Do you not want to make believe?
This is the question at the heart of the teaser trailer for Season 2 of BEEF, the critically-acclaimed anthology series from creator and showrunner Lee Sung Jin and A24. The clip (along with some new photos) introduces us to Monte Vista Point, the idyllic country club where the new season kicks off — and where simmering resentments threaten to boil over.
In this preview of the latest BEEF, premiering April 16, the country club’s general manager, Joshua Martín (Oscar Isaac), is trying to explain to his employee, Ashley Miller (Cailee Spaeny), the true purpose of their jobs. Ultimately, Monte Vista Point’s visitors are looking for an illusion.
Yes, the elite pay a high membership fee for the golf, the exclusivity, and the discretion, but more importantly, they do so because “people need a place where they can feel safe,” he tells her. “Where they can pretend everything is OK.” Well, as we learn by the end of the teaser trailer, Josh may be able to pretend everything is OK at the club, but he can’t do the same in his household.
Josh’s marriage with his wife, Lindsay Crane-Martín (Carey Mulligan), is unraveling, and at the end of the clip the two have an explosive fight. But what might have remained a brutal private matter becomes even worse when Josh and Lindsay realize they’re not alone: Ashley and her fiancé, Austin Davis (Charles Melton), another lower-level employee at the club, have watched the entire argument from right outside the window — before fleeing into the woods upon being discovered.
Just as in Season 1, this beef is ripped from the headlines of Lee’s own life. Season 2’s feud is loosely based on a time when Lee witnessed a couple having a spat at home. “We’ve all been seen at our worst in the privacy of our own home,” he says.
In developing the story for Season 2, Lee set out to explore what happens when heightened domestic issues bleed into workplace dynamics, inciting chess moves among coworkers. “We wanted to change the feeling of this season’s beef to be a bit more passive-aggressive,” he says. “It’s more about the internal repression of rage that you see in the workplace.”
With Season 2, Lee also wanted to offer a fresh take on the generational differences between the feuding couples. Josh and Lindsay are millennials, years into their marriage, while Ashley and Austin are Gen Z and only in the honeymoon phase of their relationship. “We’ve seen a lot of ‘boomer versus younger couple’ stories in the past,” he says. “We thought, ‘What if we actually made them a little bit closer in age and highlighted the generational divide between the millennial couple and the Gen Z couple?’”
In this teaser and set of photos, we also meet the exclusive club’s billionaire owner, Chairwoman Park (Youn Yuh-jung). As the video begins to hint, both couples will vie for Chairwoman Park’s approval through favors and coercion over the eight-episode season. But the powerful businesswoman seems to have relationship issues of her own to handle — just like everyone else. Chairwoman Park’s second husband, Doctor Kim (Song Kang-ho), sports a bloodstained cuff and shaky hands in the teaser trailer. Apparently, life doesn’t get any easier in one’s golden years.
See more photos of the couples climbing the social ladder at Monte Vista Point, and learn everything else you need to know about Season 2, here.
Lock in for an all-new BEEF when Season 2 premieres April 16, only on Netflix.
