We will never be free of Ryan Murphy.
Depending on whether you love his work or loathe it, that can be anywhere between a blessing and a threat, but hey, I’m not here to judge your taste, at least not right now.
Regardless of how you feel about Ryan Murphy series, one thing that’s certain is the man pushes the envelope to the limits and flirts with unhinged, especially if a series of his lands on FX. And that’s what The Beauty promises.
(FX/Screenshot)
They say beauty is pain, but this FX drama inspired by Jeremy Haun and Jason A. Hurley’s comic book series may lean more toward the truth: Beauty is HORROR.
And The Beauty is definitely about to infect us with body horror to the highest degree, and I’m already squirming at the prospects of it — and the idea of spreading the disease of beauty through an STD/STI.
Sex, beauty, diabolical, wealthy people, and murder! Oh, Ryan Murphy is fully in his element in this one.
But many viewers may be excited to see that The Beauty is helmed by Ashton Kutcher. It has been a while since he’s graced the screen in a television series.
And while his Two and a Half Men millionaire character, Walden Schmidt, had his charm and affability, the same cannot be said about his character, who is merely referenced as “The Corporation.”
(FX/Screenshot)
The fact that he’s named after a powerful entity that likely screws over the everyday person and gets rich off of them tells you everything you need to know about this character, right?
We also get fun little monikers from other characters. Anthony Ramos is called “The Assassin, and wears a comically villainous eye-patch.
I’m assuming he’s a peddler of this beauty drug but not necessarily a recipient of it, because “eye patch,” but have they SEEN Anthony Ramos? I’m just saying.
Evan Peters, who shockingly never ages, leads the series as Cooper Madsen, the FBI agent who is investigating all the many deaths related to this superdrug that makes people beautiful but also ballistic.
In the trailer, we see Bella Hadid crashing the hell out in the middle of a restaurant, and it’s not because they brought her the wrong order or anything like that.
(FX/Screenshot)
The side effects of the super-beauty injection that has billionaire The Corporation living his best life and having his employees play him “Yacht Rock” while he’s relaxing in a hot tub in the middle of whatever European body of water he’s inhabiting amid his globe-trotting are a mess.
But he doesn’t exactly want to be bothered with it.
We see him yelling at Rob Yang’s character, who is presumably in charge of tinkering with the injection to ensure that it’s not leading to mass defects, including beautiful people abruptly becoming quite monstrous and murder, so much murder.
As a side note, Rob Yang is such a great character actor, and as a stoic scientist, he is bound to be fun opposite Kutcher, going all the way IN with his flamboyant, grandiose, obnoxious billionaire shtick here.
This beauty drug is mutating beyond what they can contain, but who cares when you mass-produce it as much as possible and rake in billions, right?!
(FX/Screenshot)
Of course, it’s not until there are deaths of supermodels that Agents Madsen and Bennett are on the case.
And somehow, in some way, these FBI agents must trot across Paris, Venice, Rome, and New York to stop the horrors of sexually transmitted beauty being spread across the globe as a billionaire laughs and his assassin kills at large.
Beautiful and hideous bodies everywhere!
The trailer teases so much of this unhinged craziness and also hints at how star-studded the series is; after all, it’s a Ryan Murphy production.
Bella Hadid, Isabella Rossellini, Ben Platt, Jessica Alexander, Meghan Trainor, John Carroll Lynch, Billy Eichner, and Vincent D’Onofrio are only some of the familiar faces we can see in this one.
(FX/Screenshot)
I’m not familiar with the comic book series in the slightest.
I have to be honest with you: even from the trailer, it feels like a culmination of American Horror Story subplots and whatever may have remained on the cutting room floor after nearly a decade of Nip/Tuck.
But seriously, check out the trailer and share your first impression.
The Beauty premieres with three episodes on Wednesday, January 21, at 9/8c on Hulu and FX.
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