The American comedy drama anthology television series created by Lee Sung Jin returns to Netflix with a second season that will keep you on the edge of your seat.
We are introduced to Joshua “Josh” Martín (Oscar Isaac) and his British wife Lindsay Crane-Martín (Carey Mulligan). Josh is the general manager of a country club, and from the outside he and Lindsay come across as a power couple living the American dream, with their cute Dachshund called Burberry. But financially and emotionally they are unstable, to the point that Austin Davis (Charles Melton), an aspiring personal trainer, and his fiancé Ashley’ Miller (Cailee Spaeny) unwillingly witness an intense moment between the Martíns that will allow them to rise up the social ladder at the club. In parallel, Chairwoman Park (Youn Yuh-jung), the billionaire chairwoman of Josh’s country club, will have to take action for the troubles caused by her plastic surgeon husband Doctor Kim (Song Kang-ho), that will lead to repercussions also to her assistant Eunice (Seoyeon Jang) and the tennis trainer of the club Woosh (BM). Along the way Josh’s shady choices will affect the friendship he and his wife share with the uber-wealthy couple Troy (William Fichtner) and Ava (Mikaela Hoover).
This second season very well encapsulates the corrupt nature of humans, no matter how wholesome they seem to be at the beginning. People may start humble and eventually see an opportunity to be grabbed, no matter the cost; or they may have already been consumed by ambition and take for granted unscrupulousness as the means to navigate the world. Greed is interclassist.
Beef 2 also ridicules the grotesque fads of our time, like plastic surgery trips to South Korea, carried out by affluent, bored Westerners who spend their days flaunting expensive lifestyles. But the series intertwines also serious issues of contemporary America, such as the challenges of those who do not have health insurance and the hardships that come in procreating that may find a solution through IVF. The series also plays on generational contrasts, as it begins with a sizzling rivalry between a millennial couple and a Gen Z couple, which allows to explore the boss-employee dynamic.
The aspirations and pretensions of the characters are effectively portrayed also through very fleeting dreamlike instants, where they observe other characters and see them with their own features. They are projecting a “what if” scenario, imagining what it would feel like to be in the other person’s shoes. And this “other” is always a representation of the oppression they want to elude.
Just like season one, this second installment continues to emblematise its title to the very core. The use of the word “Beef” in the English slang is synonym with a feud or grudge, and the new cast of the series powerfully conveys the conflict between people, as they all show how they “have beef” with each other. Hostility, resentment, arguments that get out of control, display the despicable side of human nature in a monstrous and at times caricature-like manner. As one of the characters vents out: “Bad has to come out somewhere.”
This everlasting human trait is nobilitated by the title cards that precede each of the 8 episodes, that show art history representations of the malignity of man, with paintings by the likes of Hieronymus Bosch and Giuseppe Arcimboldo.
Beef 2 will get viewers hooked, even if they skipped the first season. It will actually draw spectators into watching the critically acclaimed, Emmy-winning dark comedy-drama series, that created the foundations for season 2.
Photo Credits: IMDb
Final Grade: B+