BEEF, S2
Can lightning strike twice on Netflix for Korean American screenwriter and director Lee Sung Jin?
Two years ago, it did when he paired Steven Yuen and Ali Wong in 'Beef' - a cautionary tale about an escalating feud between two strangers, arising from a road rage incident.
Now he's back with a new story about people behaving abominably, turning 'Beef' ino an anthology series.
But does the new version of 'Beef' hit the heights of its predecessor?
This time, Oscar Isaac, Carey Mulligan, Cailee Spaeny, Oscar winner Youn Yuh-jung from 'Minari' and 'Parasite' star Song Kang-ho are there to add some acting heft to proceedings.
Isaac and Mulligan play Josh and Lindsay Crane Martin, a power couple with a wobbly marriage who run a Californian country club.
Returning home from a function at the club, the couple get into a fierce argument about Josh's debts and the state of their marriage.
Josh has left his wallet behind at the club and two of his employees, Spaeny's Ashley Miller and her fiancée, Charles Melton's Austin Davis are tasked with dropping it by the Martins' house on their way home.
Arriving at the Martins, they spy the couple having a bit of a tussle over a golf iron - unaware that moments before, Lindsay had started throwing and smashing objects during her argument with her husband.
Ashley and Austin misinterpret what they see, believing they are witnessing an act of domestic violence that Josh is about to perpetrate on Lindsay.
Filming it on a smartphone, they scarper when they are spotted and fret about whether they should go to the police.
Josh confronts Ashley the following day on the golf course about the filming of the incident and he badly mishandles the conversation, appearing to threaten her.
Meanwhile Austin checks in on Lindsay who insists she's fine.
Events take a twist, however, when Ashley suffers severe abdominal pain at work and is admitted to hospital where she is diagnosed with an ovarian cyst and torsion.
With the younger couple struggling to afford the hospital bill and the treatment that Ashley will need, they decide to blackmail the Martins instead into paying it for them.
As part of the deal, Josh replaces his personal assistant with Ashley and agrees to give her medical insurance in return for the deletion of the video.
The Martins, however, resent being blackmailed and with Josh defrauding the club, they decide to manipulate the accounts to make it look like Ashley is responsible.
Will the poorer, younger couple trump the wealthier, middle aged husband and wife?
Will they twig Ashley is being set up?
And have they really deleted the video?
By its very nature, 'Beef' is one of those shows where there's a risk of the characters' antics becoming increasingly cartoonish as the story unfolds.
This time around, though, there's another plotline to navigate.
The Monte Vista Country Club has a Korean owner, Yuh-jung's billionaire Chairwoman Park who you suspect from the off is pretty ruthless.
She has a second husband, Kang-ho's Dr Kim, a plastic surgeon in Seoul whose clinic is providing a useful sideline for Monte Vista's tennis coach, Matthew Kim's Woosh, who arranges surgery in the South Korean capital for wealthy American clients.
Also in the mix is Seoyeon Jane's Anglo Korean, Eunice who serves as Chairwoman Park's interpreter and personal assistant and who Austin starts to develop feelings for.
As he weighs up whether he wants to leave Ashley for her, a scandal threatens to erupt at the plastic surgery clinic that could destroy Chairwoman Park and her business empire.
The task facing Lee Sung Jin and his screenwriters Anna Ouyang Moench, Gene Hong, Madeleine Pron, Ethan Kuperberg, Alex Russell, Carrie Kemper and Niko Gutierrez-Kovner is to convincingly knit these two storylines together.
Unfortunately, they make a real haims of it, with the show becoming increasingly far fetched and very 'Scooby Doo'.
As the show hurtles towards a ridiculous climax in Seoul, you end up not really sympathising with characters who become more monstrous as the show's nonsense plot unfolds.
As for the cast, whilst no-one can question the pedigree of Isaac and Mulligan, they are really wasted in this husk of a story and they flounder
Spaeny does a much better job holding back the tide and engaging our sympathies but eventually she is overwhelmed in the final two episodes.
Melton, Jane and Kim never convince, while Yuh-jung and Kang-ho feel like they are there simply because of their past cinematic achievements.
William Fichtner contributes very little to proceedings as Troy, a Baby Boomer member of the country club who annoyingly regularly imparts wisdom to Josh.
Playing his much younger wife, Mikaela Hoover's Ava feels perfunctory.
Cockily directed by Jake Schreier, Kitao Sakurai and Lee Sung Jin, the show's credibility is also undermined by some really irritating celebrity cameos woven into the story.
Billie Eilish's songwriting and record producing brother Finneas O'Connell, the Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps, the gymnast Sunisa Lee, the NBA all-star Baron Davis and the English synth pop band, Hot Chip seem to turn up for no other reason than the producers can get them to appear.
They add nothing to the show which is a bit of an empty vessel.
Will there be a third season?
Who knows and really, who cares?
However if Netflix does go down that route, Lee Sung Jin and his writing team are going to really need to up their game because this feels more like the scrag ends of 'Beef'.
(Season Two of 'Beef' was made available for streaming on Netflix on April 16, 2026)
Comments
Post a Comment