Bret Ellis’s Fictional Nightmare | Durham News

Durham News Today | 2 Min News | The Daily News Now! · Aug 6, 2026 · 1m

Ryan Murphy’s new thriller “The Shards” drops on FX, diving into a wild 1981 LA prep school where teen Bret Ellis — played by Igby Rigney — narrates his descent into obsession after a mysterious new student, Robert Mallory (Homer Gere), arrives with ties to a serial killer known as The Trawler. Based on Bret Easton Ellis’s own novel, the show blends gritty realism with literary fiction, since Ellis himself appears in the book but all other characters are invented. The cast, including Kaia Gerber and Evan Rachel Wood, explores layered motivations and shifting perspectives through Bret’s eyes…