We all thought our long, national nightmare was over after large adult Ben Platt’s film adaptation of Dear Evan Hansen tanked in theaters. Well, lock your doors and hide your children, because Platt is back for revenge on the latest episode of FX and Hulu‘s The Beauty. And it proves that as a society, we are just not ready for an out-of-control Ben Platt.
Spoilers for The Beauty Season 1, Episode 4 “Beautiful Chimp Face” past this point.
If you’re wondering how we ended up with Platt Amok, the answer is that in the previous chunk of episodes, after Condé Nast staffer Harper Rose (Amelia Gray Hamlin) started to go nuts thanks to her Beauty infection and threw Meghan Trainor out a window, Harper also exploded blood right into Manny’s (Platt) eyeball — infecting him with the STD as well.
Cooper Madsen (Evan Peters) is in a government facility interrogating various members of the staff to try and figure out why Rose exploded, which is what leads him to the sweaty Manny. The latter is being held in a secure medical facility surrounding by glass walls, and everyone who visits him is wearing a full hazmat suit — because while we, the viewers, know that The Beauty is transferred through bodily fluids (i.e., through sex, or getting blood in your eye), Cooper and the FBI (Female Body Inspectors) don’t know that yet.
Manny, meanwhile, is in the final stages of his transformation thanks to the STD, getting temperature-wise hotter and hotter while Cooper calmly tries to question him about the Condé Nast incident. The FBI/CDC is likely worried that Manny is about to explode himself, but as we’ve already seen on the show, the next stage of the transformation is your skin starts to slough off, your bones break, your spine does a little pop thing, and then somehow you get covered in a Gremlins-style sac/pod, before emerging as your best-looking self.
As for Manny, as Cooper tries to assure him everything will be fine, that transformation begins. His heart rate spikes, his bones crack, and he begins bleeding from the eyes — then throws up right in Cooper’s face like he just found out he lost the Tony to J. Harrison Ghee in 2023. Thankfully, our hero is wearing his hazmat suit, so he should be fine. But that’s when Platt’s rampage begins.
First, he pulls his hand out of the restraints that are keeping him locked to his hospital bed, degloving the skin on his arm in the process. He then picks up his saline drip and knocks out two CDC agents, smashing one’s head and then tossing him through the glass door while Cooper runs for safety. The FBI man tries to lock Platt in, but you just cannot contain the guy who starred in several Pitch Perfect movies: he runs down the hall, Cooper in hot pursuit.
The bleeding, screaming Platt continues to run through the facility, tossing off chunks of his skin as he goes, finally breaking into an operating room where several doctors are performing an operation. Platt’s spine breaks out, and he screams some more and pushes an operating table directly at Cooper.
Next up? Two doctors are performing a, uh, face transplant on a woman who had her face bit off by a chimp, which is where the episode gets its title. Naturally because Ryan Murphy has never met a situation he can’t pile on grossness for, they’re peeling off this woman’s face to classical music and giving her a new face graft when first Platt runs through like he’s desperately trying to get Netflix to greenlight The Politician Season 3, followed hot on his heels by Cooper.
Anyway, then Cooper follows him into a room full of dead skin donors that a creepy doctor (is there any other kind in a Ryan Murphy show?) calls his “epidermis angels” … which is where he finds the pod Platt has exited faster than you can say Ricki and The Flash.
…And that’s when Ben Platt’s Manny becomes Dear Evan HANDSOME, am I right? Totally nude, and still out of control — and now played by Isaac Powell — Manny screams about how Cooper “did this to me” and they tussle. Manny escapes, but one of the chimp docs gives Cooper “Enough propofol to stop a grizzly.”
It’s not, though, you can not stop a multi-hyphenate talent like Ben Platt, even if he’s in another body. Even when Manny is surrounded, and Cooper doses him with the propofol, it only takes Manny down for a moment. A taser does the trick, though, and Ben Platt’s out of control rampage is finally done.
Look, if there’s one takeaway here, it’s that we, as a country, are not ready for an out-of-control Ben Platt. We need daily drills, we need training, we need preparedness. Because who knows when Platt will run, screaming through your town about how how 2019 role in Run This Town is underrated, actually? We need to be ready. And we are not.
The Beauty Premiere Dates And Episode Guide:
New episodes of The Beauty premiere Wednesdays at 9 pm ET on Hulu, and 9 pm ET/PT on FX. The season will premiere with three episodes on January 21, followed by a staggered release schedule until the Season 1 finale.
Here’s what we expect from the full list of episodes in The Beauty Season 1, with premiere dates.
- Wednesday, January 21, 2026: The Beauty, Season 1, Episode 1, “Beautiful Pilot”
- Wednesday, January 21, 2026: The Beauty, Season 1, Episode 2, “Beautiful Jordan”
- Wednesday, January 21, 2026: The Beauty, Season 1, Episode 3, “Beautiful Christopher Cross”
- Wednesday, January 28, 2026: The Beauty, Season 1, Episode 4, “Beautiful Chimp Face”
- Wednesday, February 4, 2026: The Beauty, Season 1, Episode 5, “Beautiful Billionaires”
- Wednesday, February 11, 2026: The Beauty, Season 1, Episode 6, “Beautiful Patient Zero”
- Wednesday, February 18, 2026: The Beauty, Season 1, Episode 7, “Beautiful Living Rooms”
- Wednesday, February 25, 2026: The Beauty, Season 1, Episode 8, “Beautiful Brothers”
- Wednesday, February 25, 2026: The Beauty, Season 1, Episode 9, “Beautiful Evolution”
- Wednesday, March 4, 2026: The Beauty, Season 1, Episode 10, “Beautiful Beauty Day”
- Wednesday, March 4, 2026: The Beauty, Season 1, Episode 11, “Beautiful Betrayal” *Season Finale*
Where To Watch The Beauty
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