Beef Could Have Been 'Even Crazier' If Netflix Hadn't Intervened

This post contains spoilers for "Beef."

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Netflix's new series "Beef" is the most exciting and inventive show to come out this year. The 10-episode odyssey is wholly original, narratively smart and vast, and never fails to keep you guessing. It's good comedy, good drama, and good thriller, and it doesn't try to be anything other than true to itself. 

In fact, the limited series goes pretty hard at times, particularly in the second half of its arc. There are some really unsettling deaths, and a lot of messed-up situations occur — far more than the first half of the narrative leads you to believe could happen. That said, creator Lee Sung Jin revealed that he originally had a much more screwed-up plan in place for the show's climax.

"I knew that I wanted everything to hit the fan," the showrunner told Newsweek in a recent interview. "We'd been stretching this rubber band for eight episodes now, I knew I needed the thing to snap. And truthfully, the outline of that episode was, believe it or not, even crazier, with so many more deaths. But it was too much, and Netflix and A24, rightfully, were like 'You OK?' And so we brought it back."

The filmmaker noted that he ended up focusing more on character than the spectacle of what would happen. "Like, what is it ultimately heading towards?" he explained. "And it is really ultimately about, on [Steven Yeun's character] Danny's side, his relationship with his brother, on [Ali Wong's character] Amy's side, her relationship with [her husband] George. So in writing I really tried to hone in on what was the end emotional place I wanted them before we get them together in the finale."

The show really does make a zero to sixty move in the last two episodes, and it works in part because of the collaborative efforts of Jin and Jake Schreier, who directed the penultimate episode. Their writing and directing efforts sync up really smoothly — as do Jin and Hikari, who also directed on the series — and it's clear the pair both understand the heart of this story and what it needs to thrive. Schreier directing the majority of episodes in the series is no accident; it's representative of a creative kinship, one that really blossoms in the show's third act. 

As Jin explained to Newsweek: "It was fun to write, it's definitely a departure tonally, and it wouldn't have worked without the excellent direction of Schreier. You write something like that and you're like 'Eugh, it's not going to work.' And then his direction and the cinematography of our DP really helped ground some of the craziness and made it feel true to this world."

"Beef" is available to stream on Netflix.