FX's The Shards (available on Disney+) makes for an intriguing combination of both styles. Based on Ellis' 2022 autofictional novel, the story centres on Bret, an aspiring author in Los Angeles in the 1980s. While his friends focus on finishing school, Bret is concerned with dark matters such as a serial killer called The Trawler.
He's joined by a couple of nepo babies, including Cindy Crawford's daughter Kaia Gerber as Susan, the school's most popular overachiever, and Homer Gere (Richard's son) as the main antagonist. Pop singer Hayes Warner makes up the core cast as Debbie, a spoiled brat in a very dysfunctional family helmed by film producer dad, Terry (Wes Bentley) and washed-up actress, Liz (Evan Rachel Wood).
The opening episodes mirror the tone of the book, matching the disaffection of the high school kids with the genuine terror of fictional killer The Trawler. The 1980s Los Angeles aesthetic is hazy, mirroring the effects of all the drugs the teenagers are taking, while the atmosphere is as charged as the sexual tension that runs throughout. The fashion and the soundtrack are faithful to the era, and to the book, which works hard to place itself in the decade it lives in. So far, so good.
While that won't always work in a TV show, Murphy finds a way to ease us into this very particular life before using classic horror tropes to create tension. There's also an ominous presence of a brown van that lingers in wide shots; missable, but always there.
The aim is for Debbie to become Groover of the Week because it's a whim she had one day. It's an overt homage to Grease (including a rival dancer called Cha Cha), and has a flustered host played quite well by Anthony Ramos.
This episode undoes everything that's been crafted up to this point to establish the right tone and feeling of the book and acts as a disservice to the hazy, teenage dream/nightmare Murphy had previously created – and mercifully, is able to return to following this diversion. This episode is both surplus to the plot and easily forgettable.
Rigney is fantastic in these scenes, portraying Ellis's text with just his eyes. A star is well and truly born. The Shards manages to pull off a difficult balancing act, capturing Ellis's detached blank fiction while embracing the visual excess that defines Murphy's work.
The Shards is available to watch on Disney+ from Wednesday 5 August 2026. You can sign up to Disney+ from £4.99 a month.
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