‘Beef’ is road rage revenge well done | Non-spoiler review

While the inciting incident of Netflix’s new series Beef is dramatic, it’s perhaps not quite as dramatic as you’d expect. When we are first introduced to Danny Cho (Steven Yeun) he’s in line at a home improvement store called Forsters suspiciously returning three portable grills and a carbon monoxide alarm. “You’ve tried to return these three times before,” the cashier quips before Danny sulks back to his car. However, as he backs out of his parking spot he nearly hits a white Mercedes SUV. The driver honks their horn a touch too long, which annoys the already aggravated Danny. To make matters worse, they stop, roll down their window, and flip Danny the bird. 

The ensuing chase is reckless as Danny tries to get a look at the driver. Flower beds are destroyed, red lights are run, and near crashes abound. However, they never come face to face. Instead, Danny memorizes the license plate and vows to track her down. The cold open is so concise and sharp. Without the context of the participants it’s shocking. However, as “The Birds Don’t Sing, They Screech in Pain” goes on, we learn exactly why Danny and Amy’s (Ali Wong) reactions make sense and how it careens both of them into an existential tail spin — that’s where the real dramatics start.

When you’re at the edge of a cliff, the smallest nudge will send you plummeting over the edge.

We’re introduced to both of our protagonists’ — or are they antagonists? (only time will tell) — inner circles. There’s Amy’s house husband George (Joseph Lee), a paragon of the wealthy Los Angelean holistic bohemian, who instead of asking Amy what’s troubling her when she returns home tells her to take a deep breath and focus on the positive — “let’s fill out our gratitude journals,” he suggests. On the other side, Danny’s brother Paul (Young Mazino) is a man-child who spends his days playing video games and trading crypto instead of working with Danny on his contractor business. While both characters fill archetypes — as does all of the supporting cast — the series progressively challenges our assumptions about them each episode. 

Amy, a successful entrepreneur who founded a luxury plant brand, is in the throes of a deal with Jordana Forster (Maria Bello), the egregiously wealthy owner of the Forster line of home improvement stores. Wong’s portrayal of Amy as a product of the #girlboss generation is instantly intriguing as she makes sure to show the cracks in the facade. Glimmers of her 1,000-watt smile fading tell us everything we need to know about her — she has to remain in control but is slowly losing it. Even in couples therapy where Amy and George are working through his penchant for liking her employee’s thirst trap pictures on Instagram — “Baby I can explain, I’m just saving the captions” — she has a rehearsed, well-studied response that is designed to appease anyone with a psych degree. It doesn’t. Eventually someone under that much pressure will eventually crack. 

However, there are moments when Amy shows her hand. Like when she lets slip about her mother, “she thought that talking about your feelings is the same as complaining.” It’s those flashes of biting commentary about the first generation Asian-American experience that surprise you amongst the nearly slapstick chaos of Beef. Danny, seemingly a chronic failure to start, would rather lie and tear the people around him down to make them than seem like he’s failed again. Amy, a workaholic, can’t seem to let go of the ladder that she’s been climbing for decades, one that she doesn’t seem to want to climb, even if it means leaving those she cares about on the ground.

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The eponymous beef between Danny and Amy gives them both purpose. Even if that purpose is to win at all costs. What’s incredible about Beef‘s trajectory, is that when blood is spilled in the final episodes, we almost forget what exactly they were beefing about in the first place.

In “The Drama of Original Choice,” we learn more about both Amy and Danny’s pasts as Beef further digs into its exploration of the Asian diaspora. However, we don’t just see their pasts, we see their parents’. We see the hope and dreams that they put upon their kids — just like the bagel in Everything Everywhere All At Once — and the sacrifice they had to make to give them the opportunity. That amount of pressure will cause anything to break, even if it becomes a diamond first like Amy.

By series end, all the periphery characters become victims of both Danny and Amy’s own pride — and their beef. No one makes it out unscathed or unchanged. Whether it’s Paul who lives constantly in Danny’s shadow (and unwanted protection) or Amy’s husband George who has to find validation from his mother Fumi (Patti Yasutake) rather than his own wife. There’s Amy’s neighbor and Jordana’s confidant Naomi (Ashley Park), whose seemingly idealistic housewife life is threatened by Amy’s success — “I work,” she tells Amy, “I have my non-profit.”Beef is about trauma and our response to it. But the road rage incident isn’t the trauma. It’s the inciting incident of Danny and Amy’s reckoning with their pasts, how it affects their presents, and their paths for the future. It is one of the most incisive deconstructions of the first generation Asian-American experience.

In the series’ most-powerful moment — and Ali Wong’s future Emmys clip — Amy asks her therapist, “do you think love could really be unconditional?” The series answers that question in its own way. Even if things need to be destroyed to get there.

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Hey! I’m Karl. You can find me on Twitter here. I’m also a Tomatometer-approved critic.

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