The Beauty

The Terminal Glow

In the age of algorithmic face filters and injectable miracles, vanity was bound to become a pathology. With *The Beauty*, creator Ryan Murphy (alongside Matt Hodgson) doesn't just suggest that the pursuit of perfection is a disease; he literalizes it into a sexually transmitted plague. Premiering on FX amidst a cultural conversation dominated by "Ozempic face" and bio-hacking, this adaptation of the Jeremy Haun and Jason A. Hurley comic book arrives with the subtlety of a sledgehammer, yet it possesses a seductive, feverish glint that is difficult to look away from. It is a work that asks a question terrifyingly relevant to 2026: if a virus could make you beautiful before it killed you, would you even want the cure?



Murphy has built an empire on the intersection of camp and horror, but *The Beauty* feels distinct from the gothic excess of *American Horror Story*. Here, the horror is clinical, brightly lit, and dressed in couture. The series establishes a visual language that is aggressively sleek. The cinematography favors the cold, sterile whites of medical labs and the champagne-gold lighting of high-fashion runways, creating a world that looks like a perfume commercial hiding a charnel house.

When we see the infected—those who have contracted "The Beauty"—they glow with an ethereal, uncanny health. Their skin is poreless; their jawlines are sharp. It is a frighteningly effective visual shorthand for our modern dysmorphia. We are trained to find this artificiality attractive, even as the narrative reveals the spontaneous combustion awaits them. The directors use this dissonance to great effect, particularly in the pilot's opening sequence involving a supermodel on a subway platform, a scene that oscillates between envy-inducing glamour and visceral, Cronenbergian collapse.



However, the glossy veneer would shatter without a human anchor, and the series finds its gravity in the pairing of Evan Peters and Rebecca Hall. As FBI Agents Cooper Madsen and Jordan Bennett, they bring a noir-inflected weariness that grounds the more outlandish sci-fi elements. Peters, a veteran of Murphy’s troupe, plays against type here—restrained, professional, and deeply sad—while Hall offers a ferocious intelligence that cuts through the absurdity of the premise.

They are up against "The Corporation," personified by Ashton Kutcher’s tech billionaire, Byron Forst. Kutcher’s casting is a meta-textual gamble that largely pays off; he channels the tech-bro messiah complex with a chilling, vapid charisma, selling a lethal virus as if it were a lifestyle subscription. The friction between the agents’ gritty procedural world and Forst’s sanitized corporate utopia drives the narrative tension.



If there is a fault line in *The Beauty*, it is one common to Murphy’s productions: the tendency for the message to be shouted rather than whispered. The allegories for the AIDS crisis and the modern weight-loss drug craze are layered on thick, occasionally suffocating the characters’ internal nuances. Yet, in its most effective moments, the series transcends its "message" to become a tragic meditation on loneliness. The characters chasing the virus aren't just vain; they are invisible, terrified of being ordinary in a world that only values the extraordinary. *The Beauty* may not be a subtle diagnosis of our culture, but as a mirror held up to our collective vanity, it offers a reflection that is as captivating as it is grotesque.