Rating: 3.5/5
“Beef,” an A24 production and Netflix’s latest comedy-drama, centers around the quest for revenge of small-business owner Danny Cho (Steven Yeun) and high-end living entrepreneur Amy Lau after a road rage altercation that haunts the rest of the show. In a relationship built on vengeance, Danny and Amy find themselves entangling their lives because of rash decisions, petty dispositions, and rageful behaviors aimed solely at getting back at each other.
While I’m not an avid TV show watcher, “Beef” managed to entrance me through its familiar California setting paired with first-generation Asian American strife. With the show being set and produced in Southern California consisting of a predominantly Asian American cast, references and lingo about state colleges and cuisines were familiar.
One thing that definitely stood out to me was the show’s ability to demonstrate how Amy and Danny’s lives paralleled each other despite the two being from different economic backgrounds. That they both failed to form genuine connections with the people closest to them was a clear result of persistent internal insecurities and shortcomings about their success. This was seen in Amy’s rocky marriage with her husband George Nakai (Joseph Lee), the son of a famous Japanese artist, as they traverse each other’s parenting styles. This is paralleled in Danny’s tumultuous relationship with his younger brother Paul Cho (Young Mazino) as he loses a brotherly connection to him as a confidant.
The show utilized specific SoCal stereotypes based on social class, with Amy representing the extremely high-end living standards of a Los Angeles entrepreneur and Danny’s representation of a failed small business owner. While both characters seem opposite on paper, the show perfectly executes the strife that plagues both of them — neither of them are ever quite satisfied with their personal achievements. Whether it was Danny’s dream of running a successful construction business to bring over his parents from Korea, or Amy neglecting her child to pursue large business ventures, there was always a sense of dissatisfaction.
As Amy and Danny’s lives unconsciously intermingled, the cast’s acting took center stage; mixing comedic moments with emotional tugs at the heart. Both character’s gloomy disposition on life make their public interaction comedic, and the show contrasted much of that with themes of childhood trauma and suicide. While the bulk of the show is comedic, scenes that depicted Danny dealing with internal regret over losing his brother moved me. The constant theme of “there’s always something,” which refers to disaster after disaster that the characters experience, kept me wanting to see one episode after the next.
By the end of the show, I began to lose sight of the original plot because of numerous unrelated side missions. Due to the introduction of several new characters, the show fails to find plot cohesion. It was great to see their subplots, but the show left them extremely undeveloped, making the scenes choppy when put all together. For example, Paul’s fate at the end of the show is left largely unclear and Amy’s newly estranged relationship with her husband and child seems quite abrupt.
Every time I thought the plot couldn’t get thicker, “Beef” continued to surprise me, which drew in both positive and negative feelings since I enjoyed the increasingly insane subplots, but felt that the plot overall was in dire need of cohesion. I felt the characters’ emotions in my heart with every new hardship they faced and couldn’t help but feel drawn to them.