The world’s richest fan in The Beauty universe, Byron Forst (aka “The Corporation”), played by Ashton Kutcher, appears to be a changed man after that finale. But is it sincere?
In Wednesday night’s season one ending, Byron’s wife Franny Forst is injected without her consent, by her and Byron’s sons, with the superdrug called “The Beauty,” which turns its users into the most physically perfect versions of themselves — an idea that Franny was very much against.
Franny has been played by Isabella Rossellini throughout the season, but Nicola Peltz Beckham makes a finale cameo when she takes over the role after Franny is injected. While Byron is thrilled his wife now has “The Beauty,” she is miserable. She says she feels like “a prisoner trapped inside a body that is not mine” and attempts suicide. Franny is now on life support but is “stable for now.”
This prompts Byron to spiral and shift his priorities. He instructs his team to pay for the damage the superdrug has caused and tries to stop the spread of the drug. Though this is the same Byron who, in episode five, killed his friend group of billionaires because he wanted to experience the benefits of “The Beauty” for himself.
Was almost losing his wife a true turning point? Kutcher has a theory. “This character is in desperate need for validation. But the only person that he wants validation from is his wife. It’s the only person that can tell him, ‘I’m proud of you,’ that will matter, and it jeopardizes that ever happening,” he tells The Hollywood Reporter. “So his moral integrity will hinge on the outcome of what has happened to his wife.”
Peltz Beckham says she wants “to see the good” in Byron’s change. “I do think the thought of losing her really did affect him. That was my favorite part, when I watched that land on him,” she told THR. “Ashton is such an amazing actor. When I got to watch the episode, that really got me.”
Kutcher also questions what might happen to Byron — should there be a second season — if he doesn’t received that validation he craves. “Do you spend your entire life with them or without them, continuing to seek that validation that never comes?” he wonders. “I don’t think this character will be settled until he either relinquishes that power and gives it back to himself, or gets the validation that he wants. And even then, it might not be enough.”
The Beauty has not yet been renewed, but the season ended on a cliffhanger that demands more. It saw Cooper — first played by Evan Peters until he transformed into Hudson Barry — who has been in a child’s body since the end of episode nine, taking a reverse “Beauty” shot with the goal of bypassing facial recognition at Byron’s corporation and putting a stop to the spread of the drug.
But the episode ends without revealing whether or not Cooper’s plan worked. The finale stops on the shot of with The Assassin (Anthony Ramos), Jeremy (Jeremy Pope) and Jordan (Jessica Alexander) looking on in shock as Cooper is about to reveal his transformation, his hand breaking through the show’s signature cocoon.
Kutcher wasn’t involved in that scene, so he, too, was shocked by the ending. “I had no idea what was going to happen,” he says. “That’s a really nice place to be, because you can’t spoil anything.”
When it comes to continuing the story in a potential second season, Pope, who also executive-produced, thinks it’s promising: “Ashton and I didn’t really even work together in this season, so it leads you to, well, that surely has to happen,” he says. “If anything, this was less about the number of seasons, but how large this vision was. I think [Ryan Murphy] knows when it’s a limited series or it’s a beginning, middle and end. This one wasn’t a period, it was a comma.”
Peters, also an executive producer, thinks the cliffhanger finale also sets up another season: Personally, I really want to know what season two looks like. What the world looks like with ‘The Beauty’ everywhere now, and people getting it on purpose and what that feels like. I think it sets it up for that nicely.”
Kutcher, meanwhile, admits, “I don’t know what’s going to happen,” but adds, “I could say this: As is beauty, it changes over time. The definition of it does. This show is so dynamic and can go so many different ways.”
He continues, “If the right thing for the story is that a character transforms into something else, which is played by someone else, that’d be the right thing for the story. But in that same breath, you go, wait, that creates an infinite number of possibilities for where and how this story can unfold. I think the sense is that when everyone thinks that they know exactly what it is, just like beauty, and you go, ‘Oh, I got it. I know what it is’ — it’ll evaporate before your very eyes and become something else.”
Kutcher also touched on whether he’s interested in staying in the Murphy universe, as his fellow co-stars Peters and Pope — and many others — tend to do.
“I hope he likes working with me. Whenever you work with somebody, you’re like, ‘I hope they like me, and I hope they think I’m doing a good job!’” he says with a laugh. “But only he can decide that, and only he knows that. Maybe he’ll come to me and say, ‘Hey, I have something else.’ Maybe that’ll connect with my tone, and I’ll go, ‘Oh, that actually sounds great.’”
All episodes of The Beauty are currently streaming on Hulu. Check out all of The Hollywood Reporter‘s The Beauty coverage here, including our premiere interviews with Ashton Kutcher, Bella Hadid, Rebecca Hall and finale interviews with Evan Peters, Nicola Peltz Beckham, Jeremy Pope and Anthony Ramos and a full cast and characters list.
