The second season of BEEF is packed with underhanded games and chaotic antics — from domestic blowouts and break-ins to orange juice sabotage and high-stakes blackmail.
Though the show’s tangled web of resentments swirls around multiple couples at a California country club, some of the season’s most startling maneuvers come from two characters at the top of the Monte Vista Point food chain: Chairwoman Park, played by the Oscar-winning Youn Yuh-jung (Minari, Pachinko), and her husband, Dr. Kim, played by Actor Award winner Song Kang-ho (Parasite, Snowpiercer).
From the outside, these two seem to be living the golden life: Chairwoman Park is the all-powerful billionaire who buys a country club, partly due to her husband’s passion for golf. “She has a lot of money. She can just go anyplace and say, ‘OK, I'll buy this,’ ” Youn tells Tudum. “If her husband is playing golf, she could just play golf with him at their club.”
But when Dr. Kim — a plastic surgeon — goes through with an operation even though he knows he has hand tremors, a patient dies at the couple’s medical clinic. The two become dead set on covering up the crime, no matter who has to be deceived — and in some cases, killed — along the way. “What’s sad is that, in the actual world we’re living in, it causes us to press down our sense of guilt until it almost disappears,” Song tells Tudum.
These two enigmatic characters are played with finesse and sophistication by acting legends Youn and Song. Show creator Lee Sung Jin’s screenplay is filled to the brim with detailed nuances and mysterious motivations, and Youn and Song bring all of that subtlety into vivid relief.
By the end of Episode 8, Chairwoman Park has the final word, both literally and figuratively. She gives a closing monologue that explores some of the show’s more layered themes — love, age, regret, and the inevitable cycles of life.
Here, we asked Youn and Song to reflect on BEEF Season 2 — and the remarkable depth, contradiction, and humanity they brought to these richly layered characters.
You two are both legends in the industry but had never acted together. What was it like to finally collaborate?
Youn Yuh-jung: Nobody believed it was our first time, because we’ve been in the Korean industry a long time, but this was finally our chance to have scenes together. I noticed that his acting style and my acting style were different — but that I could react to his style. He’s very improvisational, and I never knew what to expect. Usually, when we’d practice and go over lines together, he would do something unexpected, a complete surprise. But I like that. I enjoy it very much.
Song Kang-ho: She’s a senior actor to me — senior as in who debuted first. I’ve seen her acting since I was young, and it was our first time acting together, all thanks to Sonny. And I think it’s a great, great honor. What surprised me was that she has a very particular way of expressing herself as an actor — realistic, really. When I was watching the whole series, there was a great sense of delicateness in her acting. That was very impressive. It seemed like she understood the world of the camera and the world of BEEF so well. I’m such a fan of Sonny, too. I’m one of those fans who was attracted to Season 1’s intensity — the emotional intelligence.
Throughout the show, there’s the overarching question of whether your characters really love each other. What do you think?
Song: There’s definitely love in there, but it’s very hidden. It’s not seen on the surface. In this day and age, when we focus on capitalism so much, the love is almost compressed into a small corner — everyone’s just talking about the money and who’s going to take more and stuff.
Youn: Since they’ve been in a relationship, they do have some kind of attachment. I don’t think it’s love. Not love like you think of it. Maybe you could call that love — or more that she’s accustomed to him. He’s been very convenient for her. If she divorces him, maybe she will be shamed since she’s such a famous figure. So it’s a mixed feeling, I think. It’s not pure love.
With her experience, age seventysomething, she’s been through a lot. Maybe he’s a toy husband, because she has everything else. Dr. Kim is funny — that's what Sonny told me. So she wants to have fun with him. Traveling with Dr. Kim, protection, things like that.
They both do some pretty brutal things throughout the season. Do you think the characters feel guilt?
Youn: I was really shocked because in a movie, we would have the whole script right away, so I always know what’s going to happen in the end. But in BEEF, I was realizing as we went that Chairwoman Park ends up killing a lot of people! Whenever I’d get script, I’d think, “Oh, this is good.”
Song: If I said Dr. Kim didn’t feel guilt, he wouldn’t be a normal human being. What he realizes — and she realizes — is that life is swirled with capitalism, power, and money, and we know that we’re all chasing those things. There’s a sense of vanity in this life.
Youn: In Episode 6, when Chairwoman Park decides to kill Woosh, that scene — it was very symbolic of her character. She’s very cunning. She saw Woosh’s ambition. And, as a businesswoman, she thought, “Oh, he’s dangerous. I better get rid of him.”
I liked playing a villain. In real life, we cannot do that kind of thing. So it’s fun for me.
BEEF travels to South Korea for the first time in Season 2. What was it like sharing Seoul with the rest of the world?
Youn: Since we were shooting in Korea, you get a taste of Korean atmosphere in Season 2. But you cannot see all of Korean culture or Korean people in one show. I’m just glad we can show part of our Korea.
Song: It's a very joyous act, and I'm very grateful to do this. it's a very honorous activity to do, and I think this opportunity for Asian actors to share with this world confidently is increasing. There are a lot of opportunities [to share Korean culture] right now, but I hope there are more. We share the joy and the sadness of life with this story. I hope there are more opportunities to share, and I’m going to make more effort to make this happen.
At the end of the season, Chairwoman Park delivers a striking monologue about life’s inevitable sorrows and fleeting joys. How did you interpret that speech? What does it say about her that she can reflect so tenderly and also be the one responsible for Dr. Kim’s death?
Song: Dr. Kim would feel regret hearing that. We all know what’s important in life, but then the world is so harsh, we don’t notice it when we have it. He realized this too late.
Youn: That was a moment that really made an impression on me, when she says something like, “I don’t want to be like my mother at all, but look at me — I became exactly like her, with all of her same regrets and everything.” Sonny is so good at understanding human nature.
Watch BEEF Season 2 on Netflix now. And dig deeper with BEEF: The Official Podcast, streaming on Netflix.
Additional reporting by Ariana Romero.
