BEEF

Season Two It feels like a season made for a show titled ‘MESSY’ instead of ‘BEEF’ and even though I was sad to see the lack of beef and step-down in overall quality this wild romance drama plot sunk its hooks so deep that I watched it all in one sitting. There is something it does better than the first season and it’s honestly a marvelous feat that they were able to achieve it, this main cast of Oscar Isaac, Carey Mulligan, Cailee Spaeny, Charles Melton, Youn Yuh-jung, and Song Kang-ho was as incredible as it sounds with each of those fantastic actors taking the spotlight at least once with a monologue and they all brought their A game. Isaac and Mulligan were the definite highlights for me with both of them giving some of my new favorite performances of their career, their marital chemistry was some of the realest I’ve felt in TV in a long time (probably since Kim and Saul) and I really can’t praise the acting from both enough. I also can’t iterate enough how close Spaeny came to reaching the magic they did which is really saying something, Melton was also up there but didn’t have quite the same magic Cailee did, I can’t wait to see her become one of Hollywood’s best and most popular actresses as I’m truly that confident it’ll happen with the career path she’s on right now. I’ll talk about something other than the acting now and move onto the story which had some shortcomings for sure, I think it tries to make itself wilder than it needed to be (I know it’s BEEF but I’m talking purely for the potential of the storyline’s without considering anything else) and like I said it completely strayed from the first season thematically but I’m really impressed by the experience it managed to create, the character writing was very well done and the twists, turns, and overall direction of the story kept me on my feet until the end, the thought-provoking and emotional romantic drama also added elements I loved, I know it’s different but I really can’t understand the people hating on this story. I feel similarly about the writing as it also had some issues but overall worked very well, some tries at Gen Z humor and culture as a whole gave it a slight feeling of artifice (although I have to admit it also had some of the most accurate current-day-set lines of dialogue I’ve seen from the past few years) but the stubborn sincerity that maintains itself through the whole season is able to overcome that and any other problems I may have had. I also thought this was really well filmed and made as a whole, it had some incredible one-shots with solid editing that allowed these performances and words to breathe and with the lovely score adding to the emotion the technical experience did all it needed to bring this lovely story to life. One thing I’m not too sure how to feel about is the ending, I won’t spoil anything but it just felt off, maybe it’s because most of the romance dramas I’ve been watching recently have been much older ones that needed to have a happy ending so this more realistic and sadder one feels weird but I also think, for my taste at least, a happy ending to a romance story has a more profound impact on me than a dark one. I know this has been getting some lukewarm reviews and if I wasn’t a fan of romance I might honestly listen to them but if you’re like me and love pulpy drama like this with some of our generation’s best actors doing their thing then I think this might be for you.