'The Shards' Season 1 Review: A Glossy but Hollow Bret Easton Ellis Adaptation
By Dan Bremner - September 14, 2026
The Fox/Hulu adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’s seminal semi-autobiographical novel of the same name. Few phrases fill me with more immediate dread than “From Ryan Murphy.” He is far and away the worst major producer currently working in television, responsible for an endless conveyor belt of glossy garbage. The sole exception remains American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson (a broken clock and all that).
As a massive fan of the book, I went into The Shards with high hopes that were already half-crushed by the knowledge of what we lost. It was originally announced as an HBO miniseries to be directed by Luca Guadagnino and starring Jacob Elordi. That version never materialised. Instead we get this: a dumbed-down, glossy and heavily sanitised adaptation that runs through the usual Murphy checklist with only a light dusting of Easton Ellis’s voice. The Shards is fun in short bursts and deeply disappointing for the rest of the time, a constant reminder of the superior version that never happened.
In broad strokes the series follows seventeen-year-old Bret as he navigates the wealthy, decadent world of 1981 Los Angeles private-school teenagers, a circle of beautiful and damaged peers, and the growing presence of a serial killer known as the Trawler. Where the novel is a retrospective, confessional account filtered through the older Ellis’s regret, shame and unreliable memory, the show largely drops that framing. It becomes a more conventional, outward-facing story of glamorous teens, sex, drugs and murder, with significant new material bolted on: a public-access dance competition, Shakespearean fantasy sequences, expanded adult storylines, and a clear push toward multi-season mystery-box plotting. The result is both overstuffed and strangely hollow, retaining the surface details of the book while discarding most of its psychological interior and moral unease. Creative control appears to have shifted during production. Ellis co-wrote early episodes before being sidelined, and the later ones drift much further from the book’s focus and tone.
What the series values most is style and surface excess. Opulent production design, wall-to-wall 1980s fashion, nonstop needle drops, titillating close-ups and regular bursts of shock are prioritised over coherence or emotional weight. It often feels like a greatest-hits reel of Murphy tropes that I came to quickly despise in his work: sex, drugs, murder, camp, beautiful people behaving badly delivered as familiar shtick rather than sharp satire or drama. The mood is more glamorous and vaguely eerie than genuinely unsettling, and even the violence and serial-killer elements frequently feel oddly bloodless despite their grotesque content. It is fascinating how he makes extreme gore feel so weightless and empty.
The biggest loss is the novel’s emotional and psychological core. Ellis’s book is built on retrospective regret, shame, isolation, grief and the unreliable voice of an older writer looking back at his younger self. That interiority is largely stripped away. The voiceover becomes more generic or sneering, Bret’s messy inner life is flattened, and the series shifts focus onto the external dramas of a group of vain, privileged teenagers. Characters feel less human and the story becomes significantly thinner. I cannot recommend the book enough if it's something you can handle, if your brain is stuck in permanent adolescence, not able to tackle challenging material, watch this instead.
The Trawler plot itself is wildly mishandled. At certain points the series treats the serial killer as a major driving force, only to then abandon it for entire episodes in favour of dull interpersonal drama between a collection of vapid, interchangeable rich kids you could not care less about. The supposed central threat is repeatedly side-lined so the show can linger on relationship spats, parties and status games that have none of the book’s corrosive interiority. By the time the killer becomes relevant again, the tension has long since leaked away.
Stretching a tight, self-contained novel across nine episodes (with clear multi-season ambitions) was always going to cause problems. The result is an overextended season that often feels like it’s treading water. Little of lasting consequence happens across several episodes, and the finale “Stairway to Heaven” is a non-ending that feels actively insulting. Major questions like the Trawler’s identity, various attacks, the horse killing, key relationships. All the major moments of the show are either left unresolved or buried under additional complications without any sense of purposeful ambiguity. Side plots involving the adults frequently feel like connective tissue or future-season teases rather than meaningful stories in their own right. Imagine if American Psycho had several side plots revolving around Patrick Bateman's co-workers. That's the sort of thing we're dealing with. It's all padding to boost the episode count and get more seasons.
On a pure craft level, the show is frequently stunning. The production design, costumes (Gucci, Ralph Lauren and Calvin Klein excess), lighting and cinematography create a vivid, seductive version of early-1980s Los Angeles. Clear skies and expensive interiors with the materialist teen world of the period are rendered with real care and accuracy. Above all else, I cannot knock its visual style, which it does bring to the table, and even if his tone is obnoxious, Murphy does direct the hell of the episode "Murder on the Dancefloor”, utilising long takes, flash and style for the escalating events of the ridiculous dance off contest.
The soundtrack is equally strong. A careful mix of authentic 1980s hits with original score work by David Klotz and Morgan Kibby does an excellent job of evoking the era while adding in creeping notes of synth and dread. The needle drops are used with obvious affection and elevate many scenes, as are their use in the novel, as it is integral to the character of Bret and how he takes on popular culture.
The young cast is mostly impressive. Igby Rigney makes a credible, complicated fictionalised Bret Easton Ellis that's pretentious, naïve, quietly furious and anxious about his sexuality, and gives the character enough depth to remain interesting despite how often he is sidelined for utter tosh. Hayes Warner is excellent as Debbie, revealing the bruised person underneath the confident surface and handling both cutting dialogue and quieter hurt. Homer Gere brings a magnetic, instantly unsettling quality to the mysterious Robert. Kaia Gerber surprises with a brittle, controlled performance as Susan. Among the adults, Wes Bentley chews scenery effectively with his repulsive role, Evan Rachel Wood commits fully as the burnt out mother of Debbie and once starlet, and Jordan Roth delivers a memorably eccentric turn with his scheming character.
The Shards is a handsome, well-cast, frequently stylish series that guttingly misunderstands or simply discards what made the novel distinctive. There are elements that work: the look, the music, several performances, the occasional burst of campy fun, but they sit on top of a hollowed-out adaptation that feels like a missed opportunity of significant size. A glossy Murphy product with just enough Easton Ellis flavour to remind you of the better version that got away.
All episodes of 'The Shards' are streaming now on Disney Plus.
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Dan Bremner
Writer
Dan is a writer from Guildford with a love for all things genre, schlocky, and thoroughly '80s, and a part-time philanthropist.
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