SPOILER ALERT: This article contains details about season two of Beef.
When the first season of Beef premiered in 2023, the golden age of the DEI movement in Hollywood was running its final laps, but Lee Sung Jin’s dark comedy was a manifestation of how many people were feeling: angry, furious, petty, frustrated, and ridiculous with a modicum of hope.
From the jump, Steven Yeun and Ali Wong went from zero to 100 at an aggressively delightful pace. We witnessed the pettiness of road rage between them unravel into chaos. It also offered a catharsis that none of us knew we needed.
Beef established itself as a subversive, clever dark comedy that interrogated rage and its consequences as well as the need for connection. The series put Yeun and Wong in juicy, three-dimensional roles that shook the status quo of an industry, allowing the erosion of diverse storytelling.
Season two chooses a pair of couples as vessels of rage. Josh (Oscar Isaac) is the general manager of a posh country club, while he has dreams of becoming a musician. On the outside, he and his low-key, thirsty social climber of a wife, Lindsay (Carey Mulligan) are a happy couple, but they are anything but.
Ashley (Cailee Spaeny) and her fiancé, Austin (Charles Melton), work at the country club in service positions. As a young couple about to get married, they have their own issues.
When Ashley and Austin stop by their boss’s house to return something he left at the club, they catch Josh and Lindsay in the middle of a volatile argument. Through the window, they see the two of them in a violent, compromising position, and Ashley is recording them on her phone. The two flee, and thus begins the “beef”.
It’s difficult not to compare this season with its predecessor, even though they seem to exist in a different universe. With its debut, Beef rooted itself in a narrative that felt vicious, exciting, and emotionally challenging. Each episode had a bite that left a mark.
You’d think that season two would grab the baton and take off. Instead, it takes a leisurely jog around the track. Hell, sometimes it just walks confidently.
The new season receives a jolt of nitrous when Youn Yuh-jung enters the picture as that bitch Chairwoman Park, who owns the country club. When she flies in with her right-hand woman, Eunice (Seoyeon Jang) from Korea, she arrives and thinks that the club is in desperate need of a makeover – and it seems like she doesn’t care for Josh and Lindsay as well.
But with her domineering presence, the Chairwoman brought her own drama from home that involves her second husband, plastic surgeon Dr. Kim (Song Kang-ho) — a scandal that provides a much more engaging B-story.
The connective tissue to the Korean world and the Korean American world is Austin, the himbo of the season, played with May December accuracy by Melton. At one point in the series, he bonds with Eunice and has an enlightening moment of Korean identity. He is all of a sudden aware that he is Asian, and it all feels drizzled on top like an afterthought. It feels like this was the result of a studio note that said, “We need to have a story to display Austin’s Asianness.”
Side note: show creator Lee Sung Jin loves including Filipinos in these interesting side quests of Beef. In the first season, Danny’s (Yeun) ex-convict cousin frequently refers to paying a debt to “the Filipinos”. In the second season, there’s a scene where Austin and Ashley are desperately trying to get help in an emergency room from a group of white nurses. After being ignored, Austin says, “Where are all the Filipino nurses?” under his breath.
The crux of the entire season is based on a video that becomes a tool of blackmail for Ashley to use on Josh and Lindsay. It isn’t petty enough to make you root for somebody. Blackmail is three or four steps into the process of being petty. Plus, nearly everyone can relate more to road rage than to blackmail.
Then there was a moment when Ashley calls Josh a “boomer” in a heated argument… that’s when the show kind of lost me.
Isaac, Mulligan, and Spaeny provide good performances, but the stars are not aligning for this new season. Sure, it’s watchable, but watchable doesn’t necessarily mean it’s worth your time. The series has some funny moments, but it never found a steady balance of dark humor and drama. After that juggernaut of a first season, it’s difficult to fill those Emmy-winning shoes.
Season two isn’t dangerous. It feels safe. Because the series lacks a treacherous cat-and-mouse energy, it never finds a rhythm to trigger an audience that is begging to have an emotional release vicariously through these characters. There is a void of danger and impact.
The first season of Beef gave us a taste that made many crave a second season. This sophomore slump isn’t having me chomping at the bit for a third season. Perhaps it’s a sign that maybe this should have been a one-and-done situation — and that would have been perfectly fine.
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