In Ryan Murphy’s latest series The Beauty, co-created with Matthew Hodgson, the first five-and-a-half minutes of the pilot opens at a Paris fashion show, where models stride confidently down the runway. One model—played by supermodel icon Bella Hadid—begins to glisten with sweat, her behavior growing more agitated. Without warning, she charges into the crowd, gulping down audience members’ water bottles before snapping their necks and hurling them aside. She then bolts from the venue, stealing a motorcycle and tearing through the streets of Paris. A car then plows into her, tossing her across the intersection. For a few moments, her body lies mangled and twisted on the ground before her bones suddenly begin to snap back into place. Slowly, she rises from the ground, making her way towards a restaurant where she violently attacks the workers. She heads for the restroom, washing her face with water but it seems to burn her skin. Outside, she faces a line of police officers awaiting her armed with guns. Before anything can happen, she combusts into a steaming pool of blood and guts.
The episode then introduces its two main protagonists, FBI detectives Cooper Madsen and Jordan Bennett, in the middle of sex in a Parisian hotel room. Afterwards, they casually catch up—Jordan mentions her new breast implants, while Cooper shares details about a recent date. Jordan drags Cooper along for a night out at the club. The next day, an agent shows them footage of the catastrophic events from earlier. The agent reveals that there have been similar combustion-related incidents involving supermodels in the past. Cooper and Jordan then pay a visit to the morgue where they witness the steaming pile of guts for themselves. Through the biopsy paperwork, they discover that the supermodel had an unknown virus. As Cooper and Jordan investigate the other models who met similar ends, they uncover striking discrepancies in their past appearances—they look like entirely different people.
Meanwhile, back in Jersey, a young obese man named Jeremy lives at home with his mother. He chats online with a friend to which they refer him to a mysterious plastic surgery office: ANUU. The doctor explains to Jeremy that he is an incel and that his genetics have made him unable to be desired by women. But with his help, things can change for Jeremy. After the operation, Jeremy visits a bar, now with slightly more chiseled features. He dances with a group of women, but when he returns from the restroom, he discovers that they have left him. Angered by this outcome, he furiously returns to ANUU, threatening the doctor at gunpoint. The doctor desperately pleads with him, telling him there is one more option. In a fancy hotel room, the doctor invites a mysterious woman inside. The woman, seductively wrapped in a lacy cloak, takes Jeremy’s virginity. When he wakes up, she is nowhere to be seen. Dizzy, dehydrated, and drenched in sweat, he downs several water bottles. But suddenly, he flings back, losing control of his muscles as his body contorts in every direction. He sheds the outer layer of his skin to reveal a sac of some sort: Inside, a new version of Jeremy arises. He stumbles into the restroom before catching a glimpse of his reflection: a more beautiful version of himself.
During the episode’s final moments, Cooper and Jordan meet with their boss, who confirms that the virus found in the models is contagious, spreading around through bodily secretion. He sends Cooper and Jordan to Venice to investigate the death of an influencer who has also tested positive for the virus.
The pilot episode, albeit very entertaining, also proves to be frenetic and disjointed. The episode immediately kicks off with a sequence of violent catastrophic events that don’t necessarily feel earned just yet. As a result, the building of suspense feels rushed and manic in a jarring way. Additionally, some character motivations feel confusing and unclear, specifically seen when Jeremy returns to the plastic surgery office with a gun, killing the receptionist and threatening the doctor at gunpoint. Before this, Jeremy, as lonely as he was, never exhibited any signs of violence to this extent. The episode is guided by solid performances from Evan Peters and Rebecca Hall, whose chemistry is immediately palpable. Still, setting some of these narrative flaws aside, the episode’s most compelling element—and the driving force of the series as a whole—is its striking sense of timeliness. Based on the comic book of the same name, the show thematically tackles society’s obsession with beauty standards to an extremely self-detrimental extent. In doing so, the episode shines a light on new age terms and topics such as the “involuntary celibate” (“incel”) that draws similarities to the real world. And similarly enough, online algorithms have pushed “looksmaxxing” content into the mainstream, promoting extreme and often dangerous methods of enhancing one’s appearance in an effort to reinforce the idea that beauty is essential for navigating society successfully. Amid all the violence and gore, the episode’s most striking moment arguably comes during a brief exchange between Cooper and his date, when she comments that his slightly gray teeth suggest he must have taken antibiotics as a child–an odd comment that ultimately reveals a truth behind society’s nit-picky obsession with appearance.
Rating: 6/10