So when Netflix announced that Beef was now an anthology and getting a second season, it was hard not to feel cynical about the streamer pouncing on the popularity of a hit limited series. It\u2019s a move that, more often than not, fails to capture the magic of the first go-around. Even though Beef\u2019s creator Lee Sung Jin was still holding the reins, it was still a big risk that comes with even higher expectations. That said, I\u2019m relieved and thrilled to confirm that Beef Season 2 is really great, full of the same vigor of the first installment, even while it features new faces and new neuroticisms that lead to new, well, beef.<\/p>\n
Beef Season 2 \u2014\u00a0Photos<\/p>\n
I would like to stop comparing the two seasons at some point soon because they each can stand firmly on their own \u2014 Season 2 would have also been a fantastic Season 1 \u2014 but it\u2019s difficult not to when they\u2019re cleverly pulling from the same playbook of semi-inconsequential details that is now, I suppose, the Beef house style. A character\u2019s preoccupation with interior design; the looming terror of coyotes in Southern California; hell, even tumbling down a big hill. Most cheekily, there\u2019s a near-miss car accident in the first episode that immediately deescalates into a scooching traffic game of \u201cno, YOU go.\u201d What\u2019s remarkable is that it all works without feeling like a retread. Simply putting different characters in similar situations begets fundamental change.<\/p>\n
What is brand new is the setting that Lee and his cadre of co-writers and directors plumb for their critique on late-stage capitalism. Across its eight episodes, Season 2 slithers through the sticky, gelatinous social strata of Monte Vista Point, an elite golf and country club near Santa Barbara. Squeezed in the center is the club\u2019s general manager, Josh Mart\u00edn (a locked-in Oscar Isaac), who has worked his way up to the managerial class over the years, along with his wife, Lindsay Crane-Mart\u00edn (a delightfully loathsome Carey Mulligan), who doesn\u2019t actually work there but has enmeshed herself with the clique of club wives to keep up the appearances of a supportive spouse despite a marriage on the rocks.<\/p>\n
From above, the club\u2019s demanding, wealthy, and high-profile clientele play friends (as long as it\u2019s useful for them) while expecting Josh to be an ever-present concierge who will comp White Claws and arrange a round of 18 holes at peak hours with no pushback, and Lindsay to be a gossipy gal pal who can also speak to service workers on their behalf. Beef is constantly giving them exit ramps out from this \u201ckeep up with the Joneses\u201d (but don\u2019t outdo them either) lifestyle, but they reject every opportunity. They just can\u2019t give it up.<\/p>\n At the lowest rung of the club\u2019s hierarchy are Cailee Spaeny\u2019s Ashley Miller and Charles Melton\u2019s Austin Davis, both also giving mold-breaking performances as the newly engaged beverage cart girl and part-time trainer of MVP, whose naive bliss collapses when they accidentally witness a blowout fight between Josh and Lindsay that looks bad in person and worse on video. That sets up the cascade of attempted outmaneuvering between the two couples, who are both also trying to keep their own relationships on track. They\u2019re all somewhat bad at it; everyone\u2019s a little dumb, but they\u2019re often muttering about how they think everyone else is dumb. It\u2019s great.<\/p>\n Lee and co. have once again made the difficult job of weaving complex and ever-escalating storylines between and across an ensemble cast seem like easy work. Their script gives their actors no shortage of red meat to chew on while still being incredibly funny as they generally prod \u201cthe modern condition.\u201d Isaac and Mulligan make for an excellent pair of elder millennials who still listen to M83 and talk about Hot Chip fondly, but have stalled out on the big dreams from early in their marriage. Melton \u2014 who, with Warfare, May December, and now this, has fully ascended from Riverdale\/YA teen titles \u2014 is quite good as a people pleaser with low self-confidence because he can\u2019t move past his own glory days as a college football athlete. And it\u2019s incredibly fun to watch Spaeny, after so many heroine roles, play a try-hard who is the product of her unfortunate circumstances, but has spent too much time on therapy-Tok while doing little to actually help herself or quell her paranoias.<\/p>\n It\u2019s these four characters\u2019 selfish wants \u2013 whether it\u2019s simply a $45k yearly salary with crappy, high-deductible healthcare, or to bank enough money to finish building a homey bed and breakfast \u2013 and fear of losing any of it that pushes the characters to act more and more deranged toward each other. It\u2019s been a while since I\u2019ve watched a series where so many episodes end on scenes that had me viscerally recoiling.<\/p>\n What We Thought of Beef Season 1 “With Beef, creator Lee Sung Jin and his stellar cast have crafted an almost operatic tale about the cost of unaddressed rage, narcissism, and trauma. It\u2019s funny, it\u2019s harrowing, and it\u2019s exceptionally original in portraying two damaged people who find their mirror selves in a random parking lot dust-up. Stephen Yeun and Ali Wong are spectacular as Danny and Amy, making it natural to believe that they are tormented soulmates who share a common darkness they\u2019ve kept hidden their whole lives. Watching them provoke, terrorize, and eventually truly see one another is an exhilarating, terrifying spectacle that deserves all the buzz it’s getting.” \u2014Tara Bennett<\/p>\n Read the full review.<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cBabe, everybody\u2019s scamming,\u201d a stoned Josh correctly declares in Episode 2. TThe only ones who can leverage a win are those who have hoarded enough wealth to boot up their private jet to fly off to their fifth house whenever the mood strikes \u2014 or if they account for at least 2% of an entire country\u2019s GDP. And there\u2019s no bigger apex predator in the Beef system than the club\u2019s new owner, Chairwoman Park, played by the legendary Youn Yuh-jung as the quietly terrifying, richer-than-God head of a South Korean chaebol. She, too, is constantly making decisions that protect and enrich her and her conglomerate dynasty, down to her explaining why she chose her second husband in Dr. Kim (Song Kang-Ho), Korea\u2019s \u201cbest plastic surgeon\u201d who is 20 years her junior. Both Youn and Song have relatively little screen time in the grand scheme of the season, but not a single glance is wasted. They\u2019re both highly calculated and effective actors, and Season 2 would be just good, but not outstanding, if their characters had been omitted. The second Song \u2014 playing the complete opposite of his role as a driver for the ultra-rich in Parasite \u2014 shows up (his first American TV role!), it adds extra gravitas that pushes Beef to the next dramatic level. And at a certain point, Season 2 sprints past Season 1 in an exciting tone shift that feels more spiritually similar to another prestige-y series that also starts with a B<\/a>. <\/p>\n<\/a>Carey Mulligan and Oscar Isaac in Beef Season 2 | Credit: Netflix <\/p>\n
<\/a>Charles Melton and Cailee Spaeny in Beef Season 2 | Credit: Netflix<\/p>\n
<\/a>Ali Wong and Steven Yeun in Beef Season 1 | Credit: Netflix<\/p>\n