Get ready to air your grievances: BEEF Season 2 is now streaming on Netflix. As you prepare for the full vengeance-filled course, get a taste of the Emmy-winning show’s return by watching the trailer now.
So who has the beef this season of the anthology series, from creator and showrunner Lee Sung Jin and A24? Newly engaged Ashley Miller (Cailee Spaeny) and Austin Davis (Charles Melton) are set against their boss, Joshua Martín (Oscar Isaac), and his spouse, Lindsay Crane-Martín (Carey Mulligan). A single encounter triggers chess moves and manipulations that ripple far beyond the country club where they work.
Lee knows fans are used to seeing older people battling with much younger generations. So he decided to switch up expectations with a Gen Z couple and their millennial counterparts. “We thought, ‘What if we actually made them a little bit closer in age and highlight that generational divide?’ ” he says.
Keep reading to figure out whose side you’re on in BEEF Season 2 — and get a peek into the season with exciting photos.
BEEF returns with a new cast and a new beef, as a Gen Z couple witnesses an alarming fight between their millennial boss and his wife. Ashley (Spaeny) and Austin (Melton), both lower-level staff at a country club, become entangled in the unraveling marriage of their general manager, Josh (Isaac), and his wife, Lindsay (Mulligan). Through favors and coercion, both couples vie for the approval of the elitist club’s billionaire owner, Chairwoman Park (Youn Yuh-jung), who struggles to manage her own scandal involving her second husband, Dr. Kim (Song Kang-ho).
“Season 1’s beef is so overt and aggressive. I thought Season 2 should be the inverse: a passive-aggressive beef, which is more true to life, especially in a workplace,” Lee says.
But this season of BEEF also explores relationships, and how they evolve over time. Austin and Ashley “have never been tested,” Lee teases. Josh and Lindsay, on the other hand, have been together for years. “Austin and Ashley think all they need is each other and the beach. So when we meet them, they are thrust into intersecting with our millennial couple,” Lee continues. “It’ll be interesting to see with these two how they react to life’s first real struggles.”
Yes! After he watched Season 1, RM from the Korean boy band BTS asked Lee to direct the music video for his song “Come Back to Me” in the spirit of BEEF. At that point, Lee had never shot in Korea. The project even gave Lee the chance to visit his elementary school.
Much of BEEF Season 2 is set in Korea, and Lee credits his collaboration with RM for inspiring the filming decision. As was true with Season 1, which was sparked by a real-life road rage incident in which Lee was involved, he abides by the “write what you know” maxim.
BTS, the pop juggernaut of which RM is a member, made its momentous comeback on March 21. During the performance, the septet took the stage to perform a live show streamed on Netflix. To learn more about this historic comeback, watch the documentary BTS: The Return.
Yes! Get a peek at this season’s central clashing couples, the country club, and even Austin’s very intense workout.
Prolific and multi–Academy Award and Grammy Award–winning artist Finneas O’Connell has been tapped as the composer of Season 2. You can learn more about the BEEF score here.
Yes. BEEF Season 2 is a completely independent story with totally new characters from Season 1. Lee had envisioned potential BEEF seasons as separate tales of rivalry and rage from the start. “The intention was always to have it be an anthology. My early pitch to networks included slides with rough examples of potential ‘beefs’ for upcoming seasons,” he says. “However, because the show was in its first season and its future was uncertain, we intentionally wrote Season 1 as a limited series, ending that story with a period — Ali Wong and Steven Yeun’s characters in the hospital bed.”
Season 2 of BEEF also sprang from something Lee witnessed. “Much like Season 1, this season was ripped from the headlines of my life,” he says. “It was loosely based on a loud argument overheard from a neighbor’s home. The varying reactions from everyone who heard fascinated me. We changed the setting to a workplace because I wanted to explore the boss-employee dynamic more.” Lee also found inspiration in a myriad of films, which you can now watch at the Paris Theater in New York City. Read more about All the Rage: The Films That Inspired Lee Sung Jin’s BEEF.
Wong and Yeun may not appear in front of the camera in Season 2, but they were definitely involved in the new episodes as executive producers. “They checked in on me constantly,” says Lee. “Ali visited set. Steven and Ali got popsicles and different food trucks for the crew.”
BEEF Season 1’s award-winning stars even welcomed the Season 2 cast into the series with a fun-filled evening in Los Angeles. “We had a big dinner at Mother Wolf with Steven, Ali, Cailee, Charles, Carey, and Oscar,” Lee says. “We did an escape room together. That was Carey’s idea, and then we went straight to dinner. It was a nice way to start the season with a passing of the torch.”
Lee returns as creator, showrunner, and executive producer. Alongside Yeun and Wong, returning director Jake Schreier, Mulligan, Isaac, Melton, and Spaeny also executive produce.
All eight episodes of BEEF Season 2 are now streaming on Netflix.
You sure can: Netflix has extended its creative partnership with Lee Sung Jin, BEEF’s Emmy–winning creator and executive producer. “Lee Sung Jin is a singular storyteller whose distinct voice and rare ability to forge deep, emotional connections with audiences around the world make him a true visionary,” says Jinny Howe, Netflix’s head of US and Canada scripted series. “He has an exceptional gift for reaching across cultures and generations, bringing a remarkable sense of specificity and intimacy to everything he creates.”
The first season of BEEF was a cultural juggernaut and global phenomenon, spending five weeks on Netflix’s Global Top 10 and charting in 87 countries. Now, this multi-year deal will extend across scripted series and feature film. “I am incredibly grateful to have found a home at Netflix,” Lee says. “They have provided unwavering support across all departments. I am so excited to continue this relationship and create many more stories together.”
The blistering BEEF of Season 1 kicks off when two strangers’ lives converge during a road rage incident. Danny Cho (Yeun) is a failing contractor with a chip on his shoulder, while Amy Lau (Wong) is a self-made entrepreneur with a picturesque life. Throughout the 10-episode series, their feud consumes them as their lives and relationships become intertwined in more ways than one.
The plot of Season 1 was inspired by Lee’s own road rage kerfuffle, involving someone driving a BMW — not a white SUV, like Amy does in the show. “It honked at me, cursed at me, and drove away,” Lee said during the BEEF SXSW panel. “And for some reason on that day, I was like, ‘I’m going to follow you.’ ”
Critics loved the first installment of BEEF. The limited series premiered in 2023 and went on to become the most recognized and award-winning anthology series of the 2023–2024 season. It won eight Emmy Awards, four Critics Choice Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, two Gotham Awards, two Film Independent Spirit Awards, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, as well as Producers Guild of America, Writers Guild of America, and American Film Institute honors.
After his Golden Globe wins, Lee spoke with Tudum about what he’d do if someone ever DM’d him confessing that they were the driver of the BMW that honked at him all those years ago. “I would say, ‘Oh my God, thank you for reaching out.’ And I would laugh, and I’d thank him, truthfully,” said Lee. “As George [played by Joseph Lee] says in the show, ‘Anger is just a transitory state of consciousness.’ It’s such a fleeting emotion. So there would be no anger at all on my side. I am very thankful that experience happened, so it would make me reflect on how all bad moments … you never know what they can lead to.”
Additional reporting by Tara Bitran.
Watch BEEF Season 2 on Netflix now. And dig deeper into the BEEF with BEEF: The Official Podcast, streaming on Netflix.
