The arrival of a new Ryan Murphy show can sometimes feel like a threat. Which version of the outrageously prolific showrunner are we going to get? Murphy, of course, is the visionary auteur behind camp classics like Nip/Tuck, the American Horror Story franchise, Pose, and—yes—Glee. All these are shows that, even if they ultimately overstayed their welcome, were singularly unique when they first arrived on American television screens and asserted the existence of a fresh creative mind. Then there’s the Murphy who, shall we say, phones it in. It’s this Murphy—lazy and overly reliant on aesthetics in place of any real substance—who we can thank for shows like The Politician, Hollywood, and All’s Fair, a show so profoundly bad that I was almost wishing for a world in which A.I. takes over, if only so that I need never wonder how a fellow human being could subject the rest of us to such drivel.
Thankfully, Murphy’s latest outing for FX, The Beauty, falls mostly in the former category. (His work for FX, typically home to decent-to-good TV, tends to be his strongest.) Across 11 episodes, the first three of which premiered today, the series follows a pathogen that, after escaping a laboratory, spreads via sexual infection, causing people to become outrageously good-looking. The only rather inconvenient downside appears to be that it also results in their eventual explosion—something guest star Bella Hadid discovers in the show’s opening scenes after she tears away from a Balenciaga catwalk show, goes on a bloody rampage through Paris, and finally turns into a human water balloon. It’s ridiculous, certainly, but it’s entertaining too. What other show is going to feature an assistant editor at Vogue throwing a pop star out the windows of the Condé Nast offices before spraying her guts all over Ben Platt? Sure, like many good-looking people, The Beauty thinks it’s smarter than it ultimately is, but against my better nature, I did find myself somewhat enjoying the show, with its big-budget, ritzy locations and gorgeous production design. This was thanks mainly to star Evan Peters, who evokes glimpses of his best work as a detective in HBO’s Mare of Easttown here to play Cooper Madsen, one of the FBI agents tasked with learning about this deadly virus. The show isn’t perfect, but, as Madsen tells colleague and lover Jordan Bennett (Rebecca Hall), “embracing imperfections can create something stronger and even more beautiful than before.”
With a few exceptions (most notably 9-1-1, a fairly typical procedural drama about first responders), Murphy’s shows tend to fall in three main camps. First, there’s the dark, scary stuff he leans into in the American Horror Story and Monster franchises. Then, there’s the prestige or period work he enjoys, notable in Pose and Halston, as well as franchises like American Crime Story and Feud, which produced his two best productions, releases focusing on the trial of O.J. Simpson and the rivalry between Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, respectively. Finally, there’s what I’m going to call his Cuckoo Bananas collection, featuring fatuous and fanciful series like All’s Fair and Scream Queens, where being bad is kind of the point. All of these categories contain hits and misses—or in the case of Cuckoo Bananas, almost exclusively misses—but occasionally we are treated to reminders of why Murphy remains one of Hollywood’s most in-demand showrunners. The Beauty succeeds because it combines just enough elements from all three of these buckets to showcase Murphy at his best: big-name stars, lots of sex, an embrace of trash, and the occasional pretense that all this—like beauty itself—is more than skin-deep.
Comparisons to 2024’s The Substance are unavoidable, but while it’s clear The Beauty is influenced by the Oscar-nominated Demi Moore film, its source material, a comic book by Jeremy Haun and Jason A. Hurley, was actually released more than a decade ago. As a piece of body horror, The Beauty delivers much like The Substance. (Fans of gore will be pleased to know that bones crack and creak, faces are ripped off, and teeth are ripped out.) But, while The Substance explored Hollywood and society’s resistance to aging, The Beauty casts a wider net and features characters wanting to overcome disease, reverse obesity, or have their appearance match their gender identity, touching on our obsession with semaglutide drugs like Ozempic, plastic surgery, and exercise culture. Unlike The Substance, which existed mainly as a psychological portrait of Moore’s character, The Beauty also points the mirror back at us, asking why we so revere the beautiful among us that characters here might actively seek out the STD, consequences be damned. In the show’s final episodes, as we watch two pretty teenage girls drive themselves to madness over why their noses don’t look like Kendall Jenner’s, we’re forced to wonder if our collective preoccupation with perfection may be the real virus among us.
One of Murphy’s greatest assets has always been his ability to draw A-listers to work in his projects, and The Beauty is no different. Here, his most deranged and yet somehow inspired choices are Ashton Kutcher and Isabella Rossellini, playing the callous billionaire whose company developed the pathogen (and who treated himself to a pure sample of it) and his embittered wife, who prefers to let her haute couture be her contribution to beauty standards. There’s a fun element of self-awareness watching Kushner prep for an industry pitch like he’s playing Steve Jobs again, or hearing Rossellini espouse rhetoric that’s the opposite of her devilishly beautiful character in Death Becomes Her. (Her iconic bejeweled gown from that 1992 movie makes a late appearance, and yes, it’s delightful.)
Still, The Beauty does have an unfortunate, if necessary, tendency to dangle amazing actors before us for an episode or two before eventually ripping them away and replacing them with no-name hotties. (I also found myself thinking how sad it must feel for Platt or Billy Eichner to think that no matter how much weight they lose or how much muscle they pack on, they are relegated to playing “Before” characters in a Ryan Murphy world.) As more of the ensemble gradually turn into literal models, we can find ourselves missing those who turned up to try to do some real acting. Still, maybe that’s the whole point? Some people, Rossellini’s character tells us, are perfect works of art precisely because their stretch marks signify lived experience.
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But it’s also here in its attempts to impart moral wisdom that The Beauty comes up firmly against some rather strong irony: How are we supposed to take seriously any sincere message about beauty standards from a series that delights in letting its camera linger over these nude beauties, or from a showrunner with a history of repeatedly casting a very specific type of handsome white man, and who let his last show be led by the likes of Kim Kardashian?
Eventually, The Beauty morphs from a standard procedural into something more resembling a series of vignettes, with entire episodes devoted to backstories and side plots. Its characters start making nonsense choices, and its plot slowly goes off the rails as it races toward a desperate attempt to secure a second season through an unresolved cliffhanger. And yet, admittedly, if there were another episode, I would probably tune in. Hey, maybe I’m a sucker for beautiful people, or maybe I’m just happy to let this show be what it is. As Rossellini’s character asserts, “Once I learned that beauty is the answer to nothing, I became the happiest I’ve ever been.”
