Is Beef Season 2 Worth Watching? Honest Review (2026)

TL;DR

Beef Season 2 takes the anthology approach and absolutely runs with it. With an entirely new cast led by Carey Mulligan and Oscar Isaac, it tells a fresh story about two couples whose lives become catastrophically entangled after a trivial incident. It’s darker, messier, and more ambitious than the first season — and while it doesn’t quite recapture the lightning-in-a-bottle magic of Steven Yeun and Ali Wong, it carves out its own identity with ferocious confidence. One of the best things on Netflix right now.

What It’s About (No Spoilers)

Two couples living in the same affluent coastal neighbourhood have their lives upended by an insignificant moment of conflict that spirals wildly out of control. Carey Mulligan and Charles Melton play a married couple navigating simmering resentments beneath their picture-perfect exterior, while Oscar Isaac and Cailee Spaeny are a pair whose relationship is built on mutual destruction disguised as passion. When these two worlds collide, the fallout is simultaneously hilarious, horrifying, and heartbreaking. Creator Lee Sung Jin expands the show’s thematic scope from individual road rage to the way entire relationships can become vehicles for our worst impulses.

What Works

Carey Mulligan delivers one of the performances of the year. She plays a woman whose composure is so meticulously maintained that when the cracks appear, each one feels seismic. It’s a masterclass in controlled intensity — she can make something as simple as a dinner party conversation feel like watching someone defuse a bomb. Australian audiences who only know her from prestige dramas will be genuinely startled by how funny and frightening she is here.

The ensemble dynamic adds new dimensions. Moving from two leads to four allows the show to explore how conflict radiates outward through relationships. The way resentments, jealousies, and desires bounce between the four central characters creates a complexity that the first season — brilliant as it was — couldn’t achieve with its tighter focus. Every episode shifts your sympathy in unexpected directions.

It’s savagely funny. Lee Sung Jin’s writing remains wickedly sharp, finding comedy in the absolute worst moments of human behaviour. There are scenes in Beef Season 2 that had me cackling one second and genuinely uncomfortable the next, often within the same breath. The show understands that the line between comedy and tragedy is basically nonexistent when people are at their most unhinged.

What Doesn’t

The pacing stumbles in the back half. At ten episodes, this season is two episodes longer than the first, and you feel it. There’s a stretch around episodes seven and eight where the plot mechanics become slightly repetitive — characters making increasingly bad decisions in ways that start to feel like the show is treading water before the finale. Trimming it to eight episodes would have made for a tighter, more impactful season.

It inevitably invites comparison to Season 1. This isn’t really a flaw of the show itself, but it’s worth acknowledging. The first season of Beef had a specificity and rawness that felt genuinely new. Season 2 is excellent on its own terms, but it’s working within a template now, and some of the surprise factor is inevitably diminished. If you go in expecting to feel exactly what you felt watching Season 1, you’ll be slightly disappointed — but that’s an unfair standard for any follow-up.

Who Should Watch This

Anyone who loved the first season of Beef — obviously. Fans of dark comedies like Fleabag, The White Lotus, or Dead to Me. People who appreciate actor showcases and want to watch genuinely world-class performers at the top of their game. If you enjoy stories about ordinary people doing extraordinarily terrible things to each other, this is your show. Couples who enjoy watching relationship dynamics play out on screen — though fair warning, it might spark some uncomfortable conversations afterwards.

Who Should Skip This

If you found the first season of Beef too dark or uncomfortable, this one goes further, so it’s probably not for you. If you need likeable protagonists to stay invested, you’ll struggle — every character here is deeply flawed and frequently awful. And if you’re hoping for a continuation of Danny and Amy’s story from Season 1, that’s not what this is — it’s a completely new story with new characters.

Where to Stream in Australia

Beef Season 2 is a Netflix exclusive worldwide.

• Netflix Standard with Ads — $7.99/month (Full HD, 2 screens, limited downloads)
• Netflix Standard — $18.49/month (Full HD, 2 screens, downloads)
• Netflix Premium — $25.99/month (4K UHD, 4 screens, spatial audio)

The full season dropped all at once, so you can binge the lot in a weekend if that’s your style. Given that most Australians already have a Netflix subscription, this one’s essentially free to check out — no new sign-up required. If you’ve been on the fence about keeping Netflix, this plus a few other strong recent additions make a decent argument for hanging onto it.

The Bottom Line

Beef Season 2 pulls off the hardest trick in television — following up a beloved debut with something that feels both connected and completely its own thing. Carey Mulligan and Oscar Isaac elevate already excellent material into something genuinely special, and Lee Sung Jin continues to prove himself as one of the sharpest voices in comedy-drama. It’s not perfect, and it’s not quite Season 1, but it’s comfortably one of the best shows of the year so far. For Australian Netflix subscribers, there’s absolutely no reason not to watch this. Clear a weekend and let it consume you.