Netflix's 'Beef' returns for a second season, serving up a dish of polarising characters, high drama, and shocking moments. The anthology series, created by Lee Sung Jin, follows the Emmy-winning first season with eight episodes centred on two couples entangled in a web of classism, blackmail, and fraud.
The story revolves around Josh (Oscar Isaac) and Lindsay (Carey Mulligan), a wealthy couple managing a California country club, and Ashley (Cailee Spaeny) and Austin (Charles Melton), two broke twenty-somethings working low-level jobs there. After witnessing a violent argument between their bosses, Ashley records the incident on her phone, sparking a chain of depraved events.
While the season explores themes of money and power, it is the characters' moral failings that drive the narrative. Josh, a porn-addicted club manager, neglects his wife and squanders her inheritance on his mother's medical bills, leading to financial ruin and embezzlement. Lindsay, meanwhile, is not blameless in their marital strife.
The most villainous figure is Chairwoman Park (Youn Yuh-jung), a ruthless businesswoman with no qualms about ordering murders, covering up medical negligence, and evading taxes. Her cold-blooded actions, including attempts to kill Josh and frame Lindsay, make her a standout antagonist, though she is excluded from the poll for being too obviously evil.
Despite the frustratingly naive choices of the central characters, 'Beef' Season 2 grips viewers with its relentless tension and dark humour. The show's exploration of how far people will go to survive in a cutthroat world leaves a lasting impression, even if the characters themselves are hard to root for.
