The Beauty (2026) is a horror/science fiction series starring Evan Peters as Special Agent Cooper Madsen and Rebecca Hall as SA Jordan Bennett. Ashton Kutcher plays Byron Forst, a tech billionaire.
Premise: When international supermodels begin dying in gruesome and mysterious ways, two FBI agents are sent to Paris, Venice, Rome, and New York to uncover the truth behind these deaths and end up discovering a conspiracy that threatens the future of humanity.
The Beauty is bizarre and violent. The show poses the question: how far will some people go to become the most beautiful version of themselves? Well, the individuals in the show take things to the extreme.
The plotline has the FBI agents investigating a quasi-weapon of mass destruction case and hunting serial killers. Both scenarios result from the actions of a tech billionaire who financed the creation of a drug he used to keep himself from aging. When the drug is stolen, it morphs into a sexually transmitted disease (STD) which eventually causes the internally combustive death of its beautiful victims. The rapid transmission of the deadly virus is linked to the high sexual activity of these now extremely attractive people. Please don’t risk injuring your brain trying to understand what’s happening.
Fortunately, instead of critiquing whether TV plots make sense. My reviews serve as opportunities to explore actual FBI programs, policies, and procedures. So, let’s discuss the FBI’s work overseas.
In The Beauty, after a beautiful model spontaneously combusts in a gory explosion of blood and guts, SA Madsen and SA Bennett travel to countries where similar unexplained incidents have occurred. They begin their overseas investigation with their foreign counterparts. Then they go rogue and start an underground, surreptitious inquiry, battling bad guys and getting into shootouts in the cobblestone streets of Italy and France.
That’s not the way it works in the real world. The FBI’s Legal Attaché Program, known as legats, maintains over 90 foreign offices where the Bureau deploys its special agents and support staff to address terrorist, intelligence, and criminal threats that span international borders.
The FBI does not, however, conduct independent investigations overseas. The Bureau works in partnership with these countries to coordinate global investigations stemming from international leads and to share intelligence with their law enforcement agencies and security services.
The agents need to rely on the host country’s police and security personnel to conduct the actual investigation and for protection. Most countries (including the US) do not allow visiting foreign law enforcement officers to carry weapons. Exceptions are often made for agents to be armed in a war zone or in third-world countries where safety is an ongoing concern.
Listen to the following FBI Case File Review episodes to learn more about how the FBI works overseas:
347: Michael di Pretoro – Evolution of the FBI’s Legat Program
378: John Schachnovsky – FBI in Thailand, Death of Famous Actor, Frozen Body Parts
327: Jeff Iverson – FBI In the Belly of the Bear, Russia and Central Asia
