After gobbling up every single episode of the Ryan Murphy-produced Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette like so much movie-theater candy, I was obviously locked in for The Shards, a brand-new FX thriller co-created by Murphy and Bret Easton Ellis and based on Ellis’s semi-autobiographical novel of the same name.

The first episode of The Shards is big, blockbuster-y, baroque, and glossy, and although I don’t quite get what makes the show tick yet, I’m committed to going along for the ride and finding out. Below, find absolutely every thought I had about Episode 1 of The Shards.

1. Oh hell yeah, we’re in 1980.
2. And with a panoramic overhead shot of LA, no less!
3. I hear from reliable sources (who may or may not be my mom) that this was a great time to be young, blonde, and doing recreational drugs—that weren’t yet fentanyl-tainted—in Hollywood.
4. Sorry, I’m going to be so irritating about every single location they use on this show, but is that movie theater…the Vista?
5. Or Los Feliz 3?
6. Los-Feliz-as-Westwood?
7. God, I want to go to the movies (and somehow, watching an FX screener on my laptop doesn’t scratch the itch).
8. Good thing I’m seeing One Night Only at 8:35 a.m. in North Hollywood in what hopefully remains an empty theater on Friday.
9. “I needed to be his friend. I had to own him.” Okay, Gatsby!
10. Liking the book of The Shining more than the movie? Blasphemy!
11. I was wondering why Ellis kept referring to the guy he cruised at the movies as “this boy,” but it turns out they are in literal high school.
12. “Kids today have it fucking easy”…said nobody who’s ever logged onto TikTok, ever.
13. Oh God, this redhead is going to be brutally killed, isn’t she?
14. Why is all the stuff in the medicine cabinet upside down?!?
15. I famously hate horror! Somebody help me!
16. Not the missing-pet flyer!
17. Those alone have the capacity to make me cry if I’m in my luteal phase.
18. I don’t know what’s happening right now, because I’m hiding beneath a blanket.
19. Seriously, even American Horror Story: Asylum was too much for me (I still shudder thinking about that scene where the lesbian is frozen into a block of ice or whatever). How am I to handle this?
20. LA really was a dreamscape in the ‘80s, huh?
21. This blonde horse girl is doomed to die, isn’t she?
22. Ah, the sad determination of closeted high-school homosexuality.
23. People really don’t get named “Susan” anymore, do they…much to think about.
24. Hey, it’s Kaia Gerber!
25. This synthy-as-hell ’80s soundtrack is making me want to rewatch the “San Junipero” episode of Black Mirror.
26. But not as much as I want to swim in that turquoise pool and/or share a cigarette with Kaia Gerber.
27. How much did people actually say “rad” during this decade, I wonder?
28. Can teens just…rent out the Beverly Hills Hotel?
29. I guess if you’re rich and beautiful in LA in 1981, the world (and every expensive venue in town) is your oyster.
30. I sort of don’t believe that teens this precocious and druggy would really give a shit about prom court, but whatever.
31. Okay, wine coolers don’t sound like the most enviable part of the ’80s.
32. A male striptease set to “Crimson and Clover”…oh, for sure.
33. I, too, would like to get high and listen to “the new Elvis Costello album.”
34. We gotta bring back tiny little tennis shorts.
35. AHHHHHHH!!!!!!
36. I do not care for this weirdly arranged dead body!
37. Likely thing to see in a Ryan Murphy production, though, I suppose.
38. Oh, wait, it was a mascot statue, not a real person.
39. Too convincing, props team?
40. “Why does my stupid mother always pack me pâté for lunch?” is a truly iconic line.
41. It’s giving “Great pâté, Mom, but I gotta motor if I’m going to be ready for that funeral” from Heathers.
42. The concept of high school students comparing notes on LA clubs while also eating lunches packed from home…insane.
43. God, I’m so glad I didn’t enter a club until I was properly of age (due to washedness, not my law-abiding nature).
44. These are some truly chic school uniforms, I must admit.
45. So much luxury-car-commercial energy on this show…and I don’t hate it.
46. I do think this driving scene could have been a tad shorter, though.
47. Much home-aquarium-based tension, as well!
48. “I was going to see a movie, but I realized I’ve seen them all.” Remember the pre-streaming era, when that was possible?
49. Oh, Christ, the work of the Trawler is…not my favorite to witness onscreen.
50. I did not need to see this little white dog slaughtered next to a dead female body while my own little white dog sleeps peacefully beside me!
51. Okay, dog death aside, that had some fun energy.
52. See you next week, Bret Easton Ellis-istas!