Netflix users appear to have lost their taste for Beef during its long break between seasons, as the comedy-drama’s latest episodes show a massive drop in viewership.
The new chapter follows country club managers Josh (Oscar Isaac) and Lindsay (Carey Mulligan) as they become locked into a vicious rivalry with their struggling employees Ashley (Cailee Spaeny) and Austin (Charles Melton).
Besides some thematic connections, Beef season 2 tells an unrelated story to the first entry, which starred Ali Wong and Steven Yeun as two people whose feud is sparked by a road rage incident.
Creator Lee Sung Jin made the bold decision to convert Beef into an anthology, in the vein of The White Lotus or American Horror Story, but the move doesn’t appear to have paid off if early ratings are any indication.
Netflix’s public ratings show that Beef season 2 barely managed to crack the global top 10 list of English-language shows, which is typically not too difficult for high-profile original dramas.
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Ultimately, it scraped through in 10th position, with a total of 14.1 million hours viewed by Netflix users around the world, marking an enormous decline of almost 60 percent from season 1’s launch week ratings (34.1 million hours).
Of course, it’s difficult to diagnose exactly why audiences didn’t come back for a second serving of Beef, which cleaned up at the Emmys, Golden Globes and Actor Awards during its first run.
Critical reception (including our own Beef season 2 review) remained generally positive this time around too, albeit not quite as enthusiastic, which might have stripped the show of its ‘must-watch’ momentum.
Beef season 1 also benefitted from the element of surprise, with Yeun stepping into a wildly different character following his Oscar nod (for Minari), while stand-up comedian Wong left fans stunned with her own dramatic turn.
Perhaps the new chapter should have retained some tangible connections to the first, in the way that The White Lotus has via recurring characters Tanya, Greg and Belinda, to include some hints about what became of Amy (Wong) and Danny (Yeun).
The larger problem, however, was likely the three-year gap between seasons, prolonged by the Hollywood strikes that took up most of 2023, director Jake Schreier’s commitment to Marvel’s Thunderbolts* and Beef’s own radical reinvention for season 2.
Netflix is yet to confirm whether Beef will return for a third season, but it’s hard to imagine a renewal materialising unless these ratings pick up in the weeks ahead. Fortunately, there is at least no unresolved cliffhanger to worry about.
Beef seasons 1-2 are streaming on Netflix. Sign up for Netflix from £5.99 a month. Netflix is also available on Sky Glass and Virgin Media Stream.
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