For creator, writer, and director Lee Sung Jin, writing from a deeply personal place has proven particularly fruitful. The first season of his darkly comedic anthology series BEEF, which follows two strangers after a road rage incident inspired by Lee’s own experience, resonated for its distinctive relatability and vulnerability. That season, which debuted in 2023 and starred Steven Yeun and Ali Wong, won three Golden Globes; two Screen Actors Guild Awards; and eight Emmys, including Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series. So when it came time to craft a second season of BEEF, Lee stayed true to his storytelling instincts. “This season, much like Season 1, is also ripped from the headlines of my life,” he says.

Lee Sung Jin,  Charles Melton, and crew

Photo by Andrew Cooper

In the second season, which was nominated for 3 Gotham TV Awards including Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series, Gen Z couple Ashley and Austin, played by Golden Globe nominees Cailee Spaeny (Priscilla) and Charles Melton (May December), witness an upsetting fight between their boss, Josh (Golden Globe Award-winner Oscar Isaac), who runs the Monte Vista Point Country Club, and his interior decorator wife, Lindsay (Academy Award-nominee Carey Mulligan). “We’ve all been seen at our worst in the privacy of our own home,” says Lee, but this interaction is made more uncomfortable when Josh and Lindsay discover the young couple recorded their volatile row, setting off a feud steeped in favors and blackmail at the ritzy, sun-soaked club. “Season 1’s beef was so in your face — road rage is about as aggro of a beef as you can get,” says Lee, who also directs three of the eight-part season’s episodes. “We wanted to change the feeling of this season’s beef, [so] it’s a little bit more passive-aggressive. It’s more of the internal repression of rage that you see in the workplace.” Ashley and Austin are low-level employees at the Montecito establishment, while Josh has spent years at the helm, tending to wealthy and connected members, while stalling his and his wife’s plan to open a luxury bed-and-breakfast. “We’ve seen so much [of the] boomer couple versus [the] younger couple in the past. We thought, ‘What if we actually made them a little bit closer in age, and highlight the generational divide between the millennial couple and the Gen Z couple?’” Lee explains.

Cailee Spaeny and Lee Sung Jin

Photo by Andrew Cooper

There’s a stark contrast between the two relationships at the center of the second incarnation of BEEF. Josh and Lindsay find nothing but fault in each other, and their life together has none of the hope and promise it did in its ambitious beginning, as evidenced by their partially renovated home. “Josh is really trying to keep his status quo alive. He’s not willing to give up his current life, because he really loves the camaraderie and the feeling of belonging that he gets at work,” says Lee. But Lindsay yearns for something, for anything — whether it’s a different fabric on an armchair or a different person to share her life with. “She constantly reminds her husband that this wasn’t their plan,” adds Lee. “This wasn’t their dream, to just be servicing members at a country club. She’s definitely reaching a breaking point.” Isaac and Mulligan, who starred together in Drive as well as Inside Llewyn Davis, hold nothing back as they portray a marriage in chaos.

Meanwhile, Ashley and Austin are still in the honeymoon phase, freshly engaged and excited to get married. Despite struggling to make ends meet, they’re just happy they found each other. “They’re sort of naive [about] all the curveballs that life could throw at them,” says Lee. “They think all they need is each other — and the beach.” Conflict arises as they navigate how to deal with Josh and Lindsay in the aftermath of a shocking fight, and the grim reality of getting by sets in. “They just want health insurance, to be able to pay the bills, keep the lights on at home. And that is proving very difficult to do in late-stage capitalism,” says Lee.

Lee Sung Jin and Oscar Isaac

Photo by Andrew Cooper

The other relationships this season are at the opposite end of the country-club social hierarchy. The indulgent Troy (William Fichtner) and Ava (Mikaela Hoover) — a successful music industry executive and his much younger trophy wife — are beloved members with whom Josh and Lindsay have a jealousy-tinged fascination. Academy Award–winner Youn Yuh-jung (Minari) commands the series as Chairwoman Park, the new billionaire owner of the club whose second husband, plastic surgeon Dr. Kim (Song Kang-ho, Parasite), causes her headaches as she brings Monte Vista Point up to her high standards. Working with Korean cinema titans like Youn and Song is “the absolute peak,” says Lee. “It’s just been the greatest honor to collaborate with them. They’re just the most wonderful human beings. I think, this season, you really see a lot [from] these two that you haven’t seen in their long accomplished careers.”

Lee Sung Jin and Carey Mulligan

Photo by Andrew Cooper

The anthology series’ return reunites Lee with past collaborators while incorporating new talents into the fold. Yeun and Wong, who won Emmys for their performances in the first season, remain executive producers of the series; the actors passed the torch to their successors — Isaac, Mulligan, Melton, and Spaeny — ahead of filming with a group dinner and an escape room trip. Behind the scenes, returning production designer Grace Yun is joined by composer and Grammy- and Oscar-winning musician Finneas O’Connell (Barbie), and Academy Award–nominated cinematographer James Laxton (Moonlight). “We were really excited this season to change up the feel,” says Lee. “Season 1 was very gritty and grungy and sort of raw, whereas [with] this country club world, we wanted to feel very composed and subtle and elegant.” O’Connell brought a level of emotional intensity to the score that inspired Lee as he worked on the season. “As soon as Season 2 started to present itself as a season about love, a season with much more inter-character emotion than Season 1, I reached out to Finneas and pitched what we were thinking. He was game right away,” says Lee. “Very early on, he texted me this thing he was working on titled ‘Vicious Thoughts,’ and it was epic and so emotional. As soon as I heard it, I knew the exact scene that I wanted to set to it in the finale. It was almost like his music conjured the image of two people running towards each other in my head. The writers and I were able to write to that score.”

Oscar Isaac, Carey Mulligan, Cailee Spaeny, Charles Melton, Jake Schreier, and Lee Sung Jin

Photo by Jaehyuk Lee

More BEEF also means more of Lee’s signature honesty, and more of his interrogation of the toll modern life takes on identity and the sense of self. The couples this season all struggle to find themselves and each other in their partnerships as they negotiate their status-obsessed, power-hungry environment, and the crushing weight of the American dream. “So much of BEEF is expressing the things that we don’t want to talk about out loud. It’s these intrusive thoughts that you have to yourself late at night,” Lee says. “We always try to find ways to take real life and embed it into the show with very little alteration. I hope people can sense and feel that truth.”