Ryan Murphy has once again assembled a cast so offensively attractive — including The Shards star Igby Rigney — that paying attention to the actual plot is going to require considerable discipline.
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His new FX series, The Shards, takes viewers to 1981 Los Angeles, where wealthy teenagers, social intrigue, drugs and a mysterious serial killer collide in a glossy psychological thriller adapted from Bret Easton Ellis’s novel.
So, naturally, the show has plenty of things for viewers to discuss. Including the cast.
Igby Rigney Makes a Very Murphy-Style Introduction
Rigney, already recognizable to horror devotees from Midnight Mass, The Midnight Club and The Fall of the House of Usher, takes on the role of a fictionalized young Bret Easton Ellis.
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And within hours of the series premiere, one particular scene involving the actor had social media behaving as though someone had just discovered television for the first time. The culprit? A pair of white briefs. That’s it. That’s the headline. That’s the cultural event.
The scene has sent viewers into the familiar Murphy-era television ritual of pretending to be deeply interested in character development while simultaneously becoming extremely invested in the costume department’s decision-making.
Igby Rigney in the pilot episode of Ryan Murphy’s ‘THE SHARDS’ pic.twitter.com/Q5GXUMy9iG
— ★ (@POPin4k) August 6, 2026
And honestly, who can blame them? Murphy understands that sometimes a television series needs atmosphere, suspense and carefully selected wardrobe. The Shards appears to be delivering all three.
Yes, There Is Also a Plot
Underneath the thirst-trap-adjacent internet chatter, there’s a genuinely intriguing story taking shape. The series follows a privileged group of Los Angeles high school seniors whose carefully curated lives begin falling apart after an enigmatic new student arrives and a serial killer known as “The Trawler” starts terrorizing the city.
What begins as teenage drama gradually acquires a much darker edge, mixing Ellis’s fascination with wealth, desire and alienation with Murphy’s taste for heightened television.
Rigney finds himself at the center of it all as Bret, an aspiring writer observing the increasingly strange world around him. Which means viewers have plenty to watch besides the wardrobe. Probably.
The Internet Has, Naturally, Been Very Normal About It
Let’s just say The Shards has already demonstrated that it understands one of television’s oldest rules: if you want people to pay attention, give them something to talk about. And apparently, sometimes that something is white underwear.
For gay viewers, this is hardly a shocking development. We have spent decades turning a raised eyebrow, a suspiciously tight costume or an unnecessarily lingering camera angle into a full-scale cultural investigation.
Call it media literacy. Call it community service. Call it whatever you want — just don’t pretend we’re not watching. New episodes of The Shards air Wednesdays on FX. Watch The Shards on FX