In February 2024, a spicy crime drama reigned over the Netflix top 10. That crime drama was “Mea Culpa,” the first product to come out of a multi-year first-look deal between Netflix and Tyler Perry. Unfortunately, the critical response to this Kelly Rowland-led outing didn’t bode well for future Perry/Netflix emissions, with “Mea Culpa” garnering a damning 18% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. That said, we live in an age where streaming success is enough, and it seems there will be no slowing down for Perry as his new 8-episode drama series has similarly dominated the Netflix charts.
“Tyler Perry’s Beauty in Black” is described by Tudum as an “easy-on-the-eyes series.” If that’s not enough to set off alarm bells, the synopsis might be. Set in Atlanta, “Beauty in Black” follows Kimmie (Taylor Polidore Williams), an exotic dancer struggling to make ends meet who eventually crosses paths with Mallory (Crystle Stewart) a successful business owner and member of the wealthy Bellaire family. As Perry told Tudum, the idea behind the whole series was literally as simple as, “What happened if those worlds collided — the stripper world and this hair care business?”
Naturally, after Kimmie and Mallory meet, scandalous developments ensue. But to find out what those are, you’ll have to join the rest of the Netflixers who are streaming themselves into a stupor watching “Beauty in Black.”
Beauty in Black is a global triumph for Tyler Perry
“Beauty in Black” premiered on Netflix on October 24, 2024, and quickly became a hit. The same week that Netflix’s new sci-fi horror movie started dominating global charts, so too did Tyler Perry’s drama series, and not just in the United States, either. Stateside the show certainly did well, ranking third on the most-watched TV charts for the week of October 21-27, as per the official Netflix Top 10. According to streaming viewership tracker, FlixPatrol, “Beauty in Black” continued that success into the following week, too, hitting number one in the U.S. by October 29 and remaining there until November 1, when it fell to the second spot. The show has since fluctuated between the number two and three positions, and as of November 4 remains in second place.
But that’s just half the story, because “Beauty in Black” is proving popular worldwide. The show is charting in 83 countries and holds the number one spot in 11 of them as of November 4, 2024. The Bahamas, The Dominican Republic, Guadeloupe, Jamaica, Kenya, Martinique, Mauritius, Nigeria, Reunion, South Africa, and Trinidad and Tobago are all watching “Beauty in Black” enough to propel it to the top of their respective most-watched charts. Meanwhile, the series is number two in a further 11 countries, making this a truly global triumph for Tyler Perry and his “easy-on-the-eyes series.”
Is Beauty in Black actually any good?
At the time of writing, “Beauty in Black” doesn’t have enough reviews to tally on Rotten Tomatoes, so time will tell whether this Tyler Perry effort can fare better critically than “Mea Culpa.” That said, there are a few disparate appraisals of Perry’s drama series floating around, and none of them bode too well. The Guardian, for instance, surmised in a one-star review that “Beauty in Black” is “a disaster with one-dimensional characters and haphazard plotting.” None of the reviews that are available on Rotten Tomatoes speak too highly of the series, either.
Yet, somehow, “Beauty in Black” has triumphed on Netflix, where, as per FlixPatrol, it is now the platform’s second most-watched show in the world. To maintain that position it will have to fend off competition from the German comedy series “Murder Mindfully,” which is the third most-watched show globally at the time of writing. To take that global number one spot, Perry’s series will have to dethrone season two of “The Diplomat,” which was easily one of the best series to hit Netflix in October 2024 and currently has a 93% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. If Tyler Perry has proved anything with his Netflix efforts thus far, though, it’s that your shows and movies don’t need to be good to get to number one.
