I aim to be a discerning TV viewer—watching as many miniseries as possible, staying current with the latest Prestige TV, and making sure I don’t miss any sleeper hits. But I’m also self-aware enough to admit I enjoy my fair share of campy, unpolished fare. I’m a regular viewer of RuPaul’s Drag Race, 90 Day Fiancé, and whatever odd reality TV trend has taken pop culture by storm.
Recently, I added the work of to this list. I narrowly escaped the Glee craze, but I’ve watched my fair share of , American Crime Story, and lately surprisingly loved All’s Fair—the unapologetic legal drama centered on Kim Kardashian. So when was announced (Murphy’s first dive into pure science fiction), I thought it was made just for me. The result, much like the medication at the story’s core, is visually stunning and stylish to an extreme. But its effects are all over the place.
The Beauty follows an experimental new shot that forces a painful transformation. You get extremely hot, feverish, and have an unquenchable thirst—but once it’s over, you’re incredibly attractive. Except when you explode. At the heart of the rollout is the mysterious CEO credited as “The Corporation” (Ashton Kutcher), who sees the shot as a path for humanity to reach godliness—much to his (unmedicated) wife Franny’s (Isabella Rossellini) annoyance.
When two detectives (Evan Peters and Rebecca Hall) are assigned to investigate a crime linked to this treatment, the dark truth about The Beauty’s origin and future comes out—and it involves a lot of transformations.
For better or worse, The Beauty doesn’t hold back at all. The series trailer predictably drew many comparisons to The Substance, and the body horror present definitely supports that. Some moments made me want to squirm out of my skin—including a gruesome degloving sequence. Don’t look up that term if you don’t know what it means.
Murphy is known for stunt casting—like Kim Kardashian in All’s Fair or Travis Kelce in Grotesquerie—and that’s everywhere in this series. It includes light, dramatic scenes with characters like Ben Platt and Meghan Trainor being attacked by a The Beauty victim played by Lisa Rinna and Harry Hamlin’s daughter. But thanks to the series’ high body count (in every sense of the word), these small roles don’t require much beyond a “pointing at the screen” reaction moment.
The main acting duties fall to some true powerhouse guest stars, including Fargo’s John Carroll Lynch and The Gilded Age’s Kelli O’Hara. Evan Peters also gives a standout performance in yet another Murphy project, and Ashton Kutcher devours every on-the-nose line of dialogue.
Ryan Murphy clearly loves fictional author Garth Marenghi’s quote: “I know writers who use subtext, and they’re all cowards.” Even though The Beauty is loosely based on the comic of the same name by Jeremy Haun and Jason A. Hurley, it doesn’t settle for just one or two themes. It’s an allegory for pretty privilege, hookup culture, big pharma, the AIDS epidemic, and—yes—the other pandemic that shut down the world over half a decade ago, all at once. It doesn’t perfectly align with any of these real-world issues, so the many monologues it inspires feel, at best, overly long, and at worst, clichéd. And that’s not even mentioning the random twist near the end.
That doesn’t mean there are no bright spots—especially moments where The Beauty actually feels earned. The heartfelt story of a trans woman (Rev. Yolanda) feels like the ideal use of the plot device, but it’s just one of many stories that usually lean more into body dysmorphia and incel culture.
The Beauty is definitely an acquired taste, but if you’re a TV maximalist like me, it’s worth watching just for the experience. If you’re squeamish, there will likely be moments you need to look away from, but there’s plenty more that makes it worthwhile. Heck, Isabella Rossellini in elaborate costumes might be worth it all on her own.