The Slump of the Series

Critic’s Rating: 2 / 5.0

2

The Beauty Season 1 Episode 6 is certainly the slump episode of the series, but it’s also filled with irony.

After initially going into the past halfway through The Beauty Season 1 Episode 5, we stay there during the new episode, and it’s just not needed.

Sure, we get to know who the guy the Assassin killed at the very start of the series, but it wasn’t all that necessary, considering there’s so much going on.

Byron Proves Rich Men Aren’t All That Smart

Let’s just start with how dumb Byron Frost is on The Beauty.

After killing everyone else involved in the initial trials, he immediately starts sleeping with people. 

And he does it all in front of the doctor, who is quick to point out that Bryon is being dumb.

Nobody knows what the miracle cure will really be like, with the doctor pointing out that it is more like a virus than a drug. 

There is the chance of infection, as we already know. We don’t need to know any of this; it just repeats information already given, but it is fun to watch Byron get angry at his own stupidity.

He reminds me of so many people around the world who are more willing to trust Fred on Facebook than to listen to doctors.

There is also an irony to Byron’s actions. 

Remember, during The Beauty Season 1 Episode 1, when he commented that beautiful people think they can do whatever they want? Well, that’s Byron right now.

With the news that all the people Byron killed were supposed to be monitored to see how the drug would develop and pass on, now the doctor is back to square one. It also doesn’t help that all the research is really in that house!

There is a way around it, and the doctor does manage to run some tests at a secure facility, but again, we’re learning information we already know.

Either The Beauty needed to avoid telling us the findings earlier on — such as infected people will combust after two years — or we just didn’t need to see this play out in the past.

My only question is why Byron and the Assassin don’t seem to be affected by the combustion, and that’s the part of the past that I want to see play out.

I want to understand what the doctor did to change things for the two of them.

Well, I’m assuming the two of them, since we know that the Assassin got the pure form of the virus. That would suggest he went through the same thing as Byron.

I will say that Byron’s wife had me laughing out loud for all the right reasons, though.

I did get one question answered: why she didn’t take this miracle cure to become beautiful, especially since she admitted she craved it.

This episode answers it, and actually makes me respect her a little more. She can see how crazy and obsessed Byron has become, and she wants no part of it.

There is beauty in death and aging, and she accepts it. It’s the healthiest message the show has offered.

And I know she didn’t always have the healthiest look, but people can change, and that’s what I believe she shows.

Moving On To More Characters Who Don’t Matter

The rest of the episode, though, was focused on two scientists at the secure facility. 

One of them, David, is struggling to get a date, and there is a hint that he might have become an incel if he hadn’t decided to steal the miracle drug.

It’s so hard, as a woman, to be friendly while trying to keep your personal and work lives separate.

That doesn’t mean you’re leading someone on, and a conversation and a friendship don’t mean you owe someone a date. This show has been so unhealthy, with nobody calling the men out for it.

I will give David props for not just stealing one of the injections for himself, though. He takes one for his work partner, Clara, even though she didn’t ask for it.

There is one thing to take from this, and it’s Clara’s fear that the drug will change her into something that she isn’t, but she has to have faith that it will turn her into the woman that she knows she is.

This woman is trans, and the transformation into a beautiful woman at the end does offer a message that the drug is also working with the brain to deconstruct and reconstruct the molecules.

It shows that he doesn’t want to go through this journey alone, but I do have to question where Clara is today.

See, we find out that David is the man the Assassin killed back during the first episode — he’s the one Byron complained about stealing from him.

It took this long for Byron and the Assassin to find him, and I need clarification on that. 

I think it was meant to be three years, which means David’s injection also didn’t have the same combustion rate. What is the big difference between the injections and the virus that’s spread?

Another question that came up is why the chimp reacted so angrily compared to how the humans have reacted? What did it affect the chimp differently? The poor, sweet boy!

The Beauty is skipping all of this and wasting time on things we already know; the focus needs to shift.

Overall, this felt more like a filler episode than anything else, and that can happen with TV shows, even with Ryan Murphy shows.

I’m still here because I have enough questions to keep me engaged, but I want the story to start moving forward and get us back to the FBI storyline now that those storylines are converging.

We’re just over the halfway mark at this point on The Beauty Season 1, and there’s still plenty of potential. It’s time to pick up the pace at this point in the story.

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