![\"\"](\"http:\/\/totfc.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/beef_s2.jpg\")
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I was a big fan of the first season<\/a> of Netflix\u2019s Beef<\/em> which starred Stephen Yeun and Ali Wong.\u00a0 The writing was strong, the acting superb, but above all else, it was a show by Asians, starring Asians, but not explicitly being \u201can Asian show.\u201d\u00a0 It was a fantastic piece of representation, while still having the storyline and relatable appeal to those that weren\u2019t Asian.<\/span><\/p>\n But the thing is, the way the show concluded, I was thinking that there probably wasn\u2019t going to be a second season.\u00a0 That is, unless they conclude the original storyline, create a new one that\u2019s similar in some aspects but is different, with a new cast.\u00a0 And when I heard that Beef was getting a second season, I figured that such was going to be the case, and I looked forward to it.<\/span><\/p>\n Not going to lie, upon seeing that the core cast of S2 was Oscar Issac, the cute girl from The Great Gatsby<\/em>, some other white girl, and a guy that looked like he might possibly have a drop of Asian DNA in his 23andMe, it was a little bit of a turnoff from the fact that S1 was this speeding Humvee of representation, and now we\u2019ve got another clear instance of white folks latching onto a success story and sequel-izing it, but with far less representation, and far more white people.<\/span><\/p>\n The show dropped, and it went from something I was interested in, to something to catch when I get a chance.<\/span><\/p>\n Thankfully, it\u2019s as if Netflix really is mainlined into my feelings, and when I turned on Netflix to watch WWE RAW is Commercials, I saw that the thumbnail for Beef S2 had Youn Yuh-jung<\/em> (from Minari<\/em> fame<\/a>) front and center, looking like a powerful queen and not just some meek Asian background character, and it renewed a little bit of interest to the point where I would eventually start watching it.<\/span><\/p>\n The thing is with me lately, is that I feel as if I\u2019ve become even more neurotic and temperamental when it comes to television watching, and that if I\u2019m not in the right mood or mindset, there\u2019s almost no point in watching television, because I just won\u2019t give it adequate attention.\u00a0 But as far as Beef S2 was, it was like, if I don\u2019t get to this now, I won\u2019t ever get to it, and then it\u2019ll just get backlogged and never seen, and this property doesn\u2019t deserve that.<\/span><\/p>\n That being said, I was probably like 75-80% prepared to watch the show, and I admittedly had a harder time getting into it, than I had gotten into the first season.<\/span><\/p>\n Frankly, it kind of felt like the show was taking a page out of Aziz Ansari\u2019s Master of None<\/em> property, where the last season had nothing to do with<\/a> the original seasons, and was more of a case of latching a name with equity, onto a season of television that has nothing to do with it, solely to help bring eyes to it in the first place.<\/span><\/p>\n The black comedy genre seems to be hipster enough to just try and spin that as viable and justifiable tactic, and that\u2019s kind of what S2 of Beef felt like.\u00a0 Sure, there were conflicts, in fact, many conflicts between characters, but save for the first 20 minutes of the show, few were to the explosive magnitude that was remotely close to S1, much less warrant even being called something like \u201cBeef.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n What I\u2019m trying to say is that S2 didn\u2019t really feel like there was much beef between characters, but other than the fact that it\u2019s the same creator, could probably have easily been called something else, but obviously they want eyes on it and fast, so it\u2019s just slipped into the Beef umbrella as Season 2.<\/span><\/p>\n Anyway, semantics aside, the show wasn\u2019t that bad.\u00a0 It kind of goes without saying that it\u2019s not as good as the first season, but that\u2019s an unfair standard to chase after considering just how good S1 really was.\u00a0 The writing was sharp, the cinematography was crisp and noticeable to even my novice eyes, and there was a lot of subtle, situational humor throughout.<\/span><\/p>\n The show was really heavy handed with their criticisms of Gen-Z and considering creator Lee Sung-jin is close to the same age as me, it\u2019s evident who his target audience is, and was probably cognizant that his digs at the youth of today would be watching, and would probably feel targeted, and that\u2019s probably the point.<\/span><\/p>\n Regardless of the contrasting ages of the characters, there was one consistent theme throughout the show: everyone sucks.\u00a0 Not in like an X-Pac Heat<\/em> kind of, I hate them and they make me not want to watch the show, sucks, but in the sense that every single character has some serious flaws, baggage and personality traits that amount to them all, sucking.<\/span><\/p>\n Whether it\u2019s being a workaholic, dabbling in flirtations over social media, projecting insecurities over inadequate education, persecution complexes, lack of accountability, just about every character in the series had multiple prevalent flaws, and they would all act out and take it out on everyone else, and everyone made their problems everyone\u2019s problems, and such is kind of triggering to me, especially these days.<\/span><\/p>\n Also, the Koreans that were in the show, are all corrupt and up to no good, and I\u2019m just kind of like, couldn\u2019t we just swap these alignments to the white folks instead??<\/span><\/p>\n As a result, it wasn\u2019t a season that I could actually binge or watch too much of at once, because regardless of the time that I don\u2019t have that much time I want to dedicate to watching television, at the very most, I only watched three consecutive episodes, before I felt like I needed to take a break.\u00a0 Mythical wife, who caught some of it, only needed to half-watch two middle episodes to come to her own conclusion about just how much all of the characters just sucked, and I wasn\u2019t far off from that assessment myself.<\/span><\/p>\n It made it sometimes feel like a chore, and by the time I got to the final episode, I had the attitude of simply wanting to finish what I started, versus bating my breath for the season finale on pins and needles.<\/span><\/p>\n Don\u2019t get me wrong, such reactions aren\u2019t indicative of the quality of the show, so much as I feel like such was how it was designed to make viewers feel, and it was working on me.\u00a0 it was still a good show that I\u2019ve clearly given a tremendous amount of thought and reflection towards, but it\u2019s also definitely the type of show that needs a palette cleanser, or at least some Ted Lasso<\/em> or Batman the Animated Series<\/em> for me to kind of let me get the stink of all the Beef S2 characters out of my head.<\/span><\/p>\n Either way, characters sucking by design not-withstanding, S2 of Beef wasn\u2019t bad.\u00a0 Not nearly as good as the first season, but I\u2019ve definitely seen worse things that commit the biggest sin for my preferences: making me feel like I\u2019ve wasted my time.\u00a0 Beef did no such thing, but like I said, it definitely has a droll outlook of the world that tends to affect my mood adversely, and it\u2019s just one of those stories that requires a pick-me-up afterward.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I was a big fan of the first season of Netflix\u2019s Beef which starred Stephen Yeun and Ali Wong.\u00a0 The writing was strong, the acting superb, but above all else, it was a show by Asians, starring Asians, but not explicitly being \u201can Asian show.\u201d\u00a0 It was a fantastic piece of representation, while still having … Continue reading Beef S2: Everybody sucks<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[100,191,103,177,83,69,146,190],"class_list":["post-51272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brog","tag-comparison","tag-greed","tag-motherland","tag-mythical","tag-observations","tag-television","tag-triggered","tag-white-people"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=51272"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51272\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51274,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51272\/revisions\/51274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=51272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=51272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=51272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}