‘The Beauty’: Inside TV’s Ozempic Sex Circus’ Explosive, Juicy Finale

It wouldn’t be a Ryan Murphy series without leaving fans with a lot to be grossed out by, a lot to be turned on by, and, naturally, a lot to talk about.

The FX series The Beauty just aired its season finale and is available to stream on Hulu. The show didn’t so much make a splash in the proverbial water cooler as it did pick it up and start wantonly throwing it around, drenching viewers with provocative points about unattainable beauty standards, the craven race to secure Ozempic prescriptions, billionaires’ nefarious agendas, and a future class-disparity dystopia.

The catch: In its current state, there’s a ticking clock, after which the now-extremely-hot person, um, explodes. That proves to be concerning, as the drug leaks to a black market where, used unsupervised, it operates as an STD infecting users’ unsuspecting sexual partners.

(Warning: Spoilers ahead.)

In the finale, a team of Beauty-transformed agents and vigilantes—Jeremy Pope’s Jeremy, Anthony Ramos’ Antonio, Hudson Barry’s Cooper (rebirthed from Evan Peters), and Jess Alexander’s Jordan (rebirthed from Rebecca Hall—try to stop the drug from reaching the public, who are being increasingly deformed from using it.

The episode ends with Cooper being offered the first test case of a supposed antidote, the other three watching in horror as he’s rebirthed again…but as what?

We chatted with Pope, Ramos, and Alexander about the juicy last moments of the series, what it was like to show the world their booties on the show, and the ways in which they think—or at least hope—it might make the United States of Ozempic reconsider its thoughts about beauty.

So let’s start with that last scene in the finale, when we see your faces as Cooper is coming out of the sac. What were seeing?

Alexander: You know, when we shot that, we had a dude with a f---ing sticky note on his hand doing this. [Waves her hand around] The stunt guy is what we saw come out. I was imagining some sort of Ryan Murphy abstract, monstrous concoction, but I don’t really know what. I don’t think anyone knows.

Pope: What we literally saw was a stuntman. So we were reacting to that. When we got the scripts, we were getting them in parts. So even the finale, we didn’t even know what was happening. We didn’t know whether the transformation of Evan’s character Cooper into a child would be the end. So I think by the time we got to that scene, we realized it could be anything on the opposite side of this POV. We kind of joked around that each take, it was like something different. Because I think at one point Jess screamed, and at one point it was just a like [gasps]. We just gave variations because we don’t know.

Alexander: It could be anyone!

Pope: It could be anything.

Alexander: It could be Madonna.

Pope: Is it Beyonce? We don’t know!

Kevin: If the series comes back and it’s Oprah, I’m gonna die.

Pope: He said, “Oprah.” [Laughs]

Ramos: Oprah is wild. Crazy.

Kevin: Your reactions could be seen as shock, horror, or disgust. Or it could be a hopeful gasp. In your minds, was it a hopeful one or a horrified one?

Pope: For me, again, it was kind of like, when you’re in a Ryan Murphy universe, expect the unexpected. You know what I mean? What made it probably more fun to play in the moment was that you didn’t know what it was. And each person has a different relationship with that. So like even Jess’s character, is she seeing the love of her life come back, or not? Is there a deformity? And then I think for my character, I’m looking at what happens when you take the drug in this way.

So I think everyone has a different relationship to what is on the other side. As an actor, it was cool because we don’t know. There are no more pages for us at the moment. Like play whatever the f--- feels right. It became a little bit more freeing because there was no right answer. It could be Cooper, it could be Gayle [King], it could be Oprah. It could be anyone

Alexander: When you are filming a TV show, and scripts are coming to you as you’re making something, or it’s a cliff-hanger, it’s a finale, the most collaborative thing you can do for the wider process is have a bit of ambiguity. Because now there is that ambiguity to work off of for a potential storyline to continue. So we were all just trying to give different variations that could maybe progress into some kind of plot.

I was so heartbroken when Cooper went through the change the first time and emerged as a child. I was not prepared for that. What were your reactions?

Alexander: I thought, what the hell? How am I gonna play this nd it not be weird? But also in the grand scheme of things that happen in Ryan Murphy shows, I actually think this is pretty tame. So maybe my initial reaction was a little bit prudish. Obviously, it’s very strange, and it’s really sad for my character. I’s very uncomfortable, and I feel like we all played that accordingly. I think my favorite line I said in that whole show was like hitting, like smashing a shot of tequila and being like, “He’s got no pubes.”

That was my career highlight for me. [Everyone laughs]

Kevin: That’s pretty amazing.

Ramos: Nah, you killed that.

As a viewer and fan of the show, this is an interesting conversation because I’ve now seen all three of your booties. What has that part of the show been like? Because that’s a huge part, not just for the leering horny viewers be able to see these beautiful naked bodies. It’s a big part of the show’s content and themes to reveal…

Ramos: A--!

Yeah, exactly.

Ramos: Lots of a--.

A lot of a--. So what was that like for you, to reconcile the “I gotta look hot” element of the scenes, but also knowing they’re actually really important to the show, to look hot for this? To look like you had taken this miracle attractiveness drug?

Alexander: Yeah, I was not prepared for that at all. Honestly. I didn’t really have a lot of time to get in shape, so I just went in there with what I was working with, and I used all my confidence. I just dropped that robe and had a great time.

Pope: You worked it. You worked the room, baby. Worked the room.

Alexander: And my nude scene was in Venice, so I was eating pasta and pizza for like a week and drinking wine. So, honestly, I didn’t think about it very much. But everyone did get their butt out at some point.

I actually think Jeremy’s butt-out moment is really good, because you kind of like slam against the wall and you do this flex.

Ramos: Oh, he was giving you Vogue. He was giving you, “Anna Wintour, put me on the cover.”

Alexander: I remember the day that Anthony had to get his a-- out. He came in. He was in the makeup chair, and he’s like, “I can’t believe it, man.” I was like, “Oh, is it your day? Is it your turn?” He’s like, “Yeah, man.”

Anthony, have you seen the responses to your scene? People are like, holy s--t, this guy is caked.

Ramos: Oh yeah?

Pope: Based by Melissa, baby!

Alexander: Congratulations!

Pope: By the pound, baby!

Ramos: They call me Magnolia!

Pope: What was crazy is we were shooting at the end, and there’s so much happening. I remember in between a scene, Anthony went down where I was doing a fight call, and he was like, “Yeah, I just did this scene with Ashton. Had to show my cakes real quick.” Like, we were doing all these things at the same time. It kind of fell in the middle of this really emotional scene for the both of us.

Alexander: That’s the thing, exactly. Obviously, as you say, there’s nudity and there’s shocking moments and there’s intimate stuff. But especially in the transformation scenes, that nudity exists there for a reason. For my character, she’s taking in this whole new body and existence that she has. That’s a very vulnerable thing, especially as a woman, honestly, to stand and like look at every inch of yourself, like, butta-- naked in a mirror in a room of like 60 dudes. So I was feeling close to what Jordan was feeling in that moment. Yeah. And the sacs with the naked birth and everything, that was pretty vulnerable stuff as well. Things are slipping and sliding all over the place.

I was also thinking while I was watching it: imagine being cast as the person who was the “before,” someone unattractive who takes The Beauty. You guys all got cast as the

afters.”

Alexander: I mean, I play the after of Rebecca Hall. I’ve seen so many comments being like, “Hmm, I don’t know if I agree with this. Like, Rebecca Hall’s perfect. This feels insulting to Rebecca Hall.” And I’m like, that was not my intention. I had tough boots to fill. Rebecca Hall is stunning. Perfect. That woman’s like a supermodel. She’s flawless. So I don’t know, maybe it should have been the other way around.

Pope: I mean, I think if anything, it does what the show is. The point of the show is that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, right? So we, as a society, determine who is beauty version number one and beauty version number two. And I think you can then get into systems and statistics as to why we think Jess is considered beauty number two, when that’s all objective. Both people are very beautiful. For me playing Jeremy, I found there are so many beautiful characteristics about Jacquel [Spivey], the actor, the person.

He’s so talented.

Pope: I wanted to approach it with sensitivity because I know the easy thing for the audience to do is just judge us based on how we present ourselves and what we look like. But they don’t know us. They don’t know the complexities and the nuances of the person behind the choices and the decisions they make.

Obviously, we’re aware the show is called The Beauty. We’re having this conversation about what you see on the surface. But as you get into the series, you realize you’re unpacking and excavating the things that are on the inside. And I feel like that’s the whole point of the show, that while you can alter everything on the outside, you have to pay attention and you have to address what’s happening internally. You realize the people that are probably doing the most on the outside have some brokenness or things unattended to on the inside.

I think once we got past being on set and not going “ugly version” and “beautiful version,” it was just “Jeremy One and “Jeremy Two.” I think it gave us, as artists, a starting point to just continue to excavate what’s happening on the inside and know that the audience will always do what they’re gonna do and justify why you’re this or that. But our job is to really understand the choices that they’re making

Alexander: That was so profound. That was beautiful, Jeremy.

I feel like the show is coming out at exactly the right time. Viewers have connected the series to the proliferation of Ozempic and the widespread plastic surgery procedures people are undergoing right now. You work in an industry where looks are very important, and I’m curious how working on this show has changed your perspective on attractiveness and how society values and rewards it.

Alexander: I don’t know if it’s altered it massively. To be honest, I feel like I’ve always felt a level of pressure to look a certain way to succeed in this business. Even when I was younger, I did a lot of modeling to earn enough money to be able to keep acting. And that was always a deeply unenjoyable experience that made me insecure. I actually feel like I have become a lot more confident in how I present myself through my acting career.

If anything, on the show, we were just speaking about, you know, like we’re supposedly paying people who are, in the context of the story, more “beautiful—inverted commas—than the last person that was cast. That in itself is kind of a ridiculous notion. I’m playing a version of Rebecca, and I just think she’s so stunning and so incredible in so many ways. I just had to really let go of that whole idea of like playing a really, really beautiful person. My mom always used to tell me that how you look is the least interesting thing about you. I really believe that is very true.

That’s a smart thing to say.

Alexander: Working on the show, all the topics and themes that the show is discussing, as you say, it’s coming out at a perfect time. It reaffirms to me how lost as a society we are with that kind of stuff, but also how much there is a movement away from that stuff. People do want to discuss it, and they do wanna break it down, take it apart, and maybe embrace natural beauty more again soon. Hopefully