Ryan Murphy has been navigating a rocky stretch lately. His most recent projects, Monster: The Ed Gein Story and All’s Fair, drew initial curiosity but faltered under critical scrutiny, their early buzz fading almost as quickly as it arrived. So when the first trailers for his latest series hit the internet, inviting immediate comparisons to Coralie Fargeat’s 2024 award-winning film The Substance, a sense of skepticism was unavoidable. Could Murphy really follow or worse, imitate such a taut, meticulously crafted piece of cinema? The odds seemed stacked.
And yet, here’s the surprising truth: The Beauty is its own, unapologetically ambitious beast. Yes, there are nods to The Substance, but to reduce the series to a mere homage would be a disservice. While Fargeat’s film hones in on the corrosive effects of beauty culture on aging women, Murphy and co-creator Matthew Hodgson cast a far wider net. The result is a narrative that feels both timely and sprawling, a landscape where vanity, desire, and human desperation collide.
For anyone hoping to recapture that old Ryan Murphy magic, this show delivers. From the writing to the performances, from the special effects to the soundtrack, The Beauty hits all the marks. (And honestly, I’ll never hear a Christopher Cross song the same way again.)
The series draws from Jason A. Hurley and Jeremy Haun’s 2016 graphic novel, a deceptively simple premise: what if there were a way to become instantly beautiful, and at what cost? In the source material, the infection spreads organically, half the population already affected, and gradually revealing its horrifying consequences from relentless fever to spontaneous combustion. The show, however, transforms that infection into a deliberate choice: an injection promising not just beauty, but perfection. It’s a stunning escalation.
Characters can achieve chiseled abs, full lips, flawless skin, and sculpted physiques and yet, it’s not just superficial. They feel stronger, healthier, untouchable by disease, even death itself. Watching people willingly pursue this hyper-idealized perfection is thrilling, grotesque, and deeply human all at once. The series asks a haunting question: what lengths will we go to for the version of ourselves we think we deserve?
Murphy explores this question through multiple lenses. The series opens not in quiet dread but with a pulse-quickening action set piece: Bella Hadidor, rather, a model played by her striding down a Balenciaga runway in Paris. She’s visibly disoriented, teary-eyed, sweating under her skintight red leather outfit. And then the carnage begins. What starts as minor disruption quickly escalates into violence as she attacks the audience, driven by a bizarre thirst for water, yes, but also for destruction. The Prodigy’s “Firestarter” underlines the chaos as she commandeers a motorcycle and careens through the city, surviving a grisly car-vs-bike collision. By the song’s end, an unexpected explosion leaves viewers in shock, setting the stage for the narrative that follows.
Enter FBI agents Cooper (Evan Peters, a long-time Murphy collaborator) and Jordan (Rebecca Hall), partners, friends-with-benefits or maybe more. Tasked with unraveling the cause behind the model’s violent episode, they are swept from Paris to Rome to New York, tracing a chain of beautiful people succumbing to inexplicable aggression, spontaneous combustion, or gruesome murder. Yet the show is not only about mystery; it thrives in the exploration of desire itself.
Murphy and Hodgson offer us diverse perspectives: Jeremy (Jeremy Pope, familiar from Pose and Hollywood), a basement-dwelling outsider who believes perfecting his body will solve all his problems; Bella (Emma Halleen), an insecure teen whose very name meaning beautiful underscores her yearning to be seen; Clara (Rev Yolanda), a trans woman searching for alignment between her inner self and outer form. And then there are the billionaires, particularly Ashton Kutcher’s The Corporation, a figure who feels like a caricature of Elon Musk with his space ventures and electric cars, yet terrifyingly real in his hubris. “Billionaires, we don’t need friends, we have staff,” he declares at one point, later demanding someone kneel before him. He employs assassins, including Anthony Ramos in a chilling echo of Patrick Bateman, to enforce his will.
The series sparkles with cameos and Easter eggs Billy Eichner, Lux Pascal, John Carroll Lynch, Ben Platt, Anthony Rapp but it’s Isabella Rossellini who commands the screen whenever she appears. Her presence is a constant reminder that perfection is a hollow pursuit, that striving to be flawless doesn’t equate to true beauty.
Murphy’s commentary is uncomfortably timely. With The Beauty functioning as an injectable miracle drug, comparisons to GLP-1 shots like Ozempic and Mounjaro are inevitable and intentional. In 2024, Murphy himself highlighted this parallel, and with nearly one in eight U.S. adults currently on GLP-1s, the series lands squarely in the middle of a cultural conversation about body image, health, and societal pressure. It’s provocative, yes, and bound to divide audiences especially those who only sample the trailer. But the show’s real brilliance lies in its empathy, casting a nuanced light on the human yearning to feel, or simply appear, better.
Ultimately, The Beauty may be one of Murphy’s most compelling efforts in years. It echoes the provocative spirit of American Horror Story, the aesthetic audacity of Nip/Tuck, and the emotional depth of Pose, yet it carves out its own territory: a sci-fi body horror that is as thoughtful as it is viscerally thrilling. Comparisons to The Substance are unavoidable, but the show stands on its own, offering thrills, grotesque spectacle, and an oddly tender human core. Fair warning: don’t watch this on your lunch break unless your stomach is steel.
The Beauty (2026) Parents Guide
Violence & Intensity: The series contains frequent, intense violence. From brutal physical attacks to car crashes and spontaneous explosions, the imagery is often graphic and unsettling. Characters may be murdered, maimed, or violently attacked on screen, and the tone is relentlessly tense. Horror and body-horror elements are present, including bleeding, disfigurement, and sudden death. Some sequences like the opening Balenciaga runway attack are especially high-octane and may be disturbing for younger viewers.
Language: Expect frequent profanity, including “f***,” “s***,” and other expletives, alongside occasional sexualized insults. Slurs or discriminatory remarks appear rarely, often reflecting character desperation or societal critique rather than endorsement. The overall tone is mature, sometimes sardonic, but rarely gratuitous language underscores tension and emotional stakes.
Sexual Content / Nudity: Sexual themes are present throughout the series. Early episodes depict hyper-sexualized bodies, partial nudity, and implied sexual activity. Some scenes use sexuality to emphasize obsession with perfection and desire, rather than erotic titillation. While explicit sexual acts are minimal, sexualized violence and the focus on physical beauty are prominent and can be unsettling.
Drugs, Alcohol & Smoking: Substance use is occasionally referenced. Characters consume alcohol in social or elite settings. While traditional recreational drugs appear minimally, the series centers on The Beauty itself a transformative injection likened to GLP-1 drugs which acts as a sci-fi stand-in for drug culture and obsession with body modification. Smoking is rare and not glamorized.
Age Recommendations: Given the graphic violence, body horror, sexualized content, and mature themes, The Beauty is suitable for mature teens (17+) and adults. Parents should be aware that even without explicit sexual acts, the intensity, gore, and psychological tension may be too much for younger viewers.
The Beauty premieres Wednesday, January 21, 2026, on FX and Hulu.
Highly Recommended:
I am a journalist with 10+ years of experience, specializing in family-friendly film reviews.