![]() Sure, Amy and Danny could resort to violence and physically harm the other, but that’s almost too simple. What makes Beef so anxiety-inducing and so gripping is that it fully explores what it means to hurt someone. ![]() Danny’s decision not to set Amy’s SUV ablaze with a toddler inside is one of the few, brief moments of relief that showrunner Lee Sung Jin gives the audience over the show’s 10 propulsive episodes. He asks to use the bathroom and pees all over her renovated commode.Īmy retaliates by spray-painting his beat-up truck with insults like “I am poor.” Danny almost arsons Amy’s luxury SUV with her daughter inside it, and that’s just in the third episode. Danny visits her house under the pretense of being a good Samaritan contractor. Instead of brushing it off, Amy and Danny each memorize the other’s license plate and begin an escalating war of terror. Neither one can let the anger go, and it becomes a moment that changes their lives forever. A screeching episode of Southern California road rage ensues - running red lights, swerving up onto sidewalks, throwing bottled drinks, and cursing the other’s existence. And Jordan is giving her the runaround, leveraging the deal to get Amy to do whatever she asks, even though there are already plenty of people in Amy’s life - her husband, her daughter, her employees - asking too much of her.Īmy and Danny have just two things in common: They are at their limit and they are in the Forster’s parking lot. Amy herself has been too busy providing for her family to enjoy the life she’s built, though. Her husband George (Joseph Lee) and their daughter June (Remy Holt) already live an extremely comfortable life full of pottery, cute dogs, and meditation thanks to Amy’s ambition and sacrifice. In this scene, Danny is having a hard day and almost arsons a toddler. Selling Kōyōhaus to Jordan would mean millions of dollars for Amy and her family, and a life where she can relax. Amy is in the midst of brokering an acquisition deal with Jordan Forster (Maria Bello), the head of Forster’s. In that same store but in a seemingly very different place in her life is Amy Lau (Ali Wong), the founder of Kōyōhaus, a bougie plant store. Danny’s construction projects are few and far between, his parents are back home in Korea struggling, and he’s taken it upon himself to support not only himself but his younger brother, Paul (Young Mazino). Anyone who has ever tried knows that returning an item without a receipt is an impossible, Sisyphean task, an endless loop of questions and answers designed to break a person’s soul.īut Danny’s already broken, mainly because he’s extremely broke - which also explains why he’s returning the hibachi grills. Danny Cho (Steven Yeun), who dreams of making enough money to bring his hard-working parents back from Korea and letting them retire, is faced with the grim reality of trying to return multiple hibachi grills without a receipt. Like all good tragedies, Beef begins in a home improvement store called Forster’s. People come into your life for a reason, we’re told (often by people who have seemingly come into our lives to dispense this saccharine view of the world).īeef proposes the frightening scenario in which a once-in-a-lifetime moment could result in finding your mortal enemy, and the terrifying possibility that someone we’ve never met before could change our lives for the worse. Like there’s a one in 8 billion chance of meeting your soulmate, or it’s some kind of lucky coincidence that a stranger may change your life for the better. Usually, when humans talk about chance meetings with other humans, we think of the positive. ![]() Is this about her divorce? I think it’s about her divorce.”īeef creates commanding television by twisting the idea of a fateful encounter. “I like that this is obliquely a show about hot Asians hotting hottily” My only texts to friends were in the brief seconds between each episode. To get me to forget my phone, my T-shirts, and my dirty coffee table, a show has to knock me out.Īnd right now the show doing that is Netflix and A24’s anxiety-inducing Beef. The less interested I am in a show, the more texts get sent, the crisper the folds are, and the cleaner my coffee table is. I partake in what’s known as ambient TV, where there’s something on while I’m folding laundry or cleaning up my living room or on my phone, texting friends or tweeting to non-friends. I have a simple test when it comes to good television: Did it make me put my phone down?
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