I think I have to give Ryan Murphy credit. He does crazy things on screen, and boom! The whole internet is talking about it. Admittedly, he's completely cracked the formula, and we're all his victims. But believe me, I'm not complaining. I love these kinds of illogical endings because it's so much fun to come up with theories about them. Anyway, I won't keep you any longer; here's a spoiler warning before we get to the point.
The ninth episode of FX's "Beauty and the Beast" ended with our beloved Cooper Madsen finally infected with the STD virus that transforms people into "better" versions of themselves. However, instead of turning Cooper into a Greek god, the beauty virus transformed him into a teenager. I've read the comics, and none of this happens, but this is a Ryan Murphy show, so I came prepared.
Creators: Matthew Hodgson, Ryan Murphy
Stars: Evan Peters, Anthony Ramos, Jeremy Pope
The series had hinted from the beginning that something like this might happen in the near future. If you recall, in episode 8, Byron Forst, the richest man in the world, passed the virus on to his sons, Tiger "Tig" and Gunther. But while the virus acted as expected in Tig, in Gunther's case, the transformation even changed his skin color. Yes, this was the craziest part. Here, Byron explained that he had five percent Nigerian blood, which underscored the possibility that the virus interacted with Gunther's Nigerian genes and mutated them to transform him into a Black man. What I'm trying to say is that something similar could have happened with Cooper, where the virus, which was already the flawed lab version, interacted with a dormant gene.
Well, I'm just guessing, but it's possible that Cooper still had adolescent genes in his system that hadn't fully matured, and once infected by the Beauty, the virus came into contact with those genes and turned him into a teenager. Furthermore, Byron's chief scientist, Dr. Ray, creator of the Beauty virus, had already told Byron that he wasn't sure how his creation would react in the wild. If you've seen enough zombie movies, you'll know that this type of RNA virus can easily mutate from its original strain and create new copies or versions of itself upon contact with different hosts. I believe that if Cooper had allowed Dr. Diana Starling, the mother, to inject him with the lab-created virus, the effect on Cooper would have been different from what we saw in the episode.
However, Cooper wanted to become infected by having sex with his colleague, Jordan Bennett, who had an earlier, untested, and dangerously unstable version of the virus. So it's possible that the virus had mutated into something else, and that when Cooper slept with her, he became infected with this new copy of the virus. It's also worth noting that, after her transformation, Cooper was the first person Jordan slept with, as she wasn't very comfortable in her new body. Undoubtedly, the final two episodes of the series will shed more light on Cooper's bizarre transformation, and I think one of my theories will be correct.
So, what does the future hold for Cooper? Well, Cooper decided to infect himself to get close to Byron in his new body and eliminate him to end his Beauty empire; he could sow chaos. However, I don't think they'll go through with their plan because, as you can see, young Cooper can't even break free from the cocoon he's transformed into.
In short, he's lost all his strength, and I don't think Jordan is going to risk his life for the mission. Most likely, he'll ask the teenage Cooper to stay behind while the rest infiltrate Byron's stronghold, his mansion, with the help of his rebellious wife, Franny, and defeat him for the greater good.
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