Everything We Know About Beef Season 2

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A brand-new cast joins A24’s dark comedy

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Launching in 2023, Beef season 1 was a whirlwind, with Danny Cho (Steven Yeun) and Amy Lau (Ali Wong) going head-to-head in a series of vengeful plots after a road rage accident. And clearly Beef was appetising for critics, too: the action-packed series received eight Primetime Emmy Awards and three Golden Globes.

After getting the greenlight in 2024, on 16 April Beef returns to Netflix with a new rivalry at the centre – this time with Cailee Spaeny, Charles Melton, Oscar Isaac and Carey Mulligan playing two enemy couples, with the country club where they work serving as their battlefield.

Here’s everything you need to know about the return of this hit series next week.

Charles Melton as Austin Davis, Carey Mulligan as Lindsay Crane-Martin, Oscar Isaac as Josh Martin & Cailee Spaeny as Ashley Miller in Beef.

Beef Season 2: Plot, Cast, Release Date & More

First, a refresher. Season 1 of Beef followed the titular battle between Danny (Yuen) and Amy (Wong), after Danny almost backed into Amy’s SUV in a car park. Now an anthology series, this time around a whole new fresh set of characters will be battling it out.

Speaking to Netflix, creator and writer Lee Sung Jin shared how he wants to subvert expectations with the return of his award-winning series. We are used to seeing older people disagreeing with much younger people, but as he told Netflix, ‘We thought, “What if we actually made them a little bit closer in age and highlight that generational divide?”.’

Also known as Sonny Lee, Korean-American Lee is also the executive producer and showrunner on Beef. He has said that the series was initially inspired by his own experience of road-rage in LA. Recalling the white SUV BMW that sparked his imagination, Lee told the audience at SXSW 2023: ‘It honked at me, cursed at me and drove away. And for some reason on that day, I was like, “I’m going to follow you”.’

While it didn’t end in a boisterous, vengeful rivalry, Lee explained how the incident prompted him to think about how we ‘live in such subjective realities and we project so much onto people that we don’t know all the time. Maybe there would be a show here,’ he thought.

Charles Melton as Austin Davis & Cailee Spaeny as Ashley Miller in Beef.

The Plot

So where does the Beef lie in season 2? Between Gen Z, recently engaged couple Ashley (Cailee Spaeny) and Austin (Charles Melton), and their millennial counterparts Josh (Oscar Isaac) and his wife Lindsay (Carey Mulligan).

Ashley and Austin are bottom-of-the-food-chain staff at a country club, where Josh is their manager. But when they witness an alarming fight between Josh and his wife Lindsay, they are suddenly swept up in their dysfunctional marriage.

Youn Yuh-jung as Chairwoman Park in Beef

Both couples use dirty tricks in an attempt to win the approval of the country club’s billionaire owner, Chairwoman Park (Youn Yuh-jung), who herself is enwrapped in scandal with her second husband, Dr Kim (Song Kang-ho).

This season of Beef is steeped in psychodrama. As Lee explains: ‘Season 1’s beef is so overt and aggressive. I thought season 2 should be the inverse: a passive-aggressive beef, which is more true to life, especially in a workplace.’

Carey Mulligan as Lindsay Crane-Martin in Beef.

The Cast

Frankenstein and Dune star Oscar Isaac plays Josh, manager of the country club, joined by celebrated British star Carey Mulligan as his wife Lindsay, who Mulligan describes as ‘really awful and annoying’, telling Who What Wear: ‘I love the idea of playing that.’

Their Gen Z counterparts are played by Priscilla star Cailee Spaeny as Ashley and May December’s Charles Melton as Austin. The latter tells L’OFFICIEL: ‘With Austin and Ashley, in the beginning of their relationship, they’re in this honeymoon phase, where it’s just beautiful, pure love, and never getting into a fight. And then they start realizing – and we start seeing – the challenges of the relationship.’ Intriguing…

The full cast also includes: