BEEF Season 2 Review | Lee Sung Jin’s Latest Spreads The ‘Eat The Rich’ Genre Too Thin

Recent outings like Sam Raimi’s Send Help and now the latest season of Netflix’s BEEF (2023-ongoing) might make you believe that the 'Eat the Rich' genre has already exhausted all that it could say and is now simply being repurposed by the same capitalist overlords that it set out to critique in the first place, in a bid to cash in on the performance of self-awareness.

While the acclaimed first season sprang from a simple road rage incident experienced by creator Lee Sung Jin, he found inspiration for this highly anticipated follow up in a heated debate he overheard between a couple. This argument sets the stage for a vicious new generational clash. But when you strip away the dazzling multi-starrer cast and sprawling new locations, you are left with a depressing realisation. This is just another American series, much like Breaking Bad (2008–2013), that would have never happened if the US had universal healthcare and we were not experiencing unprecedented wage inequality all the world over.

The second season of BEEF centres Monte Vista Point, an elite country club where our four main characters are trapped in an intertwined web of ambition, manipulation, delusion and resentment. Oscar Isaac plays Joshua "Josh" Martín, the general manager of the club. He is married to Carey Mulligan's Lindsay, a hoity-toity, colonial-decor-loving interior decorator. Together, Josh and Lindsay are the cynical Millennials who are thoroughly jaded from trying to social climb all their lives. They represent a specific breed of exhausted adults, entirely drained by the personas they have crafted to stay afloat.

On the other side of the generational divide are the Gen Z workers at the club. Charles Melton plays Austin Davis, an aspiring personal trainer, who is engaged to Cailee Spaeny's Ashley Miller. Their worlds collide when Austin and Ashley witness a volatile altercation between their bosses, Josh and Lindsay. This single event sets off a spiral of deception, rivalry, and class warfare.

The cast is otherwise also stacked with good actors who give enjoyable performances across the board. The Monte Vista Point setting allows for some wild celebrity cameo appearances, ranging from Michael Phelps and Benny Blanco to Finneas O'Connell, Billie Eilish's brother, all playing themselves as the country club’s celebrity clients.

The inciting incident for much of the chaos is rooted in a devastating medical crisis. Ashley has ovarian cysts which have caused a torsed ovary. After waiting in the ER for five agonising hours, Ashley collapses and no one takes her pain seriously until it is too late. It is undeniably nice to see PCOS represented in media like this, but if anything, it has induced a new fear in me. The fact that cysts can also cause the ovaries to twist, causing life-threatening conditions, was unknown to me till I saw a similar storyline in the second season of The Pitt (2025-ongoing).

However, in every way, BEEF treats the situation absolutely antithetically to how it is treated in The Pitt. In The Pitt, Fiona Dourif’s Dr. McKay treats her patient with exceptional empathy, like most doctors on the HBO show do; the state of the healthcare system as portrayed on BEEF, however, is staunchly anti-competency porn and therefore closer to reality.

The sheer desperation to pay for basic survival sets Ashley and Austin down a twisted path of grift and sabotage. And soon we find out that it is scams all the way down. They are not the only ones trying to climb up to the surface of the oceans of capitalism to stop themselves from drowning. Josh and Lindsay are there too, a few notches above them with an oxygen cylinder to survive longer.

Above all this petty, desperate scrambling is Chairwoman Park, played brilliantly as always by Youn Yuh-jung. She is the new billionaire owner of the country club, married to Dr. Kim, her private doctor who is twenty years her junior. Dr. Kim is played by the Parasite (2019) protagonist actor Song Kang-ho. Park is perfectly cast here. Billionaires, so easily caricatured in ‘Eat the Rich’ dramas as comically evil, come to life much more menacingly in how Youn plays Park. She is the "women in male dominated fields" meme that comes to life on screen, utilising ‘girlboss, gaslight, gatekeep’ feminism as a weapon.

The show rallies behind the idea that there are no ethical billionaires, irrespective of gender or race. There is a prevailing thematic thread that theorises that everyone below is just a cog in the wheel, no matter where in the hierarchy they might be in late stage capitalism. It acknowledges that we are all just trying to make sense of it while trying to survive in a system designed to keep us down.

However, the series ultimately ends up underlining the infallibility of this system. It highlights the inevitability of it all, and the futility of trying to escape what is inescapable. In revolution, we have to believe in the hope that there is a better tomorrow. The fight is lost the very moment we lose hope. So that way, BEEF season two fails in spirit by reiterating that the apex predator, the one at the top of the food chain, will chew you up, spit you out and leave no crumbs.

Even when the story itself leaves major gaps, the stylistic visuals and technical aspects of the show keeps you intrigued. In Bong Joon Ho’s Parasite, this divide between the Kim and Park families is often shown through the visual element of stairs going up and down—a feature of South Korean streets brilliantly used as a metaphor. In BEEF, the doubling effect serves a similar purpose. At different points of the series, the audience sees the characters double up in people they aspire to be or get to look down upon as they climb the class ladder or get knocked down a few pegs on it.

Unfortunately, despite these visual flourishes, the new season is simply not raw enough, philosophical enough, or spiritual enough like the first season. Because they clearly had a bigger budget this time around, the story lands the protagonists in South Korea. There is action, blood and death. It loses the grounded, suffocating intimacy of the first season and becomes something that is distinctly more commercial in vibe. The different plot points also eventually feel all over the place. You see the effort in how this season tries to do something so new with the ‘Eat the Rich’ genre but spreads itself thinner for it.

The climax of the season leans heavily on game theory, with the Prisoner's dilemma forming the crux of the final showdown. This ideological battle is best summarised by a chilling thought Chairwoman Park shares. She argues that capitalism works and is the best system ever because human beings ultimately choose to serve themselves whenever they do something, even if that something is the act of loving another. Yet, the four core characters defy that idea in the final moments—some for the better and some for the worse. They make chaotic choices that contradict Park's purely transactional worldview. It leaves the audience to ponder: Who gets to escape from the "matrix" and what does it cost them to break free?

In the end, BEEF is a bit messy and bloated in its sophomore outing, but it still serves up plenty to chew on.