The jury is still out on whether The Shards‘ Robert Mallory is the serial killer known as The Trawler, but he certainly is guilty of slaying it on the dance floor.
“I can’t wait for the TikToks because then I can just let it play again and again and again,” laughs Graham Campbell of costar Homer Gere‘s sure-to-be-memed moves in “Robert’s Party,” the fourth episode of the series.
Ever since the enigmatic Mallory transferred to the ritzy Los Angeles high school, Ryan Murphy‘s increasingly addictive adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis‘ 2023 novel has given us every reason to suspect the guy of very bad behavior. First off is the timing. He showed up on the scene just as bodies started piling up. And secondly, he says he’s never been to the area before, despite classmate Bret (the Topher Grace-ful Igby Rigney) swearing that he spotted him at a screening of The Shining a year earlier. He also had some shady interactions with now-missing student Matt Kellner (Owen Painter), and now, there is the little matter of his stint at a psychiatric facility and the questionable death of his own mother.
Ray Mickshaw / FX
Still, the clearly smitten Susan Reynolds (Kaia Gerber, who gets more fascinating with every episode) insists he’s a real one, even going so far as to throw a bash for him at her father’s Hollywood Hills mansion despite the reluctance of her actual boyfriend, Thom Wright (Campbell). Of course, it’s such a coke-fueled mess of popped collars, shoulder pads, and Aquanet that the cultist who corners Bret’s neglected girlfriend, Debbie Schaffer (Hayes Warner, another evolving breakout), during her secret hookup with a porn star isn’t even the worst part of the night. Nope, that honor goes to Robert, who opts to throw booze on top of whatever meds he’s been taking and starts to shake what his (dead) mama gave him to strains of Lipps, Inc.’s “Funkytown.”
“It rocks,” enthuses Gerber. “And it was so fun because we didn’t get to see it until we were filming it.”
“And then we saw a lot of it,” adds Campbell. “Close at hand!”
“He committed 100% every single take,” Gerber continues. “And those reactions that you’re seeing are genuinely our real reactions to seeing Homer do that.”
So, do you think Robert is a killer? Or is Bret’s fixation with him, as Gere puts it, going to be “the downfall of his life”? And what’s your take on Evan Rachel Wood‘s bad-mother Liz and Jordan Roth’s fashionista fixer, Steven? We’re sort of Bret-level obsessed with them.
The Shards, Thursdays, 9/8c, FX and Hulu