Plot: The world of high fashion turns dark when international supermodels begin dying in gruesome and mysterious ways. FBI Agents Cooper Madsen and Jordan Bennett are sent to Paris to uncover the truth. As they delve deeper into the case, they uncover a sexually transmitted virus that transforms ordinary people into visions of physical perfection, but with terrifying consequences.
Review: Over the last three decades, Ryan Murphy has produced and created over twenty-four series. From musicals and historical dramas to horror stories and serial killer shows, Murphy has been a writer and director on some of the most over-the-top projects across network television, cable, and streaming. For the first time in his career, Murphy is adapting a graphic novel and has co-written every episode, something he has only done once before. The Beauty, based on the Image series written by Jeremy Haun and Jason A. Hurley, is a phantasmagoric blend of surreal body horror and satire presented with a glossy sheen that is signature Ryan Murphy. Led by a massive ensemble featuring Evan Peters, Anthony Ramos, and Ashton Kutcher, The Beauty is the most cohesive series Murphy has created to date and is gloriously insane in every way. Like most of his non-network shows, The Beauty is not for the faint of heart, but this blend of The Substance with American Horror Story is a solid work of pure entertainment.
The Beauty opens with the shocking spree that runway model Ruby (Bella Hadid) takes, which involves drinking a lot of water and killing bystanders. Ruby’s rampage ends with a bloody showdown, which engages the attention of FBI agents Cooper Madsen (Evan Peters) and Jordan Bennett (Rebecca Hall), who quickly uncover that the dead models all share DNA and identification with people who were far less attractive mere weeks and months earlier. As the agents, who are also lovers, dig deeper, they begin to learn of a dark web network transmitting bodily fluids to transform people into ideal physical specimens. This also rankles tech billionaire Byron Forst (Ashton Kutcher), who sends an assassin (Anthony Ramos) to take care of any loose ends related to his pharmaceutical creation, The Beauty. Across the eleven-episode season, The Beauty shows the convergence of the authorities and the ultra-elite and powerful Forst, while highlighting the global impact of the new drug.
Like most Ryan Murphy projects, The Beauty finds humor in the darkest and bloodiest subjects. There are many commonalities between this series and both American Horror Story and Murphy’s first major hit, the FX series Nip/Tuck. The pursuit of physical perfection depicted in The Beauty parallels the body horror of Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance, but it also draws on contemporary concepts such as incels, Chads, and social media influencers. The mystique of physical attractiveness even impacts Rebecca Hall’s character. Hall is already a very attractive person, and the idea of her character still having the potential to become more idealized is borderline hilarious. Every character in this series has the potential to be transformed as the narrative progresses, and each new reveal comes with the chance for a disastrous and deadly consequence. When the time finally comes for the FBI, the assassins, and The Corporation to come face to face, the stakes are as high as the very fate of humanity. And, if our species is reliant on only the upper one percent of good-looking people, we are in deep shit.
Peters and Hall make for a charismatic pairing, while Anthony Ramos and Jeremy Pope share some great sequences as well. Ashton Kutcher is fantastic as the series’ villain, one of the most despicable antagonists in any Ryan Murphy series. With more cameos and supporting appearances than any of his previous shows, The Beauty brings back many of the repertory cast from Murphy productions, including Isabella Rossellini, Ari Graynor, Billy Eichner, Jon Jon Briones, John Carroll Lynch, Ben Platt, and Peter Gallagher, as well as Vincent D’Onofrio, Meghan Trainor, Ray Nicholson, Rob Yang, and Lux Pascal. There are even more surprise appearances in this series, which is jammed with sex and violence from the outset. While none of the nudity is explicit, the sexual content is the most intense I can recall in a Murphy series since the Nip/Tuck days. But the blend of horror and humor works, since the lighter elements of the story keep the series from going down the pitch-black path of the anthologies Monster and American Crime Story. Instead, The Beauty borders closer to a humorous twist on a Black Mirror tale.
The eleven-episode series boasts Ryan Murphy in the director’s seat for the premiere and the third episode. Alexis Martin Woodall helms three episodes, with Michael Uppendahl directing five and Crystle Roberson on one. All eleven episodes are written by Murphy with Matt Hodgson (Glee, 9-1-1). The duo is faithful to the comic book that inspired the series, which keeps the narrative moving in a consistent direction, even though there are non-linear tangents in the middle that come off as a bit jarring. The uneven running time for each chapter is also strange, with some episodes clocking in at close to a full hour and others barely cracking twenty-five minutes. This may account for the seven-week release schedule: three episodes on the premiere date, one episode for the next four weeks, and the final two weeks debuting two chapters each. Having seen the entire series, I understand why certain episodes are released together and fully expect audiences to be buzzing online as each shocking chapter debuts.
Maybe it is because it comes from existing source material, or maybe because he and Matt Hodgson wrote the entire series, but The Beauty is the best project from Ryan Murphy in years. As disturbing as American Horror Story and as timely as anything he has done, The Beauty is a darkly bizarre and fun series that is one of the most bonkers shows to debut on American television in a very long time. From the stacked ensemble cast to the copious butts and buckets of blood in every episode, The Beauty is a scary, pitch-black, hilarious series that shows Ryan Murphy still has the skills to deliver the shock value that became his forte at the start of his career. I had a lot more fun watching this series than I ever expected, and I hope audiences are equally entertained.
The Beauty premieres with three episodes on FX on January 21st.
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Source:
JoBlo.com
