LONDON: It’s no secret that some of the best characters on television tend to be the more unlikable ones. So, on the face of it, the formula at the heart of Netflix’s “Beef” is so straightforward it’s almost infuriating. What’s better than a truly diabolical lead that you can’t help but root for? Two of them.
At the nadir of LA contractor Danny Cho’s bad day, he gets into a road rage incident with a white SUV, driven by small business owner Amy Lau. The two end up embroiled in a bitter, albeit very funny, tit-for-tat feud that begins to seep into every aspect of their very different lives. Danny (Steven Yeun) is struggling to keep his business ticking over, while Amy (Ali Wong) is desperate to force through a high-stakes business deal that will enable her to take a break from her relentless schedule.
What makes “Beef” so entertaining is that you’re never really sure who the ‘good guy’ is – they’re both pretty terrible people, prone to petty overreactions and staggeringly short-sighted decision-making. Yeun (made famous by “The Walking Dead” but critically acclaimed in “Minami,” for which he earned an Oscar nomination) and Wong (made famous by pretty much everything she’s done) are wonderfully deplorable, as Danny and Amy sink to ever-lower depths to make each other suffer for the initial altercation. And though it takes an episode or two to get there, what makes “Beef” really sing is that Danny and Amy are both desperately trying to keep it together in ways that actually give them far more in common than they might like to admit.
The show, created by Lee Sung Jin, skillfully weaves together threads of LA cultural melodrama, dark comedy and American-Asian societal pressure that feel both inherently familiar and fascinatingly alien at the same time. But at its core, “Beef” is so enticing because it lets us imagine what it might be like to let that bottled-up rage out in the most childishly satisfying way.
