🤐 SPOILER ALERT 🤐

Most beefs between people are low-stakes, short-lived disagreements — maybe resulting in a diss track if you’re a rapper. This is not the case for Danny Cho (Steven Yeun) and Amy Lau (Ali Wong) in Lee Sung Jin’s dark comedy BEEF. After a road rage incident, Danny, a contractor with a chip on his shoulder, and Amy, an unfulfilled entrepreneur, become inseparable in the worst way — caught in a vicious cycle of revenge that endangers everyone around them. 

For Danny, that’s his younger brother Paul (Young Mazino), opportunist cousin Isaac Cho (David Choe) and parents back in Korea. Danny wants to save enough money to build a Southern California dream home and bring his mom and dad over to live in it, but the harder he goes after his goal, the more setbacks he encounters.

Amy’s circle includes her zen husband George (Joseph Lee), candy-obsessed daughter June (Remy Holt), opinionated mother-in-law Fumi (Patti Yasutake) and Jordana “Jordan” Forster (Maria Bello), the ridiculously wealthy woman controlling the acquisition deal of Amy’s company. 

As Danny’s and Amy’s worlds collide, navigating all the secrets, suspense and score-keeping is an increasingly wild ride. So buckle up and prepare for meat puns, as we lay out everything that went down in BEEF Season 1. 

First of all, how do Danny and Amy even know each other?

More a meet-I’ll-cut-you than a meet-cute (meat-cute?), Danny almost backs into Amy’s SUV in the parking lot of Forsters, the home depot store looking to acquire Amy’s plant business. Amy lays on the horn and flips him off and Danny flips out — chasing Amy through the streets as she pelts him with trash from her car. They destroy some flower beds and Amy stops just short of reverse T-boning Danny’s truck before zooming away.

They meet face-to-face when Danny uses Amy’s license plate to find her address online and shows up at her door. Interrupting her masturbating with a handgun (yep, you read that right), Danny claims to have contractor concerns about her home’s recent remodel. Then, he pees all over her guest bathroom.

Ew. Bet Amy was mad.

Raging. And that license plate trick works both ways. She leaves Danny’s business (At Cho Service Construction) a bunch of bad Yelp reviews, then heads with George to the motel where Danny and Paul Cho live. They don’t find Danny, but they run into the motel’s owner, who says he took over from the Cho parents after a police raid. Amy also attempts to catfish Danny on his work Instagram but Paul replies, and the two start up a situationship (Paul having no idea she’s the woman from Danny’s feud). Meanwhile, Danny meets up with his cousin Isaac to ask for money now that Isaac’s out of prison. 

101 Seconds of Escalating Rage in BEEFFrom 0 to 101 real quick.

Why was Isaac in prison? 

Remember that raid? Isaac maintains he didn’t know the baby formula he was helping sell (that Danny let him store at the motel) was counterfeit, but the law found him guilty. Danny says he believes him, but blames himself for inadvertently causing his parents to move back to Korea. Out of alleged sympathy for the motel mess, Isaac loans Danny $20K and takes over Danny’s truck title as collateral when Danny’s slow to pay back, which Danny blames on Amy’s Yelp trolling. Isaac tells Danny to just register a new business under someone else’s name. At first, Danny asks Paul who thinks of “Cho Bros,” but ends up using Isaac’s suggestion, “CHOsen Ones.” He even makes T-shirts.

Are the “CHOsen Ones” successful?

Kinda. In search of customers, Paul suggests they connect with Danny’s old flame, Veronica (Alyssa Gihee Kim), and her now-husband, Edwin (Justin H. Min). When Veronica invites Danny to their church, Danny offers to do some pro bono repairs if church leadership will take out a loan to cover costs. Then, Danny and Isaac steal supplies from a construction site in order to pocket the loan money they would’ve spent on them.

Speaking of money, what’s going on with Amy’s big deal?

Amy nurtured her business, Kōyōhaus, from the ground up and now she’s in multimillion-dollar talks with Forsters to sell so that she can be a stay-at-home mom like her well-to-do friend, Naomi (Ashley Park). But as the deal’s gatekeeper, Jordan, is dragging her feet on closing. 

When flattery and feigned interest in Jordan’s collection of culturally appropriated antiquities fail, Amy asks George to sell Jordan one of his late artist father’s prized pieces, the Tamago chair. George initially refuses, but with encouragement from Naomi (Jordan’s sister-in-law turned wife), he finally agrees — partly out of a desire to help Amy, partly out of guilt for his “emotional entanglement” with Amy’s co-worker, Mia (Mia Serafino). 

Back to Amy and Danny. What’s going on? 

The two are on a warpath with no end in sight. (Read the full rundown of BEEF’s beefs here.) But while Danny is searing, Paul is smitten. He steals Danny’s truck and follows Amy to a Forsters conference in Vegas.

What happens in Vegas?

A lot. Those stolen construction supplies are in the back of Danny’s truck, so Isaac and Danny go after Paul. When they happen past the conference room where Amy’s speaking, Danny can’t help but heckle her until security intervenes. The police discover the truck’s contraband and Isaac faces prison, given his record and that the vehicle and business are now in his name. Isaac informs Danny that he’ll be cashing their church checks from now until he can afford a lawyer to get him off, again delaying Danny’s house plans for his parents. 

Do Amy and Paul have sex?

Yes, and it is steamy. Meanwhile, Danny engages in his own catfishing scheme. Posing as a fellow biking enthusiast named Zane, he befriends George to get at Amy. However, they soon form a legitimate bond, which is why Danny calls off a burglary attempt on George and Amy’s home that he’d planned with two of Isaac’s cronies, Michael (Andrew Santino) and Bobby (Rek Lee aka Rekstizzy). 

Does anyone know about Amy’s affair?

Fumi does. Struggling financially, she sneaks over to George and Amy’s home with plans to take and sell the Tamago chair. Soon after, Michael and Bobby arrive having ignored Danny’s instructions. Fumi chases them out at gunpoint (that same gun), but injures herself in a fall down the stairs. When Fumi wakes up in the hospital, she hints to Amy about what she knows. Amy treats Fumi to shopping sprees in exchange for Fumi keeping her secrets and covering for her when Naomi suspects that Vegas heckler was telling the truth.  

How did Naomi figure out that it’s Amy and Danny in the road rage video?

Turns out the guy with the flower beds is pissed and wants to press charges. He posted a home security video online and, thanks to Danny’s Vegas rant, Naomi clocks Amy’s SUV. Fumi tells Naomi that she was driving, not Amy, so Naomi turns her attention to tracking down the truck’s driver. 

Fearing the Kōyōhaus sale is in jeopardy, Amy offers Danny $25K to tell an anonymous tip line that it wasn’t her driving. But after Fumi runs interference, Amy gives Danny a borderline friendly heads-up that their arrangement is off and Naomi is looking for him. And since Bobby was caught on camera wearing the “CHOsen Ones” T-shirt to the break-in, it probably won’t be long before Naomi pieces together how everything connects.  

What does Danny do?

He calls that tip line and says it was Isaac driving, and Isaac ends up in prison. Conveniently (or inconveniently, depending on how you look at it), things had just started going well for Isaac, money-wise, so he’d thrown some Danny’s way and shown him where he kept the rest. 

Damn. What happens next?

Fast forward eight months and life seems pretty good for Danny and Amy. The Forsters x Kōyōhaus deal went through, and Amy’s involvement is now part-time and flexible. Danny uses Isaac’s lawyer money to finally build the house for his parents and takes over for Edwin as praise team leader at church. 

Does Steven Yeun sing? Is that really his voice in Episode 7?

You bet. But Danny isn’t as at peace as his musical performances imply. While their beef has chilled on the grill undisturbed for a while, neither Amy or Danny feel truly happy having lied and emotionally manipulated everyone around them. Danny attends a party for George as “Zane” to see if Amy is holding up better than he is. While there, he realizes she’s the girl Paul’s been obsessing over and heads home. 

When he arrives, Paul confronts him about where their money is actually coming from, so Danny deflects by explaining that Amy is the woman from the road rage incident. Feeling used, Paul tells George about their affair. Soon after, Danny picks up his parents from the airport to drive them to their new home… only to arrive and find it up in flames.

SHOOT. Did Amy burn down the house?

Nah. Turns out it was faulty wiring that Danny himself installed. But he can’t bring himself to tell Paul, and lets Paul feel guilty assuming Amy was retaliating for his confession to George. As a result of that confession, George has taken June and left home, so Amy visits her parents.

What’s up with that creepy witch who keeps showing up?

Oh, the Viola Swamp wannabe? The mysterious woman in BEEF is inspired by the children’s book character that Amy turned to growing up and a manifestation of Amy’s deepest fears and insecurities. We learn through childhood flashbacks that many of Amy’s family and marital woes may have stemmed from her mom and dad’s own issues. When Fumi convinces George to see Amy, Amy tells him everything. But George still wants a divorce. 

What about Danny’s childhood? Did he ruin Paul’s chances of going to college?

Danny’s flashbacks reveal his parent-pleasing tendencies and deep devotion to his little brother. When Paul’s college plans threatened to separate them, a complicated mix of jealousy, insecurity and love led Danny to trash Paul’s applications before they could be mailed out. Back in present times, Danny returns to Amy and George’s house under the pretense of comforting George in the wake of Amy’s affair (Danny brings him a Kōyōhaus plant of all things!). But now George knows who “Zane” really is. The situation escalates, and Danny knocks George unconscious. As Danny rushes to leave, he fails to notice that little June has snuck into the back seat of his car.  

No! So did Danny kidnap June? 

Not on purpose, but here’s where this beef gets REAL burnt. Amy’s coming clean included talking to the police about who was really driving Danny’s truck. Subsequently, Isaac is released — hell-bent on revenge against Danny and in desperate need of money to appease the enemies he made behind bars. When he discovers June at Danny’s apartment, he calls Amy demanding a $500K ransom. 

Amy is at Jordan’s house attempting to get George back by getting the Tamago chair back. In private, she convinces Isaac to come there and steal millions of dollars worth of stuff instead. Armed with guns and Dick Cheney masks, Isaac and Michael pull up and start raiding — leaving Bobby in the car with Paul, Danny and June.

Does anyone die in BEEF?

Afraid so. 

Paul manages to put Bobby into a sleeper hold, and the three escape the car. Danny and Paul secure June in the car seat of her mom’s SUV, and are about to peel off in Jordan’s Hummer when Michael finds them. 

While Isaac and Michael are locking the Cho bros into a walled-off outdoor space, Naomi makes a run for the house’s panic room and Jordan takes off after her. To stop them, Isaac throws — what else? —  the Tamago chair at Jordan’s legs. In a cruel and yet poetic twist of fate and ankle, Jordan lands in the path of the panic room’s closing automatic door and is cut in half. (Warning: you will never unhear the sound.) When police arrive, Michael is shot and presumably killed, too. 

Does Paul die or escape? 

With a boost from Danny, Paul scales the wall but can’t pull Danny up with him. When Paul refuses to leave him, Danny takes responsibility for the house fire and what he did to Paul’s college applications. “I’ve been holding you down your whole life,” Danny says while literally and metaphorically letting go of Paul’s hand. Paul runs to safety, and Danny burrows out through a drainage system and returns to his intended getaway car. 

As for everybody else, Isaac and Bobby are arrested, Naomi is traumatized for life (but also maybe a gazillionaire now?) and George takes June home without seeing or telling Amy. As she’s driving away, Amy stops in the middle of the road to read an email on her phone. At that exact moment, Danny pulls up next to her. It’s a full circle moment as Amy now chases and Danny shoots the bird — right before they both go over the side of a cliff. 

How does BEEF Season 1 end? And why the talking crows at the beginning of the finale?

Crows are symbols of bad luck in Korean culture (fitting, right?) and BEEF has a history with bird themes — from episode titles to Amy’s therapy mention. In the very first episode, Danny climbs a tree and remarks how crows love him. The black birds continue to crop up throughout the series until the finale’s cold open when two crows have a full-on conversation, revealing that they too have been tracking Danny and Amy’s disputes. 

Anyway, after that crow intro (crowtro?), we find out that Danny and Amy survive the crash and, after eating some questionable berries, start to lose their grip on reality. They seem to trade consciousnesses at one point,  realizing that they have more in common than either thought possible. But when a reconciled Danny and Amy finally make their way back to civilization, George shoots Danny on sight. Cut to a hospital scene where Danny’s in a coma and a grieving Amy crawls into his hospital bed to embrace him. Just before the footage fades out, Danny’s arm moves to hug her back. And we’re left to marinate on what the future holds for them. 

Steven Yeun, Ali Wong, and Lee Sung Jin Unpack the BEEF Season 1Is the beef finally squashed?

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