The amount that The Shards Episode 5 “Murder on the Dancefloor” will work on you is likely down to how closely you need the FX show to hew to its source material. Folks already irritated with how Ryan Murphy‘s campy adaptation veers from Bret Easton Ellis‘s novel probably won’t like this week’s all-new installment. However, for the folks like me, who revel in the deliciously camp energy of The Shards, Episode 5 is a delight.
**Spoilers for The Shards Episode 5 “Murder on the Dancefloor,” now streaming on Hulu**
This week’s all new episode of The Shards is a complete deviation from the book, scripted and directed by none other than Ryan Murphy himself. “Murder on the Dancefloor” follows Bret (Igby Rigney), Susan (Kaia Gerber), and Robert (Homer Gere) as they join Debbie (Hayes Warner) as moral support on the set of her fave show, Dance Off. (Graham Campbell‘s Thom is supposed to be there, but the jock is worried that the live dance show might force him to look “gay” in public.)
Debbie’s dream is to become “Groover of the Week,” a title that has been held in a vise-like grip by Cha Cha Rodriguez (Bella Valdes). Cha Cha is an aggressive and talented dancer, but what no one knows is she has bigger dreams. She’s been engaged in an illicit affair with Dance Off‘s married host, Tony Cruz (Anthony Ramos), and has just told him she is pregnant and expects him to divorce his wife to marry her. By the end of the episode, however, Debbie discovers Cha Cha brutally murdered in the ladies’ room.
Is Cha Cha the latest victim of the Trawler? (Robert is notably missing during her death!) Was she killed by a panicked Tony? Could someone else be responsible for the Trawler’s misdeeds?
When DECIDER spoke with The Shards executive producer Brad Simpson, he explained that “it’s one of my favorite episodes, all set in the real time of a live TV show as the tensions between the kids play out, but also the backstage tensions and the serial killer starts to make a presence.”
“So, it’s pure Ryan Murphy to me,” Simpson said.
Also pure Ryan Murphy? The fact that this is the episode where Jordan Roth’s mysterious Steven steps into the foreground. When boss Terry Schaffer (Wes Bentley) is looking elsewhere, Steven woos the show’s coked-up producers, preys upon teenaged (secret) porn actor Ryan (Daniel Dale), and gleefully votes for Debbie’s deepest rival, Susan, over the phone.
“She’s nasty,” Roth said. “Steven gives Debbie every opportunity and she keeps being nasty, and so, ‘Don’t cross me.’ That’s the lesson.”
Jordan Roth
“It’s really where you first get to see Steven in all of his Steven-ness,” Roth said.
He also explained exactly why Steven is so vindictive towards his boss’s teen daughter — and why maybe other characters on The Shards should look out.
“She’s nasty,” Roth said. “Steven gives Debbie every opportunity and she keeps being nasty, and so, ‘Don’t cross me.’ That’s the lesson.”
Before The Shards, Roth was best known for his spectacular work as a Broadway producer. The seven-time Tony-winner explained why it was such a “real treat” to have Murphy direct the episode.
“It really is a movie musical,” Roth said. “We shot it over almost eight weeks because there’s so many moving parts and we’re all in so many scenes and everyone’s sort of circling around each other, and it was a total blast.”
Simpson explained to DECIDER that the genesis for “Murder on the Dancefloor” came from Murphy’s own obsession with pop culture.
“We go to an episode that’s a pretty faithful adaptation of a scene in the book, which is “Robert’s Party” — which is the episode before — which is very much about this party they throw for Robert that goes wrong, and then Ryan was asking, ‘What can I do next to top that?’ And also like, ‘What’s going to be as fun?’” Simpson said.
“He came in one day to the writer’s room and said, ‘You know, there were a series of dance shows throughout the ’70s and the ’80s that [he] loved and they were a cultural staple and they were appointment viewing and you were always jealous of the kids that were on it.’ What if our team went on that show together?” he said. “But we really got into the dirtiness, the behind-the-scenes, and we also kept alive the idea of the sort of terror that’s stalking outside.”
And that’s The Shards Episode 5 “Murder on the Dancefloor.”
The Shards returns next Wednesday, August 26 with Episodes 6 & 7, “Homecoming Part 1” and “Homecoming Part 2”