The Shards
Assist Me! Rhonda!
Season 1
Episode 3
Editor’s Score
2 stars
**
The sequence’ shift into high-school satire takes out all of the dread of a serial killer prowling simply off-screen.
Photograph: Ray Mickshaw/FX
Are you conversant in the “3 Glees” principle? First coined by author Emily St. James on the A.V. Membership, it was an try and make sense of Glee’s wildly divergent tones and inconsistent plotting from episode to episode. She believed the present’s three creators — Ryan Murphy, Ian Brennan, and Brad Falchuk — and their respective kinds resulted in weekly installments that felt fully totally different from what got here earlier than. Glee could also be behind us (for now!), however it’s inconceivable not to consider the three Glees whereas watching the third episode of The Shards, which bears little resemblance to the primary two installments and at occasions performs like a brand-new present. There’s no must theorize about what occurred right here as a result of the apparent reply is Bret Easton Ellis signed off on the primary two episodes after which deserted the difference. With out Ellis to tamp down Ryan Murphy’s excesses or curb deviations from the supply materials, we’re left with a tackle The Shards that’s all of the sudden a lot nearer to Murphy’s previous work than it’s to the novel. That is The Shards (Glee Forged Model).
This might not be extra obvious within the chilly open, which all of the sudden introduces a brand new Buckley classmate named Actually Rhonda, performed by the aggressively Gen-Z actress Ivy Wolk. All the things in regards to the character — whose undiagnosed Tourette’s makes her say issues like “I wanna fuck Chewbacca, motherfucker” in school — has the flavour of Glee or Murphy’s earlier high-school satire, Standard. My challenge isn’t with the very fact the present is all of the sudden including characters who aren’t within the e-book however with the whiplash from the dramatic vibe shift. We’re alleged to consider the elitist clique from the primary two episodes wouldn’t have fully shunned a woman like Rhonda, who, along with her incapacity, is obsessive about curler disco in a publish–“disco sucks” period? Bret’s rationalization for his affection is that Rhonda by no means inadvertently outed him by way of her coprolalia but in addition that she didn’t care what different folks considered her, as if that’s a top quality these children worth. However, Actually Rhonda is barely right here to be kidnapped by the Trawler whereas roller-skating to “Don’t Stand So Near Me,” then shoved right into a canine cage, the place she’s compelled to eat stay animals — and to that finish, she serves her goal. Bret complains about how shortly the college forgets Matt Kellner following his disappearance, however The Shards seems equally unmoved by him. Clearly unhappy with counting on Matt as a sufferer, the present is already delivering a brand new one.
“It took about three days for every thing to return to regular,” Bret tells us, which suggests Debbie has moved on to speaking in regards to the welcome social gathering for Robert and the group’s impending look on Dance Off! One other new addition to The Shards that smacks of Glee, Dance Off! is an American Bandstand–model teen dancing present and a Los Angeles establishment, and Debbie is obsessive about getting on it. Ever since classmate Corazón “Cha Cha” Rodriguez — now we’re cribbing from Grease — saved the digital camera’s consideration for the whole lot of Blondie’s “Rapture,” Debbie has craved her personal breakout second. As Bret shares through voice-over, “Changing into a star was her secret ambition, however she was too cool to ever admit it.” In the meantime, he wonders aloud if it’s not a nasty look to be partying on tv whereas two Buckley college students are lacking. Thom causes that since no our bodies have been discovered, Matt and Actually Rhonda may simply have run away. He needs to deal with tuxedo purchasing for homecoming, although Susan continues to register her disinterest. Robert suggests she would look nice in a easy black slip costume, and if the others clock the spark between them, they don’t acknowledge it. Not less than Bret’s protestations appear to have some impact on Susan, who suggests they publish flyers for the lacking college students. When Robert presents to assist, Thom’s expression is curiously muted. Bret did name out his “intriguing blankness” within the sequence premiere, however who can say what’s actually occurring in his head?
Again at college, Susan and Robert have escalated from flyers and as a substitute placed on a “Assist Me – Rhonda” meeting, the place they ask anybody with details about Actually Rhonda’s look to return ahead. All the things about this feels off: The Seaside Boys reference and the branded water they hand out (“Should you can’t discover a Perrier, attain for a bottle of Actually Rhonda water”) would slot in completely on a present like Standard however stick out like a sore thumb right here. The Shards was already working inside a considerably heightened actuality, however this episode clumsily slides the present into broad satire. Turning this complete factor right into a joke additionally undermines the hazard of the Trawler — simply how significantly are we alleged to take this menace? I’m kind of on Bret’s facet when he tells Thom that his joking isn’t humorous, although I recognize Thom saying, “My dad used to inform me to look on the sunny facet, and that’s what I’m making an attempt to do for you,” which is a fairly good articulation of his complete deal. On the entire, The Shards could be higher off sticking to subtler darkish comedy. Reflecting on Susan from afar, Debbie tells Ryan, “If she wished to, she could possibly be such a slut. There’s nothing stopping her. I’ve all the time admired that.” Ryan tells her she’s a very good pal, which Debbie is fast to agree with. Reader, I laughed!
What would Debbie suppose if she knew her boyfriend was having one other clandestine lunch together with her dad? Nothing good, presumably, although Terry is at the least pretending to be enthusiastic about Bret’s script. It is a bit complicated — final we heard, Bret was engaged on the novel Much less Than Zero, which Terry mentioned he’d possibility sight unseen. Now Bret is speaking a few therapy he wrote for a film primarily based on his life the place the principle character is Bret Ellis, and that sounds far more like The Shards. (If this sequence ends with Bret writing the present, I’ll by no means forgive anybody concerned.) Terry tells Bret that each nice film is about loss. What has Bret Ellis misplaced?, he wonders. Bret clunkily jumps proper to his virginity, suggesting that no matter is occurring between them isn’t precisely one-sided. That doesn’t imply he’s prepared to observe by way of on the sunshine flirtation, nevertheless. Terry drives him house on an unique secret highway between Beverly Hills and the Valley (the one different individuals who Terry is aware of have the gate code are Jack Nicholson and Warren Beatty) however pulls over to a scenic viewpoint on the way in which. It’s an incredible place to be alone, Terry says, earlier than getting bolder with a extra pointed, “We may come be alone collectively.” Bret appears to be like tempted, if noncommittal. However once they’re interrupted by the arrival of a mysterious beige van — the identical one viewers might have noticed within the previous episodes — Bret makes use of the chance to ask Terry to take him house.
I recognize the way in which the present is branching out from Bret’s perspective, together with within the subsequent scene we get contained in the Schaffer family, the place Liz is doing coke and dreaming about successful an Oscar. Her fantasy acceptance speech is an excuse to excoriate her daughter (“You’re the disappointment of my life”) and the husband “who usually jogs my memory that I’m a nugatory piece of shit.” We see that nastier facet of Terry when he returns house and mocks her for nonetheless picturing a future for herself as an actress. Wes Bentley and Evan Rachel Wooden are the strongest actors on the present, so I’m all for extra of them. Wooden is even capable of promote the soap-opera histrionics of a line like, “I do know I may have been greater than this, extra than simply your silly spouse rattling round this mausoleum like a fucking ghost.”
Talking of ghosts, after coming back from his outing with Terry, Bret finds himself drawn to Matt’s home, the place he’s simply capable of slip into the vacant pool home. His voice-over presents a protection of his more and more reckless decisions. “I used to be all of the sudden struck with a worry I had by no means skilled earlier than,” he reveals. “It was an adrenaline that acted as a warning for me to avoid wasting myself but in addition combined with an amazing compulsion to maneuver ahead irrespective of how I felt.” Bret is set to seek out clues about Matt’s disappearance in his room; as a substitute, he stumbles on a faculty uniform he deeply inhales the scent of whereas weeping. Reminiscence is a robust factor, he notes, as he imagines Matt standing within the doorway. Watching the final episode, I complained the sequence had not finished an incredible job of building the stakes of Bret and Matt’s relationship earlier than their breakup, so I’m glad we’re really seeing the grief Bret feels in Matt’s absence. I’m additionally appreciative of the split-diopter shot we get when Matt’s telephone rings. Bret solutions, and although there’s nothing however heavy respiration on the opposite finish, he’s satisfied he is aware of who he’s speaking to. “Why are you doing this, Robert?” he calls for.
At this level, Bret is assured he’s fingered the perp, even when he’s making a little bit of a leap from a lie about not seeing The Shining to serial homicide. “I dedicated myself to the pursuit of a single aim: observe Robert and show he was the Trawler,” he says, as soon as once more ready within the Buckley parking zone so he can observe Robert’s Porsche after college. As Peter Gabriel’s “Video games With out Frontiers” performs, he pursues the automobile to an unfamiliar home on Benedict Canyon, the place he cautiously lurks outdoors. Why is he doing this? Bret paraphrases Joan Didion by the use of a solution: He’s telling himself a narrative so as to stay. She meant crafting narratives to make sense of the chaos round us; he could also be referring to precise survival. We study from the voice-over that Bret will ultimately uncover that is Robert’s aunt’s rental property and he’ll in the future inform police he believes the bag he now watches Robert retrieve from the home incorporates a human head. After Robert leaves, Bret decides to research the house and finds his means in by way of an unlocked again door. Matt and Actually Rhonda could possibly be trapped inside, he causes, and he’s not far off. As soon as inside, he makes his means down a set of darkish stairs and right into a creepy house under one may comfortably name a “homicide basement.” There’s one other door deeper inside, and after Bret pushes previous the alarm bells in his head and walks by way of it, he discovers he’s too late. In flashback, we see Rhonda being pulled from her cage by the Trawler. Within the current, she’s gone. When Bret finds the cage, it’s empty — save for a Buckley uniform and a stay iguana, each coated in blood.
• Episode three makes it clear there will probably be too many deviations from the novel to debate all of them, however I’ll proceed to deal with what the largest adjustments imply for the present as a complete and the story it’s telling. As I mentioned above, my challenge is much less with the introduction of Actually Rhonda and Dance Off! and extra with the abrupt tonal shift to Glee territory.
• One factor this adaptation is de facto getting proper: the music decisions. “Don’t Stand So Near Me,” “Rapture,” “Video games With out Frontiers,” and “Fringe of Seventeen” are all pulled from Ellis’s reference-heavy writing.
• Within the e-book, Bret will get excluded from Susan and Debbie’s personal conversations, so we don’t know what Debbie is advising her bestie with regard to Robert Mallory. The present suggests Debbie needs Susan to develop her sexual horizons, which suggests we would see her actively pushing Susan in Robert’s course.
• On the identical time, Robert is studying, effectively, homosexual. Sure, within the novel, there’s deliberate ambiguity there, however he doesn’t describe his social gathering as “like Capote’s Black and White Ball.” Perhaps that’s Murphy sneaking his Capote fixation into the script; possibly it’s one thing extra. Within the e-book, Thom assumes Robert is homosexual and due to this fact not a menace to his relationship; it’s not but clear what present Thom thinks.
• Drawing out the connection between Bret and Terry is sensible, however I really feel like The Shards is afraid to actually go there with Terry’s predation, significantly by together with repeated reminders that Bret is eighteen (and never 17, as he’s within the novel). It’s a notable tweak in that it makes Bret a authorized grownup as a substitute of somebody merely pretending to be grown-up. After all, none of this makes Terry’s conduct applicable.
• Final week, I puzzled the place the present would go from right here, given how early Bret will get the Matt tape. Now he’s already gone into the Benedict Canyon home and located proof of Trawler victims being saved there, together with a blood-soaked Buckley uniform. Wouldn’t he simply go to the police at this level? Even the ineffective adults of The Shards would certainly act shortly to arrest Robert with this a lot proof. From a plot perspective, it simply doesn’t work.
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