What Beef S2 Is Really About - and Why It Dooms Everyone
Among other things, Beef Season 2 has one crucial message: rich people are literally the worst. The biting class satire reinforces, again and again, that in the world of late-stage capitalism, it really is every man for himself.
We can blame the system or blame the individuals, but either way, self-preservation is at the heart of every misdeed, betrayal, and revenge plot we see in the second season of the hit Netflix series. And in a way, you can’t blame them — as Olivia Rodrigo says, it really is brutal out here.
But that doesn’t make it any less uncomfortable — and yet, entertaining — to watch…
Blackmail and Fake Friends: The Biggest ‘Beef’ in Season 2
When we start the second season of Beef, we meet picture perfect couple, Josh and Lindsay. Like all rich people, they have hosted a fundraiser, but the event isn’t really about altruism — it’s about establishing the country club status quo that they happily lord over. It doesn’t take long to realise that there are some serious cracks and bubbling resentment in their relationship, and inevitably, this all boils over in an explosive argument.
This is where Austin and Ashley, a couple at the very bottom of the country club’s food chain, come in. They film this argument and decide to play the top dogs at their own gain and blackmail them for their own selfish desires, and the golden couple are so concerned with self-preservation and maintaining that status quo that they actually agree. Austin and Ashley then gradually become more corrupt, turning into the very people they’re meant to despise.
I know, selfishness underpinning a blackmail plot is hardly groundbreaking, but one thing I found especially interesting about the country club bubble was the way that couples like Josh and Lindsay have learned to rely on a network of favours. While there are plenty of scenes of them interacting with so-called friends, nothing about these connections is actually real.
Even though these people are rich enough to have anything they desire, their friendships with each other are all about what they can get out of one another, whether it be a private jet ride, premium healthcare, or a divorce lawyer. When Lindsay tries to teach Ashley how to navigate the country club’s social scene, what she’s really doing is showing her how to build these shallow relationships enough to start rinsing the other person to get what they need from them.
Arguably, the central beef between the two couples is essentially a struggle about who can stay on top of this network of favours.
‘A System of Nature’: How Beef Critiques Capitalism
Everything else that happens in Beef Season 2, including the covering up of a death at Dr Kim’s Seoul clinic and the embezzlement, among other things, is about as self-serving as you can get. The role of selfishness in this series is pretty much summed up by Chairwoman Park, the new owner of the country club, in a monologue in the final episode. In her speech, she emphasised her belief that our self-serving nature is inherent, and that it is the reason we’ve survived so long as a species.
“That is why capitalism works,” she says. “It is a system of nature. System of the self. Love lives in this system. All relationships exist in this system. They’re all the same, another way to serve the self.”
It’s a twisted speech, for sure, but it does explain the logic behind why self-preservation is such a key driving force for all these characters.
How Season 2 Comes Full Circle
Still, despite this soliloquy, Josh surprises all of us by sacrificing his freedom and shouldering all the responsibility for the country club’s embezzlement to let Lindsay go free. By that point, it looks like the pair have patched things up, with Lindsay promising to wait for him, but predictably, she ends up putting herself first, remarrying, and starting a new life for herself.
Consequently, Josh has gone back to his old ways. We see him ‘work the room’ and complete favours for other people in order to get ahead, just like in the country club — the only difference being that he is now doing this in prison.
As for Austin, he, too, has the chance of redemption, but he differs from Josh by ultimately choosing to cover up the shady goings on at the country club in order to get ahead. Ashley, on the other hand, seems prepared to give up the affluent lifestyle she’s become accustomed to by giving Austin the USB stick of evidence against Park. But it seemingly doesn’t take much for Austin to reel her back in.
The series then ends with a haunting rehash of the beginning. Eight years later, Ashley and Austin are hosting a fundraiser, showing how they firmly have the place of Josh and Lindsay in the country club pecking order. Effectively, this inescapable cycle of selfishness continues, and the system remains undefeated. This seamlessly ties in with the final episode’s title: "It will stay this way, and you will obey.”
