Who Actually Dies in ‘The Shards’, Ryan Murphy’s Twisted FX Thriller?
Ryan Murphy’s latest FX series has viewers spiraling into one of the darkest whodunits of the year, and the body count in ‘The Shards‘ is a big part of why. Based on Bret Easton Ellis’ prep school thriller novel, the series premiered on FX and Hulu, as well as Disney Plus internationally. Between a masked serial killer stalking Los Angeles teens and a group of privileged friends slowly unraveling, plenty of characters do not make it to the credits.
The novel imagines a fictionalized version of Bret Easton Ellis as a teenager in 1980s Los Angeles at the center of a series of disturbing murders. With the show now airing weekly episodes, fans of the book already know some of what is coming, even if the series has room to change things up along the way.
Who Is The Trawler and Why It Matters For ‘The Shards’ Death Count?
The killer known as ‘The Trawler’ plucks off members of Ellis’ elite inner circle one by one in increasingly disturbing ways. The character’s world is turned upside down after new student Robert Mallory arrives, and his mysterious presence coincides with a serial killer in town known as ‘The Trawler.’
The identity of the Trawler is the central mystery driving the entire show, and it is also the biggest difference between page and screen so far. In Ellis’ book, the identity of ‘The Trawler’ is never unveiled at all.
The book also never reveals who actually attacked Susan and her boyfriend Thom, and it never definitively explains how Robert truly died. That ambiguity is baked into the source material, so anyone expecting a tidy reveal from ‘The Shards’ may be waiting a while.
Robert Mallory’s Death Is ‘The Shards’ Moment Everyone Is Talking About
The fight between Bret and Robert is the novel’s climactic set piece, and it centers on the character played by Homer Gere in the series. Bret goes to Robert’s penthouse apartment, seals the door to the unit, unplugs the phones, and grabs a kitchen knife to confront Robert, and the two end up in a knife fight.
Robert falls to his death, and it is ruled a suicide based on Bret’s account of events. As Robert tries to escape Bret, he jumps, lands on the garage, and dies, while Bret creates a convenient narrative for the authorities so he looks like the person who defeated the Trawler.
For a while, that version of events sticks, and Bret even becomes something of a local celebrity for it. Bret gains celebrity status at the school due to having apparently caught the serial killer, though the Trawler soon claims another victim, undercutting that story entirely.
A note the killer sends afterward complicates the mystery even further. A note sent to police by the killer reveals that they were not Robert at all, but had rather committed the killings as an act of sacrifice to Robert, whom they named ‘The God.’
Matt Kellner’s Death Adds Another Layer to ‘The Shards’ Debate
Robert is not the only character in Bret’s circle whose death raises questions. The police rule Matt’s death to have been an accidental death by misadventure involving heavy drug use, but Bret suspects otherwise when Matt’s father shows him pictures of the crime scene.
Some readers and reviewers have argued that Bret himself is a far more dangerous figure than the book initially lets on. One review of the novel argues that Bret genuinely killed Matt, pushed Terry off the balcony, and attacked Susan and Thom near the end of the story.
That same review floats a theory about why Bret might have targeted Matt in the first place. The theory suggests Bret killed Matt out of anger over Matt ending their sexual relationship, a reading supported by how often the narrative reminds readers that a tape of Matt implicates Bret far more than it implicates Robert.
Susan Reynolds and the Lingering Suspicion Around Bret
Susan Reynolds survives the events of ‘The Shards,’ but she does not walk away unscathed, and her arc is key to understanding just how unreliable Bret is as a narrator. Susan Reynolds starts to suspect that Bret could be the murderer after spotting a bite mark on his arm, similar to the one she gave a masked person who attacked her.
The attack that leads to that bite mark is one of the more harrowing sequences in the story. Susan is attacked by a masked man and is able to thwart the attempt by biting his arm, and she later notices the same bite mark on Bret’s arm.
Susan needs reconstructive surgery afterward and is on heavy painkillers when she notices the bite mark, a discovery that causes her to throw up on the spot. She tells Thom about the bite mark and that Bret is the one who invaded her home and attacked her, but Thom believes Susan simply is not thinking clearly because of the painkillers.
Whether the FX series follows that same trajectory beat for beat remains to be seen, especially since the season finale is scheduled to air on September 2, giving Murphy and his writers room to reshape the ending for television. With Igby Rigney’s Bret growing more unstable by the episode and the Trawler’s true identity still very much up for grabs, which death in ‘The Shards’ do you think the show is setting up to hit hardest when that finale finally arrives?
