‘I can only put out the present fire… not the non-existent one…’
I felt like the first season of Beef, starring Steven Yeun and Ali Wong, was vastly underseen, but enough people must have watched it to justify a second season, thank God. Season two establishes Lee Sung Jin’s show as an anthology with a whole new cast and a whole new story. If anything, it’s even better than its predecessor…
This time it is two couples who are beefing with each other, with Joshua Martin (Oscar Isaac) and his wife Lindsay (Carey Mulligan), a country club general manager and an interior designer, respectively, facing off against country club employee Ashley Miller (Cailee Spaeny) and her aspiring personal trainer fiancé, Austin (Charles Melton). The twist here is that as the couples face off, they also begin to argue among themselves; indeed, it is a furious and beautifully acted argument between Isaac and Mulligan that kicks off the feud in the first place.
First off, what a cast. It really is a joy to spend eight episodes in the company of these actors, particularly Mulligan, who is absolutely phenomenal throughout (she terrified me), and Spaeny, who manages to cloak her character’s true intentions in a whirlwind of wide-eyed sweetness and light. But then Isaac is great also. Insecure one minute and confident the next. A walking ball of anxiety and seething resentment. It’s just all great work. Throw in William Fichtner as one of Isaac’s more obnoxious country club members and you have about as good a cast as you’ll find on any TV show anywhere. And yet, as with season one, I feel like this wonderful second season has been slept on by the public at large. If you’re reading this and you’re looking for a high-quality show on Netflix to binge, season two of Beef would be my go-to response right now, and I don’t say that lightly.
While the social commentary strays a little too close to White Lotus territory for comfort, when a TV show is as compelling and captivating and funny as this is, it really doesn’t matter. It’s the kind of TV show that I can’t imagine anyone not enjoying. Stellar television.
