Where's the Beef?
Yes, I'm late to the party, but here's why I loved Beef on Netflix
“One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.” -Carl Jung
I know I’m a millennial because I can no longer view something without subconsciously deciding what meme I’ll used to sum it up later. The obvious choice for Beef, a Netflix show about a road rage incident that spirals into a kaleidoscope of chaos is Will Ferrell in Anchorman exclaiming:
“Boy, that escalated quickly.”
Good memes, like all good content must contain a kernel of truth, and so I’d posit that this one isn’t just a cheeky reduction. The extreme escalation of Beef is both what powers the show and what makes it so eminently watchable. As I belatedly discovered with my family over Christmas, this is textbook binge-worthy prestige TV. Each episode ends with a “holy shit” moment that will have you pausing to react and discuss before charging ahead into the next one, jetlag and morning plans be damned.
The vibe of Beef is as hard to pin down as the plot is to summarize, but my best attempt is that it feels like a clever hybrid of Parasite, The White Lotus, and Breaking Bad. We’ve got lots of class-conscious satire and dark comedy guiding us deeper and deeper into a revenge story full of deception and betrayal. Like Breaking Bad, cliffhangers abound and the episodes are fueled by an escalating study of cause and effect, our protagonists back and forth acts of retaliation ricocheting delightfully and dangerously in all directions, relentlessly ratcheting up the stakes, and increasing the intrigue with every episode.
As an A-24 production you get the thought-provoking concept, great casting, and crisp production value you’ve come to expect from them. You also get the stylistic maximalism and genre fluidity they’re known for. This is generally a dark comedy but certain scenes and episodes deftly borrow elements of mystery, true crime, horror, and psychedelic drug trips. Just when I thought it couldn’t go anywhere else, there was a talking crows scene that felt straight out of Everything, Everywhere, All At Once.
It’s hard to discuss the plot of Beef without straying into spoilers or tumbling down the spiral staircase that the pilot so carefully sets up, so in a charmingly chaotic fashion A24 would approve of I’d like to just list a few things you’ll enjoy after Amy (Ali Wong) honks at Danny (Steven Yeun) in a parking lot:
Searing indictments of out-of-touch LA affluence, suburban Nextdoor paranoia, the pretentiousness of the art world, and the very idea of Calabasas
Touching musings on the lifelong bond of a sibling, intergenerational trauma, mental health, the experience of being Asian American, and the consequences of both repressing and expressing our deepest rage and desires
A truly hilarious church basketball sequence
Discovering that Steven Yeun has a great voice and can play guitar
The best use of Hoobastank’s song “The Reason” in human history
While the manic spirals of the plot are what hook you at first, the gravity that sucks you in over time comes from the acting. Stars Ali Wong and Steven Yeun knock their respective performances out of the park, bringing to life remarkably flawed individuals that are nonetheless believable, relatable, and empathetic. A supporting highlight for me was Young Mazino as Danny’s younger brother Paul, who captures the ups and downs of a sibling relationship with depth and charisma.
This is one of those masterful shows with no clear hero or villain. Instead, it revels in the ambiguity and complexity of depicting sublimely flawed people opportunistically thrashing their way towards what they believe will make them happy. Beef is about an angry and alienated society where family, religion, and even extreme affluence can’t save you from your own misery and self destruction. It’s about discovering a perverse joy in messing with someone else, the peculiar and intoxicating intimacy of engaging in revenge, and finding meaning and liberation in unexpected places and decisions. It’s about rebirth as a form of destruction and destruction as a form of rebirth.
Like other recent prestige TV like The White Lotus and A24 triumphs like Everything, Everywhere, All at Once, the marvel of Beef is in the vibrant tension and creative impact contained within all of these extreme contrasts. Lee Sung Jin has created the rare kind of show that’s as watchable as it is textured, funny as it is disturbing, damning as it is humanizing. Beef manages to be accessible and universal while also staying granular and grounded in the LA Asian American experience. It’s hyper-stylized to the point of Daliesque absurdity but also devastatingly real and raw. It’s a one-of-a-kind show that you have to see to believe. I’m only sorry it took me so long to sit down and watch it.
Have you seen Beef? What did you think of it?
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