The third episode of Ryan Murphy’s The Beauty ended with a whole bunch of people testing positive for the new virus that has taken the world by storm. A customer named Harper Rose, who was meeting her colleagues at Conde Nast, arrived at the restaurant complaining of a high body temperature. And in the nick of time, Harper lost her mind and suddenly exploded, with her bodily fluids splashing all over the place, infecting the restaurant staff and the guests present in the blast radius. Here, it can be assumed that, like the rest of the beauties out there, Harper too had taken the beauty virus, which sadly came with an expiration date. Roughly two years after the treatment, the virus kills its hosts, and FBI agent Cooper Madsen has been trying to figure out the reason behind it. The episode ends with Agent Monroe informing Cooper about his interview subject, who will help Cooper connect the dots and find the origin of the virus that has been killing people all over the world. The show didn’t reveal the identity of this mysterious interviewee, but worry not. The teaser for the fourth episode has given us enough information to speculate about what we can expect next. So without any further ado, let’s jump straight into the theories.
Manny Is The Interview Subject
The Episode 4 teaser reveals that one of Harper’s colleagues, Manny, is Cooper’s interview subject. If you remember, Harper’s blood went straight into Manny’s eyes, following which he tested positive for the beauty virus. After the incident, the CDC quarantined everyone present in the restaurant and brought Manny to the facility, where the virus had already started mutating in his body. This means Cooper isn’t going to interview the real Manny, but the beauty he’s going to become due to the infection. Obviously it won’t be easy talking to a person who now looks like a completely changed man. The transformation is going to take a toll on Manny, and he’ll be frantic as well. So the first thing Cooper has to do is to calm the man down so both of them can understand what’s really happening. Nevertheless, the reason why I think Manny is important for the plot is because the brief sequence at Conde Nast suggested that Manny’s the kind of person who knows everything about everyone’s life. Yeah, a gossip queen. So Manny can help Cooper find some information about Harper’s life, especially when and how she contracted the virus, and who she was before she took the beauty treatment. This information will help Cooper establish a common link between Harper and the rest of the beauty-related deaths so far, thereby finally leading him to Byron Forst’s pharmaceutical company, allegedly responsible for developing the beauty virus. However, the important question here is will Cooper be able to do anything even after he has gotten to the bottom of the truth? It seems unlikely because Forst seems like a well-connected man, which means he’ll certainly pull some strings to obstruct Cooper’s investigation or maybe even shut it down completely. But we all know that’s not going to stop Cooper from exposing men like Forst to the world.
Jordan Bennett Will Return To America
Cooper’s partner, Jordan Bennett, has been missing from the scene after contracting the disease by sleeping with an infected man. The second episode hints that the man Jordan spent a night with was likely sent by Forst to obstruct their investigation. Nevertheless, the next morning when Jordan woke up in her hotel room in Venice, she failed to recognize herself in the mirror and had a mental breakdown of sorts, after which she disappeared from the scene, likely because she had been trying to figure out what really happened to her, like the rest of the beauties out there. Additionally, she didn’t know how her partner was going to react looking at the beautified version of her, and therefore she likely decided to stay away. But trust me when I say this, Jordan won’t be missing for long because a similar thing happens with Detective Kara Vaughn in the comic books. Jordan’s character in the show is based on Detective Vaughn and so far has been following the same arc more or less.
So what’s going to happen next to Jordan? I think she’ll find a way to travel back to America to reunite with Cooper and try to explain her situation. And he’ll understand her crisis immediately because by this time, Cooper has already witnessed Manny’s transformation in front of his eyes. He’ll know that Jordan has been infected by the same mutating virus that has changed the way she looks, but from the inside, she’s the same person with whom he likes to spend his nights. Also, I don’t think Jordan is going to contact the Italian authorities because if they find out that she’s positive, then they immediately quarantine her and won’t let her leave for her country, so Jordan has to figure out some back channel to travel back. And once she reaches there, Cooper will somehow convince the higher-ups to let Jordan help him in the investigation because she understands the virus better than any of them. So once Jordan is back in the team, she and Cooper will try their best to locate the origin of the virus and find a way to reverse its effect so Jordan won’t have to die like the others.
Science Is Amazing
The teaser for the fourth episode also features a brief scene where Byron Forst arrives at a lab to get his monthly poke, which clearly is a dose of the treatment to maintain his youthful looks. It’s quite clear by now that Forst has not only developed the beauty virus but also been a regular user of the same, which brings up the question: will he explode like the others? Well, no. However, there are some confusions related to the virus here, or should I say the show is making it more complicated for some reason. In the comic books, there’s no other strain of this virus, and the ones who developed it never administered it on themselves. In the show, however, there seems to be a flawed variant of the virus that has an expiration date and has been killing people across the globe. Antonio, the assassin, who is an adopter of one of the earlier variants of the virus, tells his new disciple, Jeremy, that a lab had stolen a trial version, and they are the ones responsible for spreading it. So the thing I am confused about is whether this trial variant is flawed—that’s why it’s killing people—or whether the beauties have to take their monthly dose like Forst in order to maintain their longevity. Well, if that’s the case, then it’s a win-win situation for Forst, because once the whole world is infected by the beauty virus, they all will be at his mercy to survive. And a cold and calculative businessman like him won’t mind milking the opportunity.
Antonio and Jeremy are headed to America
Episode 4 teaser reveals that Antonio already knows that CDC has got a live beauty, which will evidently help them to conduct thorough research on the virus that is slowly turning into an epidemic. However, the main question here is, how did Antonio find out about Manny? And more importantly, what is he going to do with him? Okay, so as I mentioned earlier, Forst is a well-connected man, so it’s likely he has an informer either inside the agency or CDC or both. In the comic book, the agent in charge of CDC was working for the corrupt senator who was doing the dirty work for the pharma company for money. It’s likely that Forst will order the people on his payroll to shut down the investigation, but Cooper, being a righteous cop, won’t let it happen on his watch, and that’s why Forst will send Antonio and Jeremy to the USA, not only to kill the live subject but also to get rid of the agents investigating the virus. The thing is, Forst doesn’t want anyone to know about his milestone achievement, not until he has patented his product and filed an IPO for his company. This is the reason why he’s been sending Antonio to various places to clean the traces of the virus so that no one can replicate it. In short, we can expect a clash between Cooper-Jordan and Antonio-Jeremy in the next episode, where Cooper may be forced to abandon his department so he can conduct an individual investigation and find a cure to save Jordan’s life. Well, these are my theories on everything I expect to see in the next episode, but if you have anything to add, please feel free to drop a comment below.
