In 2023, Netflix’s Beef came out of nowhere to scoop Emmys, Golden Globes and just about every other telly gong going. Created by Lee Sung Jin and starring Steven Yeun, this tale of road rage turned full-blown feud further fed the world’s appetite for Korean-born drama following the success of Squid Game and Parasite. Now comes a second season, morphing this from a limited series to a True Detective-style anthology. New characters. New story. New beef.
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The show kicks off as well-to-do couple Josh (Oscar Isaac) and Lindsay (Carey Mulligan) are at each other’s throats, smashing everything in sight. No wonder Austin (Charles Melton), who works at the luxury country club Josh manages, and his fiancée Ashley (Cailee Spaeny) are left gawping. The pair arrive to see Josh at the height of his fury and rather than get involved, they reach for a phone to start recording.
This potentially damaging video soon has Josh jumping hoops. He employs Ashley to try to convince her to delete the evidence of his vile temper. “These fucking kids don’t know who they messed with,” spits his partner-in-persuasion Lindsay, a pitch-perfect embodiment of middle-class privilege gone off the rails. But that’s just one thread in Lee’s multi-layered story that doesn’t forget the show’s roots – with Josh’s country club bankrolled by wealthy Korean businesswoman, Chairwoman Park (Youn Yuh-jung).
From the first argument, Beef season two keeps the melodrama sizzling throughout – a mazy tale of marriage, murder, cover-ups and corruption. It’s a story that builds with pressure-cooker intensity, as characters try and out-manoeuvre each other like pieces in an increasingly vicious game of chess. Sometimes, the beef is a little overdone – Ashley throwing herself from a moving car, for example – but mostly its prime cuts.
Reuniting with her Inside Llewyn Davis co-star Isaac, Mulligan hasn’t had a role this juicy in years, as a disenchanted woman fuelled by anger (“You’ve wasted my whole life,” she yells at Josh, in one of many top rants). If you’ve ever wanted to see the Promising Young Woman star yelling at a coyote or holding her own in a mass brawl, now’s your chance. Ditto watching Isaac play keyboards to a cover of Hot Chip’s ‘Over and Over’.
Melton is another stand-out, showing – as he did in films like May December and Warfare – just what a mature actor he’s turning into post Riverdale. Fans of Korean cinema will also get a kick from seeing Parasite lead Song Kang-ho as Chairwoman Park’s hubbie, a top-rated cosmetic surgeon whose own issues back in Seoul have ramifications for everyone concerned. And it’ll come as no surprise to hear that Minari’s Oscar winner Youn Yuh-jung is utterly imperious as Chairwoman Park.
While there are slightly needless pop culture nods to everything from Top Gun: Maverick to The Hunger Games and its star “J-Law”, it remains a compelling look at ambition and avarice gone awry. With enough memorable scenes to prompt another helping – not least Carey Mulligan doing something utterly grim in an airplane toilet cubicle – Beef season two serves up another deliciously savage hunk of drama for you to sink your teeth into.
‘Beef’ season two is available to watch on Netflix now