For television fans eagerly awaiting a show to define the year, the second season of Beef on Netflix has arrived with a bang, and perhaps, a wine glass or two flying across a country club living room. As reviewed by Esquire on April 16, 2026, and explored in a revealing Hollywood Reporter interview with star Carey Mulligan, this new season offers a sharp, soapy, and at times riotously funny look at power, privilege, and personal chaos in sunny Los Angeles.
Season two of Beef trades last year’s road rage-fueled feud for a new battleground: the Monte Vista Point country club, an exclusive enclave where tennis whites and social climbing go hand in hand. Gone are the Emmy-winning leads of season one, Steven Yeun and Ali Wong, who set the bar high with their volatile chemistry. In their place, showrunner Lee Sung Jin hands the keys to Oscar Isaac, playing the desperate and manipulative general manager Josh, and Carey Mulligan, as his razor-sharp wife Lindsay. The pair, who previously shared the screen in Drive and Inside Llewyn Davis, finally get the space to spar in a way that’s both hilarious and heartbreakingly real.
Joining them in the club’s tangled web are Gen Z employees Ashley (played by Cailee Spaeny of Civil War) and Austin (Charles Melton from May December), who stumble upon—and record—a domestic brawl between Josh and Lindsay in their home. This isn’t just workplace gossip fodder; the recording gives the younger couple the upper hand, holding blackmail power over their bosses. Meanwhile, the club’s formidable owner, Chairwoman Park (Youn Yuh-jung of Minari), is juggling her own crises, including the fallout from her husband’s cosmetic surgery business in Korea.
As Esquire notes, the storylines may intersect predictably at first, but Lee Sung Jin quickly takes bold swings, propelling the first four episodes through a blend of soapy drama and sophisticated character work. The writing, more direct this season, dives into the messy realities of power—across class, race, and personality types—and the shifting dynamics in both old and new romantic relationships. The result is a show that feels less inscrutable than its predecessor, but no less compelling.
Carey Mulligan’s turn as Lindsay is a revelation for viewers familiar with her serious, awards-worthy roles in films like Promising Young Woman and She Said. In her interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Mulligan admits she was drawn to Beef for its comedic bite and the opportunity to let her mischievous side shine. “I wrote Sonny [Lee] a list of really awful British swear words—just all the shit things that we say to each other,” she laughs, recalling her push to make the insults feel more authentic. “I should definitely call someone a cunt.”
Mulligan’s comedic instincts are put to the test in scenes that veer from slapstick to savage. She gleefully recounts a moment when her character is called upon to kill a coyote in cold blood, a plot twist that hooked her instantly. “I called my agent immediately and was like, ‘There’s this fucking bit with a coyote, I’ve got to do it.’” And then there’s the big fight scene with Isaac—rehearsed ad nauseam—where a wine glass is hurled, a golf club is brandished, and the emotional stakes are sky-high. Mulligan reveals, “I was supposed to say something about how I was going to sleep with everyone else at the club, and I just didn’t feel angry enough. But then Sonny came over and said, ‘I don’t think you want to say that. I think you want to say to him that you’ve wasted my whole life.’ And I was like, ‘Yep, that’s what she’s mad about.’”
Isaac, for his part, relishes the chance to go toe-to-toe with Mulligan. “The first time I ever met Carey was in Nick’s living room before we started shooting [Drive], and I remember it was exciting because we were both young and really on the cusp of something,” he told The Hollywood Reporter. Their on-screen chemistry, years in the making, is a highlight of the season, with both actors bringing layers of desperation, humor, and vulnerability to their roles.
The supporting cast is equally strong. Melton’s Austin is a lovable, infuriating wannabe physical therapist who self-records workout videos to the beat of Guru Josh Project, while Spaeny’s Ashley navigates the mess with a plucky, clear-eyed resolve. Youn Yuh-jung’s Chairwoman Park, imperious and cunning, adds a deliciously unpredictable element to the club’s hierarchy.
Beyond the drama, Beef season two explores the universal longing for something more—a new job, a new face, a baby—that elusive fix that promises happiness but rarely delivers. “What unites nearly all of the characters across both seasons is a desperate belief that if they could just get that one thing… everything would start falling into place,” The Hollywood Reporter observes. For Mulligan’s Lindsay, that means secret text relationships with exes and the gnawing feeling that life could have turned out differently.
The show’s attention to detail extends off-screen as well. Early edits featured real paparazzi photos of Mulligan and her husband, musician Marcus Mumford, to illustrate Lindsay’s backstory. Eventually, these were swapped for pictures of Mulligan’s best friend to avoid blurring reality and fiction. Mulligan and Isaac even created a fictional marriage history during workshops, complete with matching tattoos commemorating a first trip to Coachella—a nod to Mulligan’s own habit of marking milestones with ink.
For Mulligan, who grew up outside London and was once rejected from prestigious drama conservatories, the journey to Hollywood stardom has been anything but straightforward. She credits her grounded perspective to her upbringing and her desire to avoid the “one for them, one for me” mentality in choosing roles. “If there’s a great director or a great writer, and it feels like there’s an opening to do something slightly more interesting, that’s when I’ll jump in,” she says.
As Esquire puts it, the real sign of strength in a show like Beef is that you never want to leave one character’s storyline. Each time the focus shifts, you’re drawn in all over again. With its blend of biting humor, emotional depth, and top-tier performances, Beef season two just might be the first must-see TV event of the year. The show is now streaming on Netflix, inviting audiences to join the fray—and maybe, just maybe, see themselves in the chaos.