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The first season of Ryan Murphy‘s soapy, stylish and campy adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’s novel The Shards has come to an end. If he gets his way, there will be two more seasons, but FX has yet to announce any renewal. So, here we are, with many questions lingering, the biggest of which being: Who the heck is this serial killer known as The Trawler?
The show follows Bret (played by Igney Rigby), a high school senior who wants to be a successful author, and his group of privileged friends as they navigate prep school politics at the beginning of a new decade. The year is 1981, and the ’80s, as we all remember, have yet to fully take shape as the drug-addled, shoulder-padded, neon-lit years people think of when reminiscing about this time.
The ’70s can be felt in every frame in the series, which revealed itself as a mishmash of genre influences over its nine-episode run. You’ve got everything from a Giallo-style slasher to a Brian De Palma-esque thriller to a murder mystery noir to a high school coming-of-age tale to a Shakespearian drama.
Oh, and as I said above, there’s a serial killer known as The Trawler who is picking off high school students. Bret, who increasingly struggles to hide his homosexuality from his friends, develops an interest in these crimes which quickly turns to obsession as he becomes convinced that Robert Mallory (Homer Gere), the new student in his class, is the murderer behind the mask.
So much has transpired in The Shards, making it feel like a whole year has passed for these characters. But it’s been only months, Rigney reminded me during a chat about the finale over Zoom.
“I just want to point out that we’re only to Halloween in the school year,” he said. “That’s crazy. So much has happened, and we haven’t even hit Christmas break.”
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Now that it’s over, let’s dig into the three biggest questions the series left me asking. Turn back now if you want to avoid spoilers.
Who is the Trawler?
It goes without saying that this is the most important question in the mix, and if you sat through The Shards’ finale, you’ll know that there is no clear answer to this question. At least, not yet. If FX grants Ryan Murphy the three-season arc he wants, hopefully, there will eventually be an answer to this question.
That said, The Shards has thrown one red herring after another at audiences, keeping us guessing. Bret thinks it’s Robert, obviously, but after the romantic scene between them in the eighth episode, that idea has become a bit stale for me.
After Bret confronts him about their intimacy in the finale, Robert seems surprised by the idea and hints that Bret may be the killer, suggesting he has mental health issues, imagined the whole thing and may have been violent with his parents, who have been on vacation since the season began.
This is Bret’s story, his recollection of events, and he’s the one who is guiding the audience on this journey, which led me to wonder, is he as reliable a narrator as viewers expect him to be?
“Is Brett a reliable narrator when he is always lying to his friend group?” Rigney asked me, adding: “His reasons for lying are incredibly justified given the time period.”
He’s referring to Bret’s closeted sexuality and the constant work he does in The Shards in keeping his secret, well, a secret. In doing so, he cultivates an existence built on lies to protect himself, which Igby says is a “prevalent experience” for any group of people who are othered.
Director Michael Uppendahl, who helmed the finale, went one step further by putting memory itself in the unreliable-narrator category, leaving me even more baffled about who, if anyone, is telling the truth.
“I think anyone telling a story from that point of view that many years away from when the events occurred is an unreliable narrator because our memories are unreliable, and I think it’s good to embrace that,” he told me over Zoom. “We tried to think about how memory works, which is not linear because it can’t be. You excise the less interesting moments and embellish the more interesting ones.”
What’s the deal with Thom?
More and more, I’ve been looking at Thom (Graham Campbell) with a raised eyebrow. Sure, he’s lovestruck and can’t get past the fact that Susan (Kaia Gerber) broke up with him and is now cozying up to Robert. But the combination of the trauma of his father’s absence, the murders of the kids at his school and the jealousy he has toward Robert makes him a prime Trawler suspect.
Yes, he made a scene when proposing to Susan at Hamburger Hamlet, ultimately prompting Debbie (Hayes Warner) to pull her from his grasp. But let’s not forget his little meet-cute with Bruce, that Glenn Danzig lookalike leader of the Satanic cult, called Riders of the Afterlife, on the bleachers at school.
Remember, The Shards takes place in 1981, which marks the early days of the Satanic Panic, the period of time when America was gripped in fear over the idea of Satanic rituals and abuse happening to children throughout the country.
Considering, as well, that the show takes place a decade after the Manson Family murders (which Bret references early on in the series), the cult plotline adds an interesting layer of gruesome mystery to the mix.
This doesn’t mean that the cult activity is connected to The Trawler. But this also doesn’t mean Thom is clear of scrutiny. Susan was attacked in her bedroom by the masked man in this episode. She escaped his grasp only to be “saved” by Thom, who miraculously happened to be outside her house when the assault happened.
In true Michael Myers fashion, the body of the Trawler, whom Thom says he pushed from her window, was nowhere to be found.
Wait, so who pushed Terry, then?
This brings me to Terry (Wes Bentley), the sleazy Hollywood producer and Debbie’s dad. Things were already pretty messy in this show, but this storyline is what tips the scales into full-on ick territory.
The finale begins with Terry being shoved over the railing of his home, falling to his perceived death (because, who knows, he may have survived?) Everyone is a suspect, and the episode documents all the main players’ potential reasons for offing the man.
I’m going to focus on Debbie, since this specific storyline in The Shards involving her dad ties the whole thing back to Bret and it’s … a lot.
Bret Easton Ellis made a name for himself with his book Less Than Zero, which was adapted into a movie that explored the excess and tragedy of a group of rich kids living in Los Angeles in the ’80s.
In the series, Bret gives Terry the treatment for the book, which is put on the development path to being made. But, given that this is a Ryan Murphy series and an Ellis story and takes place in the ’80s, which, when you strip away the nostalgia, was actually a pretty traumatizing time for many kids, Terry leans into the awfulness and gives Bret an ultimatum: They have to sleep together for the movie to get made.
In the book, Bret is 17 years old. They bumped the character’s age to 18 in the series to make it less bad, I suppose, but the way their interlude is depicted in the series further solidifies how strong a hold Bret’s shame has over him versus how far he is willing to go to be successful with his art.
Lo and behold, a video of their affair was recorded, and while we don’t see the content on screen when Debbie gets a hold of it, the idea is that she now knows her father’s true nature. Moreover, she’s Bret’s girlfriend and, if the video is what I think it is, she is now privy to Bret’s sexuality secret.
Weird things happen, including the reveal of Debbie’s decapitated horse’s head showing up in her bed. Who committed that heinous crime? Someone who loves The Godfather? Probably. They don’t really spend a lot of time on this plot point, making me wonder if it was added just to add some more grossness to the mix.
At any rate, Debbie – who has been jealous of Susan’s popularity, and under the abusive thumb of Liz (Evan Rachel Wood), her manipulative mother – blackmails her father to make her famous. But we never see the results of their confrontation in terms of her own personal success.
If the video is what I think it is, she knows Bret’s secret but isn’t acting on it yet. Which is the one thing that makes me wonder if the show is throwing another red herring at us, making the viewer assume Debbie’s upset over one thing when it may be something else entirely?
Still, Terry’s pushed over that railing, prompting further investigation by the police and leading to the episode’s final scene, which finds all the main players in an interrogation room, with the officers explaining that the Trawler was someone in that room (dun, dun, dun!).
And according to Bret’s narration, his final line alludes to things only getting crazier from there.
Considering the fact that the identity of The Trawler is never specified in the book version of The Shards, your guess regarding where the show will go if it gets renewed for another season is as good as mine. But as frustrating as the show’s writing and campiness can get, I have to say I am invested enough to want it to return. After all, these questions aren’t going to answer themselves.
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