Summary
Somewhat unsurprisingly, the ending of The Beauty is really no ending at all, and instead becomes a two-episode pitch for Season 2.
I can’t say I’m surprised by the ending of The Beauty, but it’s nonetheless lamentable to see the state of things in 2026, where stories are written as multi-season arcs – if they’re written at all – and every finale is built around panhandling for a renewal to keep things going. It’s a high-risk, low-reward strategy, since in all likelihood a frustrated audience will tap out to such an extent that no further seasons are ever greenlit, and thus nothing will ever be resolved. Episodes 10 and 11, “Beautiful Beauty Day” and “Beautiful Betrayal”, embody this idea more succinctly than most so-called climaxes in recent memory, not only resolving nothing but introducing enough characters, subplots, and questions to make the whole thing even less satisfying.
As if to emphasise this point, the big cliffhanger about Cooper suddenly emerging from his chrysalis as a child is barely touched on; indeed, Cooper, Jordan, Antonio, and Jeremy are barely in this concluding hour or so, which divided into two chapters that shift focus to a total newcomer, move it back to Forst but in a suddenly less problematic mode, and then finally get to the assassination mission teased last week and throw that for a loop, too. In most shows, these two episodes would be the midpoint of a season. As an ending, they’re almost insultingly inconclusive. But let’s break them down all the same.
Byron’s Beauty Day Comes Early
Hilariously, it never quite occurred to me – or indeed the “heroes” – that Forst could upset their entire plan by moving his schedule up a bit. But as if it wasn’t worrying enough that Cooper is now a pubeless prepubescent boy, there’s also the fact that The Beauty is released a day early, plunging the entire world into very sexy chaos.
At this point, rather inexplicably, the viewpoint shifts, and the remainder of the episode focuses on a new character named Bella and her friend, Ruthie. These two are fairly standard high-schoolers, agonising over their perceived imperfections, but crucially in a shaken-up context where the solution to those imperfections is readily available. Well… if your family has money, anyway, which Ruthie’s evidently does, since after forking out for a botched nose job that she doesn’t even allow to heal, they also pay for her to have the swankiest Beauty package, which includes being gently coached by a very handsome concierge named Conor and drugged throughout most of the experience so that the horrific chrysalis procedure passes by mostly unnoticed.
Bella’s angle isn’t that she’s hideous or overweight or anything that obvious, but instead that she’s so aggressively normal that she’s virtually invisible; it’s another relatable anxiety to justify why the Beauty would be so compelling, but we’ve had loads of those, and in the final two episodes, do we really need another? Either way, Bella manages to acquire the Beauty anyway, but a knock-off sexually transmitted version from a double-dosed Conor, who’s starting a side hustle bedding the less financially fortunate. It backfires, and Bella emerges from her cocoon looking like the bottom of an unstirred Pot Noodle.
Forst’s Second Thoughts
The reason why Bella’s important(ish) is that she’s kind of the straw that broke the camel’s back for Byron. The launch of The Beauty is a disaster. Side effects are rampant, many of them horrifying, and a good enough number of them have occurred to relatives of people influential enough to open lawsuits. Former allies in positions of power are turning against Byron, law enforcement agencies are opening investigations, and the Department of Justice is getting involved.
Even worse, Tig and Gunther took things a step too far by forcibly dosing their mother, Franny, in an effort to please their father. Franny does indeed become beautiful, to Byron’s initial pleasure, but the transformation isn’t enough to sway her from her original viewpoint. She feels like a prisoner in her own body, like all of her accomplishments have been erased. So, she opens her own throat in front of Byron, much to his horror.
All of these things in combination force Byron to change his viewpoint. He orders production to cease immediately, clinics to be shut down, and all resources to be poured into coming up with cures and treatments for those afflicted. He’s willing to settle any lawsuits and divert as much funding as necessary into Diana’s proposed plan to address the issue with cybernetics. All he cares about is his wife, who is barely being kept alive, and certainly not his sons, especially Tig, who has designs on claiming his throne for himself.
Can Cooper Be Cured?
This, finally, brings the ending of The Beauty back to Cooper and Jordan. Determined to go ahead with the plan, they meet – along with Antonio and Jeremy – with Diana and, curiously, Tig, who is now in on the plan to assassinate his father for his own self-serving reasons. He can provide some insider access, and since he has a vested interest in developing stable boosters for the Beauty to preserve his own new image, he also guarantees to offer the same to the others.
As a sweetener, Diana also claims to have an experimental cure. All of the data suggests it’ll work, but it hasn’t been trialled yet, which means that Cooper will become the first test subject. Since he’s trapped in the body of a child, he isn’t going to be especially useful to the assassination efforts unless this works, so he volunteers.
Everyone gathers around for Cooper’s managed de-transformation, and, of course, we cut away when he finally emerges from the chrysalis. We don’t see what he has become, but judging by the horrified reactions of the others, he hasn’t emerged as Evan Peters.
