TV critics have a love-hate relationship with Ryan Murphy, and his latest show is no exception.
The Shards, based on Bret Easton Ellis’ 2023 best-selling thriller of the same name, debuts Wednesday on FX with a 52% score on Rotten Tomatoes and a 57 on Metacritic. As expected, reviews range from the glowing (“will surely entrap viewers”) to the scathing (“big step down from the might of the book”).
Notably, the middling response for The Shards is much better than Murphy’s recent dramedy All’s Fair, which debuted with a rare 0% on Rotten Tomatoes before eventually inching up to 6%. However, the scores pale in comparison to the mostly positive reactions the critics gave to his recent programs Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette (80% on RT) and The Beauty (70% on RT).
Here’s a closer look at the reviews for the past 10 shows that Murphy created and/or produced:
| Show | Rotten Tomatoes Score | Metacritic Score |
|---|---|---|
| American Horror Story: Delicate (2023) | 77% | 57 |
| Feud: Capote vs. The Swans (2024) | 77% | 70 |
| American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez (2024) | 74% | 72 |
| Grotesquerie (2024) | 75% | 51 |
| Doctor Odyssey (2024) | 63% | 66 |
| Monster: The Ed Gein Story (2025) | 22% | 28 |
| Mid-Century Modern (2025) | 88% | 67 |
| All’s Fair (2025) | 6% | 17 |
| Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette (2026) | 80% | 63 |
| The Beauty (2026) | 70% | 64 |
The Shards stars Igby Rigney as a fictionalized, 17-year-old version of Ellis (perhaps most famous for writing American Psycho) whose college life is upended by a serial killer known as The Trawler. Rigney is joined in the ensemble by Homer Gere as Robert Mallory, Graham Campbell as Thom Wright, Hayes Warner as Debbie Schaffer, Wes Bentley as Terry Schaffer, Kaia Gerber as Susan Reynolds, and Evan Rachel Wood as Liz Schaffer. (See the cast gallery above.)
Murphy shares the directing duties with Michael Uppendahl, Max Minghella, and Crystle Roberson Dorsey. Murphy and Ellis co-wrote the first two episodes, both of which debuted on Aug. 5. Two additional hours air next Wednesday, and the eighth and final episode is scheduled for Sept. 2.
Most of The Shards reviews can be broken down into two distinct camps — good and bad. Let’s start out on a lighter note with:
THE POSITIVE
“With this audacious series, Ellis and Murphy have crafted one of the best adaptations of the year,” raves Kaiya Shunyata of RogerEbert.com. “It will surely entrap viewers within its grasp, even if they initially attempt to rid themselves of its sleek and seductive shackles.”
Nick Schager of The Daily Beast likens The Shards to “Beverly Hills, 90210 meets The Silence of the Lambs,” adding, “An ’80s pantomime that blends hedonistic L.A. preppy glitz and glamour with malevolent serial-killer suspense, it’s an ideal marriage of two artists infatuated — to a risible degree — with superficial hot-and-gory titillation.”
Alison Herman of Variety praises Rigney’s “strong lead performance,” explaining, “[He] is terrific as the young Ellis, making the part’s many contradictions and internal struggles perfectly legible to the outside observer.”
Chris Barsanti of Slant Magazine calls it “stylish” and notes, “The series highlights the intoxicating, corrupting pull of Bret Easton Ellis’ world. … It produces something vivid and memorable, despite the too-muchness.”
And Aaron Pruner of CNET praises the show for being “a throwback to an era of hypnotic horror thrillers, before slashers fully took hold of the genre.”
THE NEGATIVE
But not everyone is on board the love train. Kayleigh Donaldson of The Wrap argues that, while there’s “enjoyment to be had” with The Shards, it’s ultimately a “big step down from the might of the book.” She calls it a “murderous” copycat of Euphoria, where “Murphy and company struggle to delve beneath the shiny surface.”
Judy Berman of Time says the show “gets stuck in the shallow end,” teasing that the ultimate conclusion is a “big disappointment, albeit a narratively ambiguous one, that fizzles rather than explodes. … This show about the consequences of limited introspection suffers them as well.”
John Anderson of The Wall Street Journal knocks the nepo-baby casting of Gerber (daughter of Cindy Crawford) and Gere (son of Richard Gere), writing, “The hedonism of Hollywood offspring is really what the show is all about. So rich, so beautiful, so bored. It’s contagious.”
James Mottram of NME piles on the nepo-baby criticism, declaring, “In L.A., it seems, there are almost as many nepo babies as maniac killers.” He adds that the casting of Gerber is “the show’s only misstep.”
Daniel Fienberg of The Hollywood Reporter also picks up on that theme, writing that the actors are “sexy mannequins, but there’s something almost alien about Rigney, Warner and purposefully chosen nepo babies Gere and Gerber (the latter of whose physical similarity to her mother guarantees that the series’ most prominent valley is “uncanny” rather than “San Fernando”). … The Shards concludes its season with a huge cliffhanger, but not one that makes future seasons feel necessary.”
Finally, Ben Travers of IndieWire complains, “Watching the first season is like watching someone lose interest in a story as they’re telling it.” Ouch.
