‘The Beauty’ Director Breaks Down Episode 6’s Tricky Origin Story: ‘As Real as It Can Be’
“The Beauty” uncovered the mystery behind the explosive outbreak at its core in its latest episode, with an unlikely “Laverne and Shirley” duo being partly to blame.
That’s how Episode 6 director Michael Uppendahl described the friendship between two laboratory workers inside billionaire Byron Forst’s (Ashton Kutcher) corporate headquarters. The show introduces the pair, played by Rev. Yolanda and Eddie Kaye Thomas, as they commiserate about gender-affirming hormone treatment on one side and being haunted by an unrequited work crush on the other.
“Ryan [Murphy] always wants everything to feel as real as it can be. He’s not afraid of going far in characterization, or story or setting or costumes or you name it, but that one was an important one to feel grounded,” Uppendahl told TheWrap of the team’s approach to crafting the FX sci-fi drama’s pivotal hour.
The episode, titled “Beautiful Patient Zero,” saw as the newly infected Byron Forst — or The Corporation — returned home from transforming, set on turning The Beauty into a marketable drug that transformed customers into their best selves.
From his flight back home to entering his futuristic new offices, the episode follows as Byron gets comfortable with his young and attractive new body with an elaborately choreographed sequence.
“We had a choreographer, but we leaned into Ashtown’s own physicality and sly, kind of lethal sensuality, more than doing a traditional dance number,” Uppendahl said. The people around her did move in more coordinated motions, meant to emulate the feeling of Byron seeing them as his toys.
“That’s his situation. The world just bends to whatever he’s feeling in the moment so he doesn’t have to interact with it too much,” he added. He also praised Kutcher’s performance, along with the show’s crew, for keeping the tone up throughout the expansive sequence, which was shot over weeks in numerous locations.
Despite warnings from the virus’ inventor, Byron puts a vast amount of resources from his company at perfecting the virus. A small but seemingly significant part of that process goes down to Clara (Yolanda) and Mike (Kaye Thomas), whom we meet as they complain about their lives while working what amounts to be a conveyor belt job.
“The inspiration was to make it like ‘Laverne & Shirley’ in 2030 … They’re basically putting caps on the bottle,” Uppendahl said. “The conveyor belt was very important to Ryan and to me, it was a fun thing to work out.”
“It was a long search to get the right actor for both roles, and they were fantastic,” he added.
Eventually, Mike’s disdain for his reality — and learning of the drug after a chimpanzee mishap — drives him to steal two prototype injections of The Beauty and using them on himself and Clara. They both transform into model versions of themselves, played by Joey Pollari and Lux Pascal, respectively, before the show flashed forward to when we first met Mike earlier in the season, when the Assassin (Anthony Ramos) killed him for helping spread The Beauty sexually-transmitted disease to uncontrollable levels.
“Episode 6 relied very heavily on two characters we’ve never seen before, and two guest stars who lead that episode. A lot is demanded of them,” Uppendahl added. “I love that Ryan has faith in actors’ ability, as I do. It’s really fun to let someone come in and work with them to take over the narrative, for at least a little section of it.”
“The Beauty” releases new episodes Wednesday on FX and Hulu.
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