Amy and Dany. He’s backing out of a parking lot and she’s rushing home in her car. She honks. He honks back. She puts up her middle finger and drives off. He chases after her in a typical South Carolina road rage episode. They run red lights, swerve onto the sidewalk, throw bottles at each other and curse each other. She’s rich and well off and he’s a struggling building contractor. That one episode changes their lives forever. And no… this is not a #Parasite style class struggle of haves versus have nots. Not at all. Get ready to watch one of the most intelligently delivered shows of our times. #Beef on #Netflix. Are you game for #AliWong’s dark existential thriller that is a treatise of modern times when our society disregards, almost obliterates our right to be happy!
#Beef is about the choices we make. For most people, it means a feud, an ordinary scrap. For some folks however, it is the gunpowder that fills up the emptiness in their lives, means to sustenance and a source of satisfaction. The final episode of the series is a classic petri dish of cathartic release as the two protagonists bond in between fits of hallucination. Dany and Amy merge into each other losing their identities. I guess the upshot of the series is that the anger welling up inside of us only needs someone to just be and listen. And all will be well.
Amy (#AliWong) lives in a swanky self-designed house and does multi-million dollar deals. She owns Koyohaus, a boutique plant store. She is the child of chinese, Vietnamese parents . Her husband, George (#JosephLee) is a Japanese man whose mom speaks perfect English. George and Amy don't see eye to eye on any issue. Dany (#StevenYeun) is of mixed parentage and survives on Burger King chicken sandwiches. He resents the well off folks. They are 30 something East Asians in Los Angeles. Creator #LeeSungJin puts together a genre bending show that has drama, comedy and tense moments but is also replete with funny dialogues. This is ‘commanding television’ , one that as a senior correspondent says “ Does the content make me put my phone down?”
At another level, #Beef is a tale of revenge and a commentary on class warfare. In a fit of anger, Dany walks into Amy’s house and urinates all over the bathroom. She in turn spray paints Dany’s truck with hateful graffiti. There is violence and even arson as Dany sets the SUV ablaze. In between all this, it is the family members - Dany’s brother and Amy’s daughter June who are the most vulnerable. The story is a satire of wealth, affluence, ethnicity and much much more. #MariaBello plays Jordan who manages the art gallery that stocks crowns. Her angst is that she will be forced to return the matching earrings to the Peruvian government!
Don't miss the stunning title cards that are original paintings by artist #DavidChoe who plays Dany’s cousin Issac in the show. The episode names are also very unique. Sample these “The rapture of being alive”, “The birds don't sing. They screech in pain”. If you delve deeper, you will find that these are assimilated from despairing titles and works by various film makers. At the end, Amy and Dany drive off a cliff and the two adversaries are trapped together in the desert. After all the hurt that they have caused each other all through, they are comforted knowing the other is as broken inside. They are just as bad as each other and this epiphany gives them the license to be themselves in front of each other and then eventually move on in their lives. Sometimes, we need to first delve deeper into our dark side, in order to loosen up and move forward!
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