Early in “Beef”s” second season, lead character Lindsay Crane-Martín (Carey Mulligan) offers wisdom to her husband, Josh Martín (Oscar Isaac). Merely a brief line, her words fit warmly with the array of theses show creator Lee Sung Jin wove within the show’s many themes and motifs.
“Comparison is the thief of joy,” Mulligan advises, repeating the ancient adage to her husband. Neither Mulligan’s nor Isaac’s characters come to heed this rare, sensible line of dialogue in a show fueled by poorly-chosen words and impulsive actions.
However, where the characters fail to heed this advice, the audience must succeed in viewing this “Beef” season beside its earlier iteration.
Netflix’s twisty, ludicrous anthology series about the spiraling pitfalls of rage and revenge, returned on April 16 for its second installment. Despite featuring spotless performances, a delicious domino effect of anger and a 65mm film visual feast, “Beef’s” new installment is a touch too rare for the layman’s appetite. Fans of season one may be disappointed to find it more akin to a serviceable hamburger than to the fine A5 wagyu of the installment prior.
However, even a humble burger, when crafted with palpable love and abundant attention to detail, is hard to ever consider a waste of meat.
The show’s primary beef centers on Austin Davis (Charles Melton) and Ashley Miller (Cailee Spaeny) witnessing a heinous argument between Josh and Lindsay. An incriminating recording of the moment offers Austin and Ashley leverage to blackmail their opposites, forming a sour bond between the couples that costs characters their livelihoods and loved ones.
Austin and Ashley begin the series as a happily soon-to-be wed pair, struggling to make ends meet, but simply drowning in their abundance of love and affection for each other. Isaac and Mulligan play their elder, seasoned foils, with their love hampered and spoiled by the weight of time and money, or lack thereof.
Where “Beef’s” first season is a hundred-mile-per-hour bobsled to hell, its second is a grand ocean liner with a hole in its hull. Gone is the breakneck flying vitriol that made viewers fall in love with the feeling of being spat at. In its place, a sinking meditation on selfishness, heritage, independence and the finite bandwidth of forgiveness.
Neither is at all bad. But in placing the latter season next to the former, it is evident that the clear victor is not the most recent iteration.
Without the knowledge of the show’s first season looming like a favorite child, the second appears far more spectacular than audiences, and likely award season, will treat it.
Mulligan, Isaac, Spaeny and Melton all deliver rich, brilliant performances. They each beam with a cheeky glee, clearly delighted to have a script so hysterical and pithy, and to be the first to carry the torch burning “Beef” into television history.
Their talent and evident willingness to do so only makes it more tragic, then, that rather than exploding in several directions from the build-up of their “beef,” they only adapt and develop in reaction to the world exploding around them.
It provides skillful and touching performances from Mulligan and Isaac especially, but one cannot help but imagine the “what if,” a shadow that cools the once-livid fire burning under every episode.
The rage-bait steak sandwich that made season one of “Beef” so impossibly toothsome is gone. As a second course, Jin served audiences beef in a new format. Less rich, less gourmet? Perhaps. Still prepared with care and attention? Absolutely.
Jin and his cast prove that meat in a simpler shape is still meat. And wagyu is a speciality item for a reason.
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