey, it’s Kaia Gerber!
- This synthy-as-hell ’80s soundtrack is making me want to rewatch the “San Junipero” episode of Black Mirror.
- But not as much as I want to swim in that turquoise pool and/or share a cigarette with Kaia Gerber.
- How much did people actually say “rad” during this decade, I wonder?
- Can teens just…rent out the Beverly Hills Hotel?
- I guess if you’re rich and beautiful in LA in 1981, the world (and every expensive venue in town) is your oyster.
- I sort of don’t believe that teens this precocious and druggy would really give a shit about prom court, but whatever.
- Okay, wine coolers don’t sound like the most enviable part of the ’80s.
- A male striptease set to “Crimson and Clover”…oh, for sure.
- I, too, would like to get high and listen to “the new Elvis Costello album.”
- We gotta bring back tiny little tennis shorts.
- AHHHHHHH!!!!!!
- I do not care for this weirdly arranged dead body!
- Likely thing to see in a Ryan Murphy production, though, I suppose.
- Oh, wait, it was a mascot statue, not a real person.
- Too convincing, props team?
- “Why does my stupid mother always pack me pâté for lunch?” is a truly iconic line.
- It’s giving “Great pâté, Mom, but I gotta motor if I’m going to be ready for that funeral” from Heathers.
- The concept of high school students comparing notes on LA clubs while also eating lunches packed from home…insane.
- God, I’m so glad I didn’t enter a club until I was properly of age (due to washedness, not my law-abiding nature).
- These are some truly chic school uniforms, I must admit.
- So much luxury-car-commercial energy on this show…and I don’t hate it.
- I do think this driving scene could have been a tad shorter, though.
- Much home-aquarium-based tension, as well!
- “I was going to see a movie, but I realized I’ve seen them all.” Remember the pre-streaming era, when that was possible?
- Oh, Christ, the work of the Trawler is…not my favorite to witness onscreen.
- I did not need to see this little white dog slaughtered next to a dead female body while my own little white dog sleeps peacefully beside me!
- Okay, dog death aside, that had some fun energy.
- See you next week, Bret Easton Ellis-istas!
