{"id":2258392,"date":"2026-01-30T18:10:38","date_gmt":"2026-01-30T18:10:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2258392"},"modified":"2026-01-30T18:10:38","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T18:10:38","slug":"theres-lots-of-substance-in-ryan-murphys-the-beauty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/theres-lots-of-substance-in-ryan-murphys-the-beauty\/","title":{"rendered":"There’s lots of ‘Substance’ in Ryan Murphy’s ‘The Beauty’"},"content":{"rendered":"

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It took \u201cThe Substance\u201d less than three hours to catalog the horrors of tampering with the aging process.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThe Beauty,\u201d however, dissects the subject in 11 episodes and doesn\u2019t really come up with a better conclusion.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Co-created by Ryan Murphy (who discussed the issue in \u201cNip\/Tuck\u201d years ago), the limited series suggests there\u2019s a sexually transmitted treatment (called \u201cthe beauty\u201d) that can change a person\u2019s look quickly\u00a0\u2014 only there are some cruel side effects.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Ben Platt, left, as Manny and Evan Peters as Cooper Madsen in episode 4 of “The Beauty”<\/p>\n

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When deaths result, the FBI is called in to investigate. Officers Cooper Madison (Evan Peters) and Jordan Bennett (Rebecca Hall) \u2014 who look like Mulder and Scully from \u201cThe X Files\u201d \u2014 connect the dots and realize they lead to a tech billionaire (played by Ashton Kutcher) who dabbles in the substance himself.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Isabella Rossellini as Franny Forst in “The Beauty”<\/p>\n

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Before long, we get those celebrity cameos Murphy is known for and the kind of scares that have kept \u201cAmerican Horror Story\u201d afloat for years. There\u2019s a European jaunt that muddies the case, brings in some high-action scenes and introduces The Assassin (Anthony Ramos), who drags the story in another direction. To keep it from becoming \u201cThe Next Top Exploding Model,\u201d Murphy \u2014 who also directed episodes \u2014 focuses on a loner (played by Jeremy Pope) who goes from overweight to over-hot in what seems like minutes. He\u2019s under the thumb of a grotesque plastic surgeon (Jon Jon Briones) who introduces even more subthemes.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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People are also reading\u2026<\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n
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By the time \u201cThe Beauty\u201d has gossiped about every body type, it\u2019s time to get down to telling a story. The FBI agents disappear more than they should and deal with their own crisis of identity.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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While it\u2019s fun to see a parade of supermodels, Broadway actors and \u201cHorror Story\u201d regulars, it\u2019s less an indictment of body issues and more a case of throwing everything into the mix.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Kutcher doesn\u2019t get as much screen time as he should, and Pope becomes aligned with Ramos in ways we\u2019re not quite sure.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Ashton Kutcher as The Corporation in “The Beauty”<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe Beauty\u201d wallows in nudity and uses so much goo it\u2019s hard to figure what the \u201cup\u201d side is when there appear to be so many downers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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What might be a better story is how Murphy gets buy-in from so many blue-chip actors. Most aren\u2019t given juicy scenes and, when they do, they explode or disappear.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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How far are people willing to go to become beautiful? This answers the question, but it also shows what happens when smart people don\u2019t know how to say no.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThe Beauty\u201d airs on FX and streams on Hulu.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Stay up-to-date on what’s happening<\/h2>\n

Receive the latest in local entertainment news in your inbox weekly!<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source tucson.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It took \u201cThe Substance\u201d less than three hours to catalog the horrors of tampering with the aging process. \u201cThe Beauty,\u201d however, dissects the subject in 11 episodes and doesn\u2019t really come up with a better conclusion. Co-created by Ryan Murphy (who discussed the issue in \u201cNip\/Tuck\u201d years ago), the limited series suggests there\u2019s a sexually […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2258393,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[398917,420785],"class_list":["post-2258392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-dcc","tag-lee-national"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Theres-lots-of-Substance-in-Ryan-Murphys-The-Beauty.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2258392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2258392"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2258392\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2258394,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2258392\/revisions\/2258394"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2258393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2258392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2258392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2258392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}