SPOILER ALERT:<\/strong> This post contains stories from the two-part Season 1 finale of \u201cThe Beauty,\u201d now streaming on FX on Hulu and Disney+.<\/p>\n FX\u2019s body-horror odyssey \u201cThe Beauty\u201d spent its first season reveling in the gooey, revolting transformations born from taking a drug that can turn a hum-drum existence into a sculpted manifestation of perfection. Average people cocooned in their own veiny skin sacks, rip open a whole new lease on life with chiseled abs, symmetrical faces and enough confidence to take on the world.<\/p>\n More from Variety<\/strong><\/p>\n Over and over again, the series from co-creators Ryan Murphy and Matthew Hodgson showed why people would want to take The Beauty, side effects be damned. But the Season 1 finale offered up the most compelling reason yet why they shouldn\u2019t. In the first part of the two-episode finale, audiences are introduced to Bella (Emma Halleen), a perfectly normal high school student who watches as The Beauty craze sweeps through her world. Her privileged best friend, coming off an unsatisfying nose job, takes the drug and shows up the next day blonde, tanned and ready for the runway. It makes Emma crave the same instantaneous achievement of supposed perfection, even though her parents refuse to consider it, and they don\u2019t have the money even if they did.<\/p>\n Director Michael Uppendahl says the decision to shift the focus of the series in the eleventh hour to a teenage girl the audience had never met came down to who among us would be the best commentator on a global sensation.<\/p>\n \u201cA litmus test for a population at any given time is a 16-year-old girl,\u201d Uppendahl tells Variety. \u201cThey\u2019re up on everything. They\u2019re in a major transitional stage in their life. They\u2019re smarter than the boys, especially at that age. I mean, they remain smarter, but I think they are a measure of what any society is experiencing. This is an uncomfortable thing to confront, and that\u2019s why it makes them the best vessel for this story.\u201d<\/p>\n With no other options to get The Beauty, Bella takes matters into her own hands. One of the technicians who injected her friend offers Emma an alternative: pay him what cash she can get from pawning her mother\u2019s jewelry and he will give her The Beauty as a sexually transmitted disease. All season, The Beauty\u2019s dealer, callous billionaire Byron Forst (Ashton Kutcher), has pushed to release the drug while fearing the one thing he can\u2019t control \u2013\u2013\u00a0this secondhand means of distribution. Bella validates Byron\u2019s fears.<\/p>\n Despite her knight in shining Beauty revealing he took a second shot without knowing the consequences, Bella proceeds not only with losing her virginity, but taking the STD dosage. What she gets is a nightmare scenario, one her mother (Maria Dizzia) unfortunately comes home to discover. In her rebirth, Bella is deformed beyond recognition or repair, a fleshy mass of bleeding orifices, mutated limbs and contorted bone. It\u2019s hard to look at, and that\u2019s exactly what Uppendahl wanted. The team was adamant that Halleen wear Bella\u2019s post-Beauty monstrous suit, and they kept her hidden from Dizzia until the moment she finds her in a closet at the end of a trail of blood and goo.<\/p>\n \u201cMaria is a wonderful actor, so you\u2019ve got to really put it on her to make sure that she\u2019s carrying the audience through it,\u201d he says. \u201cI just tried to think of what would be the worst thing to see. Part of that is anything happening to your child is terrible, but a full compromise of your bodily architecture and skeleton added a whole extra degree of awfulness and horror.\u201d<\/p>\n To achieve the visual anguish and revulsion of Bella\u2019s transformation, they built a set specifically to house the practical suit created by special effects makeup designer David Presto and his team.<\/p>\n \u201cWe actually raised the set and then dug it out, so that Emma could be lowered into it, because her spine had been compromised,\u201d Uppendahl says. \u201cShe was mostly in a full suit, but there was a team of people in the closet with her. Emma was the root of the performance, and that is her voice, but there were puppeteers \u2014 I think we had six \u2014 that were manipulating aspects of her. I worked with Emma quite a bit on how to try and make it make sense to us what she was physically, and then the puppeteers augmented the rest in incredible ways.\u201d<\/p>\n The reason Halleen had to be in the suit came down to one thing. \u201cThe eyes were important to me and to Ryan and to Dave Presto. To make sure that the real Emma was in there, and that was the true connection she had with Maria,\u201d Uppendahl says. \u201cThey had done such great work as a believable mother and daughter, and to cap it off that way was horrible and wonderful all at once.\u201d<\/p>\n Ultimately, the scene becomes the cautionary cornerstone of a sea change in Byron\u2019s world. In the opening moments of the second episode of the two-part finale, Byron\u2019s wife Franny (Isabella Rossellini) is forcibly given The Beauty by her sons, Tig (Ray Nicholson) and Gunther (Brandon Gillard). She had refused to relinquish the battle scars of her life and age, but she wakes up (as guest star Nicola Peltz Beckham) to learn her sons had decided to overrule that wish against her will. In protest to her transformation, she digs a piece of broken pottery into her neck, attempting to take her life instead of living with unwanted rejuvenation. Now, she\u2019s being kept on life support in a gilded ballroom, once again against her wishes.<\/p>\n The moment causes Byron, a selfish and braggadocious villain, to have a change of heart, stopping shipments of The Beauty and paying off the families ravaged by its gruesome side effects, like Bella\u2019s. His lawyers suggest nearly half a million have suffered severe complications. But given his track record, would Byron really revert course just because his wife denies what he, up to this point, saw as a gift to humanity?<\/p>\n \u201cI think he does change,\u201d Uppendahl says. \u201cI think he truly loves Franny, and who wouldn\u2019t if it\u2019s Isabella Rossellini? She always sees through him, and it was the fuel for really fun banter between them. He loves that tension with her. It\u2019s great that we can finally dig into something really profound between them. This is the only thing that could change a guy like that.\u201d<\/p>\n Or perhaps Byron was just hypnotized by the series\u2019 clever nod to Rossellini\u2019s \u201cDeath Becomes Her\u201d character as a temptress offering the elixir of eternal life. Post-transformation, Beckham introduces the new Franny while wearing a barely-there top of strung-together chunky jewels, a clever reproduction of the iconic costume worn by Rossellini in the 1992 film. Uppendahl isn\u2019t even sure Rossellini knew about the fashionable allusion to her role, given she wasn\u2019t in that scene. But he leapt at the chance to pay homage to her.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was Ryan\u2019s idea, and as soon as I heard it, I thought it was spectacular,\u201d he says. \u201cSomeone recently started making that jeweled top again. It is kind of coming back in fashion, on a very high, rather exclusive level that Franny could afford.\u201d<\/p>\n As the season comes to a close, \u201cThe Beauty\u201d tees up plenty of complications for future seasons, although FX hasn\u2019t renewed it yet. Uppendahl says he would like to see Lux Pascal return as Carla, the transgender science technician originally played by Rev Yolanda, who took a dose stolen from Bryon. Carla\u2019s friend Mike (played in Beauty form by Joey Pollari) was already assassinated for lifting their shots, so audiences have good reason to worry for Carla.<\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s worth fearing for,\u201d Uppendahl says. \u201cReverend Yolanda was so wonderful, and so was Lux. She didn\u2019t have a lot of screen time, but she was transcendent, and I feel there\u2019s room for her in my ideas for Season 2.\u201d<\/p>\n Coming into the two-episode finale, Evan Peters\u2019 detective Cooper also accepted the drug \u2013\u2013 through STD transmission with his partner, Jordan (Jessica Alexander) \u2013\u2013\u00a0only to learn his perfect self is a 12-year-old boy. Soon, Cooper, Jordan and their reluctant new associates, Byron\u2019s assassins Antonio (Anthony Ramos) and Jeremy (Jeremy Pope), find themselves in the crosshairs of a brewing war within the Forst family. Just because Bryon wants to curb the spread of The Beauty doesn\u2019t mean those reaping the financial benefits, including his son Tig, are similarly eager to throw in the towel. Tig teams up with disgruntled robot designer Dr. Diana Sterling (Ari Graynor) to issue a deal to Cooper, Jordan, Antonio and Jeremy. Sterling has synthesized a cure, albeit an untested one, that could return Cooper to his original form \u2013\u2013 or create more issues. Cooper accepts the blind bargain, but the others reject it, having to admit to themselves they prefer their younger, tighter bodies.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019ve been given a lot, and they don\u2019t want to give it up,\u201d Uppendahl says. \u201cFor different reasons, the idea of going back to what you were when you\u2019ve turned into something you perceive as better is very unattractive to people. It\u2019s not necessarily the smartest move, but it is interesting when faced with the choice that they all decline it. It is a deep question given they know the horrors of this.\u201d<\/p>\n The audience doesn\u2019t yet learn what comes of the so-called cure. Cooper\u2019s dose encases him in yet another cocoon, but the series fades to black before he is reborn again. The season ends on Jordan, Antonio and Jeremy watching him emerge, and Uppendahl says he wanted to make sure he captured a reaction for anything that might spring from that chrysalis, even a few unlikely scenarios.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen we were shooting the scene, I would be walking them through it and I told the actors that he comes out and he appears as different people to get their reactions,\u201d Uppendahl says. \u201cAt one point, I told him it was Shaquille O\u2019Neal. I don\u2019t think that\u2019s probably the case, but you never know!\u201d<\/p>\n Best of Variety<\/strong><\/p>\n Sign up for Variety’s Newsletter<\/a>. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/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 nz.news.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" SPOILER ALERT: This post contains stories from the two-part Season 1 finale of \u201cThe Beauty,\u201d now streaming on FX on Hulu and Disney+. FX\u2019s body-horror odyssey \u201cThe Beauty\u201d spent its first season reveling in the gooey, revolting transformations born from taking a drug that can turn a hum-drum existence into a sculpted manifestation of perfection. 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