FX’s gripping series, The Shards, revels in the art of capturing exquisite visuals. Director Michael Uppendahl expertly draws the viewer into captivating scenes: a carefree girl disco-skates in slow motion, glowing with confidence; a circle of youthful friends enjoying lunch as the camera twirls around them; an elegant dancer claiming the lens’s attention; a car speeding along a hidden, winding road; a model perfecting her dramatic Oscar goodbye; and a young man weeping into the scent of his absent partner’s jacket. When the show finds beauty, it holds tight and invites the audience to bask in it.
At the heart of this episode is a pivotal event: the unexpected disappearance of Really Rhonda, portrayed by Ivy Wolk. Known for her quirks and cherished by classmates, Rhonda is described by Bret’s narration as what we’d now identify as neurodivergent, exhibiting symptoms similar to Tourette’s. Yet, she remains unapologetically true to herself, clinging to the fading roller-disco fashion with pride.
“She didn’t care about others’ opinions,” Bret reflects. “Imagine the freedom in that.” Befriending Really Rhonda offered a respite from the self-image pressures that dominated their lives otherwise. Her absence hits Bret hard, echoing the void left by Matt’s disappearance.
Bret’s search for answers deepens. He visits Matt’s poolhouse, enveloped in a poignant moment as he clutches and cries over Matt’s jacket. Later, a threatening phone call rattles him, easing only when he invokes Robert’s name.
Determined, Bret trails Robert to a family-owned property on Cielo Drive, infamously known for the Manson murders. He waits until Robert departs with an ominous bowling bag and takes a look inside himself. To steady his nerves, Bret murmurs a mantra, “Being afraid is so lame. You are not a coward.”
Misleading crosscutting makes it look like he’s on the verge of rescuing Really Rhonda, when in fact he appears to have been too late. We see the Trawler, who’s been feeding her live eels, drag her out of the cage, while in the here and now Bret discovers a bloody jacket from his high school covering an equally bloody pet iguana.
Honestly, I’m just relieved Really Rhonda didn’t get tortured on camera too badly. By taking so much screentime to present her as an endearing and magnetic figure, the show makes us truly dread the prospect of her torture and abuse at the Trawler’s hands. Making you want to see sexy murder hijinks and then regret when they actually arrive is a smart technique.
So is the repeated use of fairy-tale storytelling and imagery. The hidden chamber in which Really Rhonda has been caged has its roots in slashers, gialli, and serial-killer true crime, but it also evokes Hansel & Gretel and Bluebeard. Terry Schaffer whisks Bret through a secret road from Beverly Hills to the Valley that only he, Warren Beatty, and Jack Nicholson have the access code to — a hidden passage, the path through Mirkwood, the Yellow Brick Road. (The Trawler, it seems, also knows the number.) This all fits Bret’s obsession with passing from the world of childhood to adulthood, the metaphorical basis of so much myth and fantasy.
Terry is a more interesting, and even more loathsome, character than he appears at first glance. Sure, he likes to use his influence to bed high schoolers, but he’s also gratuitously, enormously cruel to his wife, Liz, whose career stalled out at ex-model when she married him. Now she holds his Oscars and gives speeches to an imaginary crowd, where she gets to say fuck you not only to showbiz people who wronged her, but to her disappointment of a daughter and terrible husband. Terry interrupts her, mocking her ruthlessly for her failures. It’s an ugly scene.
Bret’s great frustration, meanwhile, is that he can’t get any of his friends to care in the slightest about the disappearing kids. Instead, the gang is still pushing ahead with Robert’s party. They’re so unconcerned it’s like something out of It by Bret’s beloved Stephen King, where It’s malignant presence causes the people in the town of Derry to look the other way and forget anything they happen to see while they turn their heads. (The fundraiser Susan arranges, in which they place Really Rhonda’s face on bottled water instead of cartons of milk and don’t mention Matt at all, is like an Addams Family Values bit.)
Debbie also has them all planned for an appearance on a local teen TV show called Dance Off!, where a girl named Cha Cha Rodriguez (Bella Valdes) held the camera’s attention for the entirety of Blondie’s “Rapture.” Debbie craves that kind of attention, since she’s not getting it from Bret; she begins flirting with Ryan (Daniel Dale), Bret’s former hookup. She’s got a type, anyway!
Working with cinematogrpaher Cory Geryak, Uppendahl brings a genuinely filmic look to the proceedings. The light feels real and textured, illuminating the surface of things rather than being slapped on like a paint job. The show has a subdued dynamic range, letting the luxe lives of its characters and the depravity of its antagonist provide the lurid thrills. It’s an approach that’s working very well.
Sean T. Collins (@seantcollins.com on Bluesky and theseantcollins on Patreon) has written about television for The New York Times, Vulture, Rolling Stone, and elsewhere. He is the author of Pain Don’t Hurt: Meditations on Road House. He lives with his family on Long Island.