Ryan Murphy’s new thriller The Shards takes place in 1981 – but it’s about the present

The Shards follows a fictionalised version of novelist Bret Easton Ellis during his final year of high school. Based on Ellis’ 2023 book of the same name, it’s September 1981, and the elite world of a wealthy prep school unravels as a serial killer known as “the Trawler” starts targeting students.

Between trying to maintain his active social life and writing his debut novel, Bret (Igby Rigney) becomes convinced the new boy at school, Robert (Homer Gere), is linked to the various disappearances and ritualistic killings happening around a glamorous Los Angeles.

With sweeping shots of Mulholland Drive set to the tune of a vibrant early-‘80s soundtrack, The Shards’ vivid atmosphere is also intensely paranoid.

Reliving the ‘glory days’

With direction from Ryan Murphy, known for American Horror Story (2011–), and Ellis, best known as the author of American Psycho (1991), we might expect The Shards to be a gory slasher. However, the show is much more psychological, reflecting Bret’s angst through a fragmented coming-of-age narrative.

The Shards presents contrasting perspectives on the 1980s.

Bret, his girlfriend Debbie (Hayes Warner) and his best friends Thom (Graham Campbell) and Susan (Kaia Gerber) are the most popular kids at school. But Bret faces the threat of his world being dismantled by cult members, serial killers and Robert.

The small screen is seeing an ‘80s cultural revival. Stranger Things (2016–25) captured the era through its synthwave score and fashion, technology and pop culture. Glow (2017–19) revisited an era of big hair and eccentric costumes in its depiction of women’s professional wrestling. The San Junipero episode of Black Mirror (2016) presented a utopian simulation of the ’80s to which the disaffected can escape.

The appeal of nostalgic shows lies in their creation of an “emotional portal”, transporting audiences to an idealised version of the past.

It is no surprise they’ve emerged at a time when we feel increasingly fearful of an uncertain present. Nostalgia allows us to seek refuge in the perceived stability of the past.

An older version of Bret narrates, recalling sitting in an empty movie theatre without craving a distraction. Later, he mournfully notes that the five or six bookstores he used to visit after school have since closed. This older Bret describes 1981 as one of the last times there was “no fear” – before the young Bret becomes convinced “killers and boogeymen” are coming for him.

Contemporary anxieties

The show reveals the limitations and exclusionary reality of Bret’s high-status world, when established wealth and dominance becomes threatened by an “outsider”.

Bret’s suspicions of Robert reflect anxieties that have shaped politics over the past decade.

The “Great Replacement” theory, popularised in the United States, claims immigrants are “invading”. According to Vice President JD Vance, this “invasion” is supported by Democrat politicians who want to increase their voter share.

While the show does not play on race, Robert’s sudden transfer from Chicago and history of mental health challenges fuel Bret’s paranoia that Robert is here to invade his group of friends.

When Robert enters the inner circle by winning over Thom, Susan and Debbie with his charm, Bret labels Robert a “virus” and an “insidious invading agent” aimed at destroying the “structure of my friends, my school […] and me”.

Bret’s dehumanising language mirrors President Donald Trump using words such as “vermin” and “infestation” to stoke fears immigrants will “take over” and permanently marginalise US natural-born citizens.

We also see a broader political trend using nostalgia to promote the return to a perfect, “orderly” past, as in Trump’s campaign slogan “Make America Great Again” – itself a phase adopted from Ronald Regan’s 1980 presidential run.

The “again” in this slogan suggests the nation has declined from a superior former state – interpreted by many as a white-majority America.

Whose story are we watching?

The Shards emphasises the collapse of an idealised past just as much as it establishes one.

Ellis and Murphy view Bret and the 1980s critically. While the show’s glamorous atmosphere presents an alluring fantasy, it also highlights the era’s elite symbols – sports cars, designer clothes, cocaine – as part of a culture defined by egregious excess and exclusivity.

Stories about the past often reflect present anxieties. While these stories can evoke nostalgia, they can also justify the exclusion of those who don’t fit into a romanticised view of history.

Critical engagement is essential to ensure we don’t trade our better judgement for an infatuation with a past that never really existed.

The show presents the horrors of 1981 through Bret’s biased recollection. We should remain sceptical of both Robert’s presumed guilt and Bret’s apparent innocence.

Bret’s focus on the “outsider” as the cause of his ideal world’s erosion distorts the possibility that he is externalising the cruelty already deeply ingrained within his elite circle.

With no strong leads that tie Robert to any crime, the show prompts us to question: is it possible Bret is responsible for these deaths and disappearances, or one of his friends? Could he even be imagining it?

As you watch, consider whose perspective the series privileges, and whose it marginalises.

As far as whether this approach helps reveal the true identity of “the Trawler”, we’ll just have to wait and see.

The Shards is now streaming on Disney+

Holden Walker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.