It was Nearly 100 years ago that Laurel and Hardy starred in Big Business, in which the two become embroiled in a tit-for-tat argument with a home owner, ultimately leading to the destruction of a brand new Ford T and a real entire house. Beef is a 2023 Netflix comedy-drama that works on the same lines. No matter how much time passes, mankind still takes their anger out through the medium of smashing cars.
Danny is a desperate and miserable handyman who believes the World just wants him gone. Amy is a wealthy and miserable business woman who thinks her stressful life will only get better once she's sold everything off. Neither have anything in common except for one thing, their anger at each other. The two get in a road rage incident that goes too far, and the next ten episodes is spent watching things spiral further out of control between them. Both are complicated, sympathetic, but fundamentally awful people who can't help but make the worst decisions. It makes for glorious television.
I often complain about Netflix's tendency to stretch out shows, but thankfully Beef is the perfect length. There is enough intrigue, curve balls, complications and variety to keep each episode feeling suitably paced and fleshed out. Besides the duking protagonists, we also have some fun asides about religion, art appraisal, and Asian American cultural anxiety. It's all flavouring for the beef, with both protagonists transplanting their daily insecurities into their irrational hatred for each other.
The acting is brilliant throughout. Amy has her gentle and utterly unassuming husband, Danny has his deep thinking and underachieving brother. If those two had got in an incident, they would have shrugged it off and there would be no story. But because they are good hearted people they end up stuck in their respective corner, forced to back the idiots who did get into a car fight. And in return, these idiots complicate their lives and treat them badly.
One testament to the writing is that in spite of all the reasons to dislike the two leads, you can't help but quietly root for them to succeed. They have had too many bad breaks for you not to want them to get their piece. Another is that in spite of all the story twists and turns, it never feels contrived or dependant on coincidence. As is the nature of revenge, everything that happens is a consequence of everything else that happens. It all gets reintegrated into an unexpected and imaginative ending. You assume that once guns start to appear on screen (as they do from the very first episode, in a somewhat, uh, memorable way), the story can only end one way. And yet doesn't do that! We got something very satisfying.
Beef is a much watch. Which feels like an odd sentence, but it is true.
Series We Always Ask Where is the Beef. We Never Ask Why is the Beef.
It was Nearly 100 years ago that Laurel and Hardy starred in Big Business, in which the two become embroiled in a tit-for-tat argument with a home owner, ultimately leading to the destruction of a brand new Ford T and a real entire house. Beef is a 2023 Netflix comedy-drama that works on the same lines. No matter how much time passes, mankind still takes their anger out through the medium of smashing cars.
Danny is a desperate and miserable handyman who believes the World just wants him gone. Amy is a wealthy and miserable business woman who thinks her stressful life will only get better once she's sold everything off. Neither have anything in common except for one thing, their anger at each other. The two get in a road rage incident that goes too far, and the next ten episodes is spent watching things spiral further out of control between them. Both are complicated, sympathetic, but fundamentally awful people who can't help but make the worst decisions. It makes for glorious television.
I often complain about Netflix's tendency to stretch out shows, but thankfully Beef is the perfect length. There is enough intrigue, curve balls, complications and variety to keep each episode feeling suitably paced and fleshed out. Besides the duking protagonists, we also have some fun asides about religion, art appraisal, and Asian American cultural anxiety. It's all flavouring for the beef, with both protagonists transplanting their daily insecurities into their irrational hatred for each other.
The acting is brilliant throughout. Amy has her gentle and utterly unassuming husband, Danny has his deep thinking and underachieving brother. If those two had got in an incident, they would have shrugged it off and there would be no story. But because they are good hearted people they end up stuck in their respective corner, forced to back the idiots who did get into a car fight. And in return, these idiots complicate their lives and treat them badly.
One testament to the writing is that in spite of all the reasons to dislike the two leads, you can't help but quietly root for them to succeed. They have had too many bad breaks for you not to want them to get their piece. Another is that in spite of all the story twists and turns, it never feels contrived or dependant on coincidence. As is the nature of revenge, everything that happens is a consequence of everything else that happens. It all gets reintegrated into an unexpected and imaginative ending. You assume that once guns start to appear on screen (as they do from the very first episode, in a somewhat, uh, memorable way), the story can only end one way. And yet doesn't do that! We got something very satisfying.
Beef is a much watch. Which feels like an odd sentence, but it is true.