Ryan Murphy, the dark genius, is back to tear bodies apart one more time. Set against the backdrop of the supermodel world, Murphy’s latest body-horror, The Beauty, lays bare, or at least attempts to lay bare, the ugliness beneath the glamorous facade in eleven episodes. And it has been done in true Murphy fashion- with some visceral, flesh-warping, and explosive (literally) shocks that everyone always anticipates in his work, yet gets gut-wrenched by, anyway. 

With the countdown to the next episodes already started, now is the time to catch up on the three opening episodes that have safely launched the series on a pretty solid footing.

The pilot does not waste any time in setting the show’s tone. A frantically thirsty Bella Hadid goes on a rampage in search of water right in the middle of her runway walk. And just when it appears to be a classic rabies symptom, the supermodel explodes into a shower of blood droplets. Soon after that delightful little nightmare, viewers are taken to a best-friends-turned-situationship scenario between two FBI officers, Cooper and Jordan, played by Evan Peters and Rebecca Hall.  

Where ‘beauty’ is concerned, Cooper is a self-confident man, inspired by Kintsugi philosophies, who does not believe in fixing his scars but embracing them instead. Meanwhile, Jordan believes in correcting what she deems imperfect about her body. Foreshadowing, much?

The next day, the FBI officers wake up to the ‘Runway Massacre,’ and start connecting the dots to similar incidents recorded in Berlin and London.

The investigation also leads them to two very crucial discoveries. The supermodel who exploded did so due to internal combustion, which they chalk up to an unknown virus that triggers an extreme spike in body temperature. The other lead was the victims’ backgrounds, which revealed a drastic change in their appearance that clearly could not have been achieved through just salads and lunges. 

The story then cuts to yet another pivotal character, Jeremy, consumed by his insecurities. Following a random internet recommendation, Jeremy ends up in a plastic surgeon's clinic, hoping to look conventionally desirable. The surgery, however, does little more than just flatten a few features, leaving him looking basically the same. Driven by rage and despair, Jeremy barges into the clinic with a gun and opens fire on the staff.

Just as he is about to kill the surgeon, the doctor offers him one last chance at transformation. Little did he know that the transformation would be less of a makeover montage and more of a full-blown cocoon-to-butterfly situation. In complete desperation and ignorance, Jeremy is tricked into contracting an STD from a strange woman, Claire, which triggers a grotesque, Frankenstein-esque transformation. Nevertheless, it does leave him grinning at his new reflection in the mirror at last. 

The episode closes on Cooper and Jordan being sent to Venice to investigate another human-explosion, this time an influencer, right after realizing that the virus in question is even more virulent than Ebola. 

Episode two takes the protagonists, Cooper and Jordan, to Venice, where they investigate yet another exploded body, identical to the ones in Paris, Berlin, and London. At the crime scene, the officials note an Egyptian symbol drawn with the victim’s blood, which translates to ‘Beauty’. Soon, the viral illusion collapses, and viewers get to know about the actual substance that is making bodies blast from the inside. 

It is no evil love child of HIV and rabies. It is a formula, made by the Corporation, represented by a tech billionaire, played by Ashton Kutcher, who believes that beauty is the only form of anarchy that matters. 

The problem is that the formula has now been stolen, which explains the horrifyingly beautiful epidemic. An assassin is now looking for the thief. Cooper and Jordan, meanwhile, are busy dissecting another clue shared by the last victim from Venice, who posted a cryptic social media video before the deadly combustion, warning, “Don’t do it.” Before the officers can get to the bottom of the vague clue, another bloody explosion pulls them back to the United States. The editor-in-chief of Vogue has now been blown to bits.

Amid the unexplainable madness, Cooper and Jordan are also dealing with their conflicting feelings toward one another. After a very passively aggressive argument, Cooper and Jordan briefly separate in the city, only to realize that it was one thing they should not have done.

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While Cooper is brutally attacked by two men on his way back to the hotel, Jordan spends the night with a man infected with the now-familiar virus-cum-STD-cum-formula.

The third episode starts with a new case for Cooper and Jordan, with multiple unresolved cases pending already. However, the FBI officers now have their own mess to deal with before solving cases. Following the attack in the previous episode, Cooper is now being interrogated while Jordan is MIA. However, one thing is made clear- the former is not infected while the latter definitely is. 

The plot then shifts to the mysterious assassin who has now embarked on a new mission in Indianapolis, on the orders of the Corporation, to find Jeremy’s surgeon. It also turns out that all the obstacles that came in the way of the FBI investigation were planted by the corporation as well. However, now that Cooper has freed himself from the interrogation, the Corporation seems to be back in hot water. 

In Indianapolis, the assassin learns that the surgeon is already dead, which then leads him to follow the trail. He finds Jeremy, but he escapes. Now the assassin tries to locate the woman (Claire) who infected him, but also finds her on the verge of exploding just like other victims.

Things take a sudden, frantic turn when Claire attacks the assassin, and amid the chaos, Jeremy ends up killing her. In return, he begs the assassin to kill him as well. Surprisingly, the assassin seems to have a change of heart and spares Jeremy’s life. It becomes fairly clear from this moment where Jeremy’s arc is headed next.

With Jeremy now part of the vicious system, Jordan contaminated, and Cooper working alone to get to the bottom of his investigation, the next few episodes will show just how far this STD that makes people both hot and ‘hot’ is willing to take us.

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What do you think about the first three episodes of The Beauty? Let us know in the comments below!