Comprising nine episodes, The Shards officially closed its first season with a finale that raised numerous questions about the future of the protagonists and the true identity of the killer. Created by Ryan Murphy and Bret Easton Ellis (who is also the author of the eponymous novel), The Shards is available to stream on Disney+ and is set in 1980s Los Angeles, where the frenetic lives of the teenage leads are put to the test by the encroaching threat of a killer known as the Fisherman. The finale episode suggested new avenues that, according to Igby Rigney, could be explored in the second season. Note: the following will reference what happened in the season finale.
Igby Rigney Reflects on That Finale Twist and How It Foreshadows the Next Episodes of The Shards
Igby Rigney plays Bret Easton Ellis in The Shards, a seventeen-year-old who attends the final year at a prestigious high school, whose life is upended by the arrival of a new student: his name is Robert Mallory, and gradually Bret becomes convinced that he is the serial killer everyone is talking about. The coincidences are too numerous to ignore, and in the season finale, Bret remains convinced of his theory.
The last episode closes the season with more questions than answers, and Igby Rigney believes everything will prove useful for the second season, should Disney+ decide to renew it. In the final episode of The Shards, Terry and Liz throw a villa party that ends in tragedy: something or someone pushed Terry off the balcony during the evening and, following the incident, Bret decides to step forward and officially accuse Robert. He goes to the police station with a fairly clear idea of what to say, partly because during the episode the tension between the two characters has repeatedly peaked.
In the closing scene, Bret reaches the interrogation room hoping for a confrontation with the detectives, but awaiting him are other people: “All the people I know, even if only superficially.” At that point, the detectives inform those present that they are certain that one among them in that room is The Fisherman, even though they still do not know who. They are convinced that the deaths of Katherine Latchford and Matt Kellner and the kidnapping of Rhonda Fox are connected to the serial killer. “It’s a bomb that goes off at the end of the season. The detectives explicitly say: ‘It’s someone in this room. We’re 100% sure.’” Entering the room, everyone is there. I expect to see Robert. Naturally, there is a lot of confusion because I certainly did not see this coming, the actor explained. Although Bret is the one who claims to carry the truth, he also has secrets to protect, as his performer notes: “There are certainly things he wouldn’t want made public in this particular historical period.”
At that point, given the chaos stirred by the latest episode, the audience asks themselves: what if it’s Bret? “People are capable of many things, but I don’t think that’s likely. At least that’s my personal opinion. That’s a question to pose to Mr. Ryan Murphy, who knows who the Fisherman is,” Igby Rigney concluded. In the interrogation room, the suspects are Bret, Robert, Susan, Thom, and Debbie, but Debbie’s mother and Steven are also listed.
Will The Shards Have a Season 2?
One of the most frequent questions about The Shards is certainly whether there will be a second season: will it happen? At the moment, the series has not yet been renewed for a second batch of episodes, but Ryan Murphy recently told Variety that he has always envisioned this story as multi-season, receiving the co-creator’s blessing: “When I first met [Ellis], he didn’t want it to be a miniseries. He always thought it could be a three-year drama series, if not longer. I like that idea.” If that comes to pass, The Shards would not only receive the green light for a second season but would also honor the creators’ plan with a third, concluding season. We’ll have to wait and see.
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