Lee Sung Jin premiered the new season of Beef on Wednesday alongside Oscar Isaac, Carey Mulligan and Charles Melton, putting the anthology’s next chapter on display just days before it starts streaming April 16 on Netflix.
This time, the fight moves into the elitist world of a country club, where a young couple played by Melton and Cailee Spaeny run into a new conflict with their boss, played by Isaac, and his wife, played by Mulligan. It is a different kind of collision from season one, which followed Ali Wong and Steven Yeun after a road rage incident, but Jin said the shift is exactly the point. “Season one is so much about two very lonely people who don’t want to participate in life; by the end, there’s a glimmer of hope that maybe they might want to participate. So season two is kind of the natural next step spiritually, where you have two couples who found someone they want to participate in life with, but then what? It’s not smooth sailing,” he said.
Jin also framed the new run as a progression in scale and feeling. “Season one’s the first level of the video game and this is level two; there’s a new set of hurdles, a new set of pitfalls. It’s a much more emotional season, I think, because it involves the theme of love and marriage,” he said. That change matters because Beef has not only moved from one doomed confrontation to another, but from a story about isolation to one built around relationships that are already under strain.
Read Also: Beef Season 2 lands April 16 with Oscar Isaac and Carey Mulligan
There was also a hint of how much the old cast still hovers around the series. Wong and Yeun did not appear on screen in season two, but they remained executive producers, sent food trucks to the crew and stayed close to Jin throughout production. “Steven and Ali remain very, very close and near and dear to my heart, and they’ve just been supportive the whole way,” he said. He even admitted he briefly imagined a cameo for them in the background of the country club. “I briefly thought about maybe putting Steven and Ali playing pickleball in the background of the country club. Maybe they are. I don’t know; I’m very curious,” he said. The new cast also bonded before filming, with Jin saying they went to an escape room together and then to dinner at Mother Wolf when they arrived for prep.
Read Also: Oscar Isaac leads Beef season 2 as Netflix sets April 16 release
The unresolved question is not whether Beef can keep going, but whether Jin wants it to. He said he pitched many anthology ideas while trying to win a season two pickup and all of them were rejected, and he does not have a season three concept sitting ready. Still, he said he would be happy if this turns out to be the show’s last run, while leaving the door open if inspiration arrives. For now, the answer is clear enough: Beef season two is built to stand on its own, and Carey Mulligan is part of the reason the new chapter has a different emotional weight.
