Ryan Murphy’s Enjoyable-Sufficient FX Satirical Body Horror

Were you to inform me that The Beauty, a brand new FX darkish comedy, had been Ryan Murphy‘s final TV sequence — a chaotic and inconsistent summation of a chaotic and inconsistent physique of labor — I’d imagine you. 

It isn’t. He’s bought a dozen reveals — in all probability extra — at numerous levels within the pipeline. 

But The Beauty is affectionately cumulative, a regularly gross, sometimes provocative mix of Nip/Tuck and numerous American Horror Story iterations. 

Adapted by Murphy and longtime collaborator Matt Hodgson from the comedian guide by Jeremy Haun and Jason A. Hurley, the present is just not merely by-product of Murphy’s personal oeuvre. It will remind viewers with brief reminiscences of The Substance, particularly since The Beauty co-stars Ashton Kutcher, ex-husband of that film’s star, Demi Moore. It will remind barely older viewers of Death Becomes Her, a film that co-starred Isabella Rossellini, a recurring visitor star in The Beauty. It will remind cinephiles of David Cronenberg’s bleakly satirical forays into physique horror, particularly The Fly and Rabid, in addition to style classics like Eyes Without a Face.

The sequence, which undoubtedly doesn’t full its story within the 11-episode first season, is one among Murphy’s most thought-full (if not considerate) reveals in years. It’s extremely debatable what number of of these ideas are recent or unique or totally examined, but it surely’s a busy present that can preserve many viewers occupied attempting to make sense of its breadcrumb path of acquainted concepts and acquainted twists and turns. My sense is that the path results in nothing revelatory, however at the very least you’re handled to loads of exploding our bodies, piles of steaming flesh and a writhing A-list forged alongside the best way. 

The Beauty begins with one of many extra thrilling sequences of Murphy’s directing profession. A mannequin (Bella Hadid) walks off the stage at a Paris runway present, assaults a lady for her bottle of water and engages in an adrenalized bike chase by means of the City of Lights, accompanied by Prodigy’s “Firestarter,” resulting in a showdown with police during which the mannequin … explodes. This is as shut as we’re ever prone to get to seeing what a Ryan Murphy-directed James Bond or Mission: Impossible film would seem like, so get pleasure from it.

The case attracts the eye of FBI brokers Madsen (Evan Peters) and Bennett (Rebecca Hall), resulting in the revelation that attractive individuals around the globe are equally spontaneously combusting. Madsen and Bennett, whose partnership additionally contains sleeping collectively, make their option to Rome and Venice because the stakes rise. They’re getting nearer and nearer to a fact that would get them killed, or remodeled eternally.

It all pertains to a thriller drug often known as The Beauty, which provides unimaginable bodily attractiveness and … a wide range of unwanted effects. The promise of youth and vitality brings with it the promise of extra wealth for an enigmatic billionaire (Kutcher), who’s so dedicated to his product that he employs an enigmatic murderer (Anthony Ramos) to scrub up unfastened ends.

How a lot would you pay to seem like an actor from a Ryan Murphy present? What would you do to seem like an actor from a Ryan Murphy present? And what to make of the added wrinkle that, along with its pure laboratory model, The Beauty might be sexually transmitted? How a lot credit score can we give creators for using an AIDS metaphor in 2026, 40 years after The Fly and 33 years after Abel Ferrara’s Body Snatchers?

With these because the central questions, there are extra actors who seem like actors from a Ryan Murphy present in The Beauty than in any earlier Ryan Murphy present, with the titular drug providing a magnificence that’s renewable and interchangeable, similar to so most of the younger stars in Ryan Murphy reveals.

Some writers with Murphy’s physique of labor, then, would see a present like The Beauty as a possibility for self-reflection and self-critique, however this has by no means been the factor that Ryan Murphy does greatest. Here, as in latest seasons of Netflix’s Monster, it’s really the factor he does worst.

The Beauty is in regards to the societal circumstances that might make the drug in query so irresistible, updating the cosmetic surgery satire of Nip/Tuck to lift its eyebrow within the route of social media, relentless promoting and youthful tradition of bullying and peer stress. But would possibly this even be a possibility for a present — during which each actor appears to be like both like a mannequin, continuously displaying off their cheekbones and six-packs, or like John Carroll Lynch (guesting because the FBI brokers’ boss) — to show inward and look at how casting TV with this form of omnivorous gaze would possibly have an effect on individuals who watch and mistake it for an idealized actuality? 

Nope. Just because the Monster anthology is in regards to the ghoulishness of viewers who devour true-crime trash however not in regards to the duty of the artists saturating the leisure panorama with content material feeding that want, The Beauty has many ideas on what perpetuates our society’s magnificence aspirations however none suggesting the issue is coming from inside the home. 

Like the Monster reveals, The Beauty has empathy for the “victims” — the “normal” individuals who can be the patron base for a super-drug of this kind — however that empathy is often restricted to standalone episodes outdoors the primary storyline. 

As enjoyable as The Beauty might be when it’s about fairly FBI brokers in worldwide areas and beautiful individuals ripping off their flesh, peeling off their fingernails and gingerly eradicating their tooth, one of the best episodes — a lot of that are admirably brief, some underneath a half-hour, even — give attention to unusual individuals. 

An episode centered round a pair of lab technicians (Eddie Kaye Thomas and Rev Yolanda), one schlumpy and one trans, raises a few of the greatest and most totally realized themes within the sequence. Another centered on a teenage woman (Chloe Sevigny doppelgänger Emma Halleen), whose insecurities blind her to a life that’s, on its floor, fairly good, finds a palpable disappointment inside the bedlam of the present. 

A much less beneficiant strategy comes within the early episode that includes Broadway star Jaquel Spivey as an chubby incel pushed to desperation by on-line message boards. Spivey is phenomenal, however the sequence’ leering contempt for his character is unsettling, and after establishing some distressing particulars, the character’s arc goes in a wildly completely different route.

That’s what The Beauty (and too many lesser Ryan Murphy reveals) does too usually. The sequence options simply sufficient acknowledgment of Ozempic, the lingering impression of COVID, the Sacklers, and many others., to counsel how an examination of America’s obsession with magnificence and youth (and pharmaceutical options to myriad issues) can be completely different in 2026 than in 2003, when Nip/Tuck premiered. But every part is so cursory as to make it very arduous to inform what the storytellers take into consideration something. 

Throw out sufficient concepts with out connecting the dots and the results might be unintended. I may make an argument that the present is someplace between anti-vax or vaccine-skeptical, a message that I don’t assume is meant however is completely there for anyone who desires to selectively interpret. 

Or you may simply skip attempting to “read” this textual content and settle for that it’s a couple of drug that makes you both sizzling or explode-y. Nothing extra, nothing much less. 

The Beauty spins in circles, generally charging ahead with the propulsion of an motion film, different occasions pausing to let actors wallow in on-the-nose conversations and a rhythmically contorting transformation ritual that may have been impressed by Alvin Ailey, however Ailey was saying particular issues about Black our bodies and Murphy and fellow administrators (together with Michael Uppendahl and Alexis Martin Woodall) solely want they had been. 

Regardless, the consequences are each disgusting and well-executed. There’s little within the discarded pores and skin fits and ooze of infinite colours that followers of the style haven’t seen earlier than, however the identical was true of The Substance, which, like The Beauty, was meant to shock casuals greater than gorehounds.

Grounding the outlandishness of the sequence is a usually sport forged. Peters is having fun with enjoying motion star, flashing a badge and having martial arts-inspired fights in Italian areas, and he handles his half of the honest love story successfully. Hall works as the opposite half, however an excessive amount of of her character relies across the underwhelming irony that even stunning individuals can have insecurities. Ramos’ murderer is caught repeating the identical sadistic beats till he’s paired with Jeremy Pope, who in all probability offers my favourite efficiency within the present for the depths he finds that go effectively past his dialogue. 

Kutcher has the right artificial smarminess for a personality prepared to destroy the world to make himself richer, and he has good scenes bouncing reverse Rossellini, however he’s miscast for a number of key causes that I can’t clarify with out spoilers. 

As all the time, Murphy has a deep bench of recurring ensemble gamers to name upon together with favorites like Lynch, Jon Jon Briones, Ari Graynor, Billy Eichner and Ben Platt. And then there are round 50 actors whose main qualification is “hot” and whose performances vary from “hot” to, effectively, “hot.” Enjoy the attention sweet. Don’t fear in regards to the lack of nuance. 

And don’t fear that Ryan Murphy goes away simply because The Beauty seems like a full-circle second, if removed from a pinnacle. There are nonetheless loads of American horror, love and crime tales, loads of hunky serial killers and loads of showcases for warm stars that gained’t require an inside moral audit.