I’ve been hearing from a few more people from my distant past than usual these days as this fall there is a milestone reunion of my high school class and the one that preceded it being planned. Most of these are people I didn’t spend all that much time with when I was in school cuz frankly I was far too much of a geek to be deemed worthy of their company. The few I did associate with are scattered throughout the country, predominantly on the East Coast, and for the most part loathe California. Many of them never left the New York area; some never even aspired to a career above the level of the one I now find myself in by default. Some are now celebrating retirement as some sort of a reward–although to date they haven’t started uploading their bucket list trip pix.
At one point I had been looking forward to the possibility of attending; it’s been far loo long since I’ve been anywhere but work and frankly, lately I don’t spend much time with people other than those I fake-interact with as part of my job. But as the crushing reality of expense and logistics set in–not to mention the aggressive ask to reserve one of a limited number of seats at an overpriced and mediocre Queens restaurant–and the further reality that the predominance of those reuning were to be from the other class I was not actually a part of–my appetite waned and this week I finally decided it wasn’t gonna happen for me. Not that anyone from the organizing committee noticed or cared. Even after all these years, my street cred is apparently still lacking.
That pretty much sums up my experience with FX and Hulu’s latest plunge into the wild and uninhibited world of Ryan Murphy, a drama entitled SHARDS that debuted on the linear channel last night the same way the shows I worked on did two decades ago with two back-to-back and minimally interrupted prime time episodes. There was some additional initial appeal for me because of Murphy’s partnership with an author I’m familiar with who almost rivals his ability to balance sex, fear and bitchiness on the edge of a knife. As ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY’s Britt Hayes shared yesterday:
Murphy has tackled monsters, legal drama, the beauty industry, and all manner of American horror stories. For his latest series, he’s taking a page from Bret Easton Ellis…, The Shards is based on Ellis’ autofiction novel of the same name, which is loosely inspired by the author’s experiences as a closeted teen attending prep school in Los Angeles in 1981. Like the novel, the series centers on Bret, a 17-year-old entering his final year at Buckley prep with his group of popular and privileged friends. Bret’s carefully cultivated persona is challenged by the arrival of Robert Mallory, a mysterious newcomer who transfers to Buckley just as an insidious killer known as “The Trawler” begins committing a series of gruesome murders.
I was a fan of Ellis’ long before I even knew Murphy; his first bestseller was the brutally honest LESS THAN ZERO which fictionally chronicled a similar world through the eyes of a slightly older version of the Bret portrayed here. It was published just as I was relocating to Los Angeles and it was suggested by several new friends as a primer to the world I thought I was going to become a part of. Somehow, I wasn’t exactly seen as either interesting or arousing by those who drove Porsches, regularly dined at Spago and snorted coke off their genitalia of their multiple lovers from both genders. No matter what coast I was living on, the same amount of street cred I had then was the same at this point.
So the auspices were indeed there behind the scenes. They’re also seemed to be there on screen as Hayes and her TVLINE competitor Avery Thompson further elaborated:
The biggest draw is obviously the ensemble of rising stars, which includes not one, but two actors with famous parents, as well as a couple of familiar faces in scene-stealing roles...Homer Gere (plays) Robert Mallory, the new kid at the posh Buckley prep school that Bret attends. The 26-year-old is the son of Richard Gere. The younger Gere recently played Dylan Reid in Euphoria. In a Ryan Murphy-style twist, Homer will star alongside Kaia Gerber in The Shards. Gerber will play Susan Reynolds, a major character in The Shards. Gerber’s mom, Cindy Crawford, was married to Richard Gere from 1991 to 1995.
Igby Rigney plays Bret, an aspiring author who’s eager to finish his final year at Buckley and begin his life as an adult. Bret hasn’t come out to his friend group, which includes his girlfriend Debbie Schaffer…Hayes Warner plays Debbie…the daughter of successful Hollywood producer Terry Schaffer…Terry Schaffer is played by Wes Bentley. Terry is a successful and sleazy Hollywood producer whose sexuality is a bit of an open secret, as is his predilection for younger men.
Yeah, it’s got all the beats and quirks of pretty much everything in the Murphy-verse, from GLEE to HOLLYWOOD to my beloved NIP/TUCK. And the fact that SHARDS was a best-seller five years ago that FX pounced on after HBO let it lapse should have made this a lay-up for my tastes.
Except SHARDS just never got there. THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER’s tastemaker Daniel Feinberg channeled the reasons we both came away with an impression only slightly less than zero:
The novel, the most acclaimed in decades for the American Psycho scribe, tops 600 pages, but could easily have dropped to 400 if you trimmed references to the main character’s masturbatory routine, meditations on the posteriors of his male friends, detailed driving instructions for navigating Los Angeles, and plugs for the fashion brands and musical artists who populate this world. That is to say, “the things that make a Bret Easton Ellis novel a Bret Easton Ellis novel.”
Murphy, working with Ellis, has expanded the already-strained novel into a nine-episode drama that reaches no conclusion by its finale. General opulence, a hit-filled soundtrack and boundary-pushing sexuality are all present and accounted for, even if the challenge of capturing early-1980s L.A. relies far more on elaborately dressed soundstages than effective location work.
And INDIE WIRE’s Ben Travers painted a grim picture of what lies ahead in future weeks:
“The Shards” is at its best when living within that relatable tension, and its worst when tracking a serial killer who force-feeds living creatures to his victims. For one, Robert is too ethereal to evoke the fear enveloping the city. Gere (the son of Richard Gere, who Ellis obsessed over in “American Gigolo”) isn’t bad as a creepy stranger whose opaque blankness reflects the worst of Bret back to himself, but when asked to provide palpable menace, there’s no edge to his performance. Plenty of blame rests on scripts that refuse to define Robert in order to preserve his mysterious backstory, as well as direction that undermines the terror supposedly permeating Los Angeles.
Odds are I’m not rushing back to SHARDS any faster than I am to my reunion. But given how well Murphy’s most recent contribution to the Hulugans, the over-the-top Kim Kardashian-led “legal thriller” ALL’S FAIR–worked despite similar reviews from moi and scoffers like Feinberg and Travers–actually worked audience-wise I’m not sure John Landgraf is losing much sleep over what I think. He knows a couple of my fellow alumni, and they all seem to share the same opinion of me both then and now. Have fun gang, with or without me.
Until next time…