A simple feud or all-out Beef?

The critically acclaimed short television series Beef captures the dangers of meddling with others’ lives, starting with a car crash and growing into deeper human complexities and hardships. 

The series, created by Lee Sung Jin, follows the “beef” between main characters Danny Cho and Amy Lau. The dynamic between the two starts off bumpy and progressively gets worse through the duration of the show. Though the two are constantly at odds, their psychological and mental well-being are eerily similar. 

The show’s pilot episode begins with Amy (Ali Wong), flipping off Danny (Steven Yeun) in a public parking lot. This sets a sequence of events into motion, and a car chase between the characters ensues throughout the neighborhood of Calabasas. Eventually, this chase becomes a pinnacle point in the show as Amy’s friend begins investigating the incident and realizes the characters’ relationship might be more complicated than either of them realize. 

The disconnect the characters experience in their own lives turns into a snowball effect occurring from episode to episode, and the two are continuously projecting their feelings of anger onto one another.

From infidelity to throwing families under the bus, the main characters stop at nothing to come out on top of the beef. The season finale wraps the show up in a cyclical manner, as the two characters finish their journey in a similar vehicular situation to how it all started. Danny and Amy connect on a deeper level than either of them anticipated, although it’s clear they have hurt one another far too much to ever truly become close. 

Everything about Beef is intentional, from the score to the dramatic pacing to the perfectly tied-up ends of character feuds. Through Danny and Amy, the audience is given the space to evaluate their close interpersonal relationships, understand others’ thoughts and emotions and consider what it means to be human –all by thinking twice before flipping off a random driver.