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Because holding a grudge has never looked this cinematic...
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1. The Premise Is Ridiculously Grounded in Mental Health — And That's the Biggest Highlight of 'BEEF.'
Beef, Season 1 - Netflix series, benefits from a brilliantly well-controlled storyline. It is as if the director and the entire directorial crew understand the pitfalls of struggling with yourself and how your mental health can be affected by the smallest things around you. There is plenty of anxiety, depression, repression of feelings, strangely polarized relationships, regrets, family bonds coming apart, and the urban lifestyle ecosystem that is neck deep into creating psychological baggage. Unlike some of the other misleadingly branded psychological thrillers on Netflix India, Beef stands tall with its storyline. Every character in this quick-moving series has a story to tell, a personal battle to fight, and succumbs often. What seems like a road rage incident in a hardware store parking lot — the kind that most of us experience, seethe about for twenty minutes, and then forget — becomes the catalyst for one of the most wildly escalating feuds in television history. While some content reviewers will tell you that the road rage clip is due to being vengeful or egotistical, the actual reason is just the mental health status of our two warring protagonists. They just happen to cross paths and rub each other the wrong way when they are having equally difficult days, weeks, or perhaps a month.
2. A Type of Revenge Drama that Makes You Feel, this Could be Easily Me When Having a Really Bad Day
There is literally no build-up or introductions. Beef Season 1 begins with Danny Cho (Steven Yeun), a struggling contractor having the worst morning of a life full of bad mornings, nearly colliding with Amy Lau (Ali Wong), a high-strung entrepreneur on the edge of a career-defining business deal. Neither can let it go, let alone step out of their vehicles and try to reason. What follows looks like a revenge spiral upfront, but soon, the story opens up, giving you more than a glimpse into how their mental health status is the result of the sh*t happening in their personal lives. What follows is a brilliantly put together sequence of fake identities, urinated-upon bathroom floors, getting intimate with a gun, a not-that-obvious Korean church, and some California wilderness too — in roughly that order. You watch a couple of episodes of BEEF Season 1 on Netflix and feel almost certain that its creator, Lee Sung Jin, drew on many real-life instances. While there is a bit of dark humor, too, the emotionally devastating details of each individual, couple, family, and neighborhood soon start screaming for your attention.
3. Ali Wong is Sumptuously Volatile & Headstrong
Has there been an OTT series on Netflix where, from the first glance, the very first minute of the camera zooming in on the main protagonist makes you feel like this is going to be a good watch? Sounds too much? Sounds too unrealistic? Well, Ali Wong in BEEF delivers something close to this impact. Her energy is blisteringly candid, and she dismantles whatever expectations you might have from Korean or Asian women, who are now American, but remain somewhat rooted in their history, and feel oppressed by carrying the weight of marriage, motherhood, and ambition. She does all of this in BEEF with such cheerful ferocity. In BEEF Season 1, Ali Wong is raw, sophisticated, believable, angry, seductive, and ready to kick your rear without thinking twice. She manages a beautiful Zen home, a lucrative plant business, and is working on a business deal, but there are two sides to her. At home, she can be soft-spoken, seemingly caring for her husband, but the moment she steps out, her energy is unravelling, she is unashamedly volatile, and she stands the tallest in a small pool of some brilliant performances in the BEEF OTT series.
In one of the show's most pointed lines, Danny tells Amy that "Western therapy doesn't work on Eastern minds," a statement the show explores with real nuance
4. Netflix's BEEF is a profoundly realistic dark comedy that Chooses Not to preach
Many Netflix India shows are tagged as "dark comedies," but most of them are just dramas that occasionally make you smirk. BEEF Season I is the genuine article. It is frequently, uncomfortably funny, and the comedy is almost always extracted directly from some type of pain or frustration, which is the only kind that lasts. I recall The Sopranos being as good. The result is a show that can make you laugh at something and feel faintly guilty about it half a second later — which is precisely the correct emotional experience. BEEF Season I might have some slapstick moments, but largely, it stands oddly poignant. Danny has a history of suicidal ideation that the show handles with unusual care, neither dramatising it for shock nor sweeping it under the rug. Amy, meanwhile, is in therapy and thoroughly weaponising it — using self-pathologising as a shield against actual accountability. You feel a sense of honesty resonating through the whole series — this is a show that understands suffering but never over-explains it.
5. BEEF on Netflix Borrows a Lot from the Way We Live These Days
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| Image credits: Variety.com |
6. Nothing Comes Closer to Detailing the Asian American Experience in America's Landscape without Explaining Anything
The Wardrobe Is a Character in Itself — and a Window Into Asian American Style
Just consider this:
- Amy's wardrobe was intentionally "Instagram-worthy" and curated, concealing "the cracks beneath the surface" — whites and beiges as a mask for internal chaos. [Netflix Tudum]
- Danny's clothes came almost entirely from Goodwill and costume houses, replicating shapes and colorways that "don't exist anymore", visually placing him in a frozen economic moment. [IndieWire]
- Showrunner Lee Sung Jin contributed his own 1999 Structure belt that he "never threw away" for Danny's Koreatown club look — a genuinely lovely detail. [Motion Picture Association]
- Huang's goal was to create a wardrobe that "authentically captured the spirit and lifestyle of Asian Americans living in the Los Angeles area," with each Asian character a fully formed individual — not dressed to type. [W Magazine]
- George's wardrobe included John Elliott and Nanushka, chosen in part to make the point that "Asian men look internationally" and are "very stylish" — a deliberate pushback against decades of television stereotyping. [Motion Picture Association]
BEEF on Netflix may be the first prestige television drama in which a man's Goodwill jeans and a woman's Maison Margiela blouse are making narrative contributions. The costume designer did something brilliant beyond my understanding to bring such realism to this Asian-LA wardrobe conundrum. The show is often about Korean Americans and perhaps, about Chinese Americans and Japanese Americans too, in Los Angeles, and the wardrobe makes an impression right away. There are so many whites, beiges, and creams to create a visual language that clearly demarcates the daily wage earners and the private-schooled, snug sections of society. Every bit of the wardrobe seems thoughtfully curated. Amy makes a statement with her octagonal Dita glasses. Danny is dressed in thrifted jackets, faded vintage tees, and jeans. George, Amy's husband, has a far superior wardrobe vocabulary that is always relaxed-fit but also always with an expensive Japanese American fashion sense.