Ryan Murphy, the busiest man in television, is currently seated at the helm of two water cooler series, Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette and The Beauty. The latter met its gory end on March 4 with the finale episode, “Beautiful Betrayal.” Before we dive in, let’s recap.
The Beauty premiered in late January as a science fiction body horror, based on a comic book of the same name, but more quietly inspired by the Ozempic era and the 2024 horror hit The Substance. The series stars Evan Peters (obviously), Anthony Ramos, Jeremy Pope, Rebecca Hall, and Ashton Kutcher.
The concept is pretty simple. A drug called “The Beauty” debuts and wreaks havoc on society, promising complete physical transformation for anyone willing to take the shot. The drug was designed to be administered via injection, but at the start of the series we learn that a sexually transmitted variant of the drug has escaped the lab and is ripping through the upper echelons of polite society. The sexually transmitted strain of the drug is far more unstable, prone to extreme mutations and eventual catastrophic failures (read: actual self implosion).
Evan Peters and Rebecca Hall play FBI agents (turned lovers, naturally) investigating the curious deaths linked to The Beauty. Ashton Kutcher plays Byron Forst, the abhorrent billionaire behind The Corporation, the company behind the drug. He himself took the drug years ago, which we learn via flashback to the original Byron Forst, played by Vincent D’Onofrio. Anthony Ramos is a beautiful assassin assigned to stop the spread of The Beauty in the sexual marketplace. He teams up with Jeremy Pope’s character, who was introduced to the underworld via his own transformation.
Byron Forst and The Corporation are mounting a worldwide debut of their miracle drug to the public, despite complications (read: actual self implosion). Jordan (Rebecca Hall) has been transformed by The Beauty, and Cooper (Evan Peters) decides to follow suit. His transformation kicks off the season-ending drama, as he emerges as a younger version of himself. By younger we mean like pre-pubescent. His very adult lover Jordan looks on in horror.
Now that we’ve laid the scene, let’s skip to the ending.
The finale wastes no time escalating the chaos. Amid breaking news that The Beauty has officially been released to the public (one day earlier than expected), the episode jumps forward a week to introduce two high school girls, Emma and Ruthie.
Through their eyes, we see how completely the drug has infiltrated everyday life. Advertisements for The Beauty are everywhere, and at school it’s simply known as “the shot.” Ruthie, who recently suffered through a botched nose job, convinces her wealthy parents to let her get the treatment. The result is instant and she returns to school completely remade.
Before long she slips Emma a business card. One of the clinic employees, she says, can help people access The Beauty “other ways” if they can’t afford the official treatment.
Back in the land of Byron Forst, his freshly Beauty-ed sons Tig and Gunther ambush their mother Frannie (Isabella Rosselini) with the shot, despite her vehement, season-long rejection of the drug. Frannie’s response cuts through the entire premise of the show. She reminds him she was already perfect. The transformation, she says, erased the stretch marks and scars she earned over a lifetime—and with them, everything she worked for. She suddenly slits her throat, but is rushed to the hospital and stabilized.
Back to little Emma: she finds herself on a date with the handsome clinic employee Ruthie mentioned. He reveals that, in addition to his original dose, he secretly took a second dose that morning, offering her what he calls the “most powerful version of this miracle science.”
She does the deed, goes home, and is found in the morning by her mother as a leaking, malformed creature, covered in viscous fluid, barely recognizable as human.
Pivoting back to Byron’s office, we learn that six million doses of The Beauty have already been administered, with an 83 percent success rate. The sexually transmitted strain, however, is spreading in ways the company can’t fully track, and the mutation cases are significantly worse. Byron’s son Tig makes a very Succession-coded bid for control of the company.
He offers the show’s core four– Jordan, Cooper, Jeremy, and the Assassin– an antidote to The Beauty. In a padded room, Cooper is injected and begins a transformation. The final shot is of his hand emerging from a skin-like membrane, followed by a quick cut to black.
In the cliffhanger of all cliffhangers, fans of The Beauty are left to wonder if they’ll see a season 2. What became of Emma? Will Cooper get his adulthood back? Will The Beauty saturate American society the way weight-loss drugs have in real life? Only time, and the greenlight of a second season, will tell.
All episodes of ‘The Beauty’ are streaming now on Hulu and Disney+.
