Beef Season 2 Ending Explained

If at any point you remotely thought that Netflix's Beef Season 2 would give in to your predictability, you know you were so wrong. Nothing about the show ends the way you expect.

What starts as a desperate move to making more money quickly leads to a beef that leads to kidnapping, break ups and a lot more talk around capitalism and its bane.

As usual, those that haven't watched the final episode should know that this piece is full of spoilers that you should stary away from. We are breaking down the final episode (and the final scene) of the follow-up season of Lee Sung Jin's Beef hat moves from a high-octane thriller to an unexpected spiritual learning for the viewers around success, wealth and the whole concept of Samsara.

At the start of the Season 2, we're introduced to conflict surrounding two couples at the Monte Vista Point luxury country club who are desperately in want of money for reasons I guess any human would want? Nothing wrong is being driven and ambitious, one would think.However, the means and the consequences to get it is what the show really focuses on.

Josh (Isaac) and Lindsay (Mulligan) at the beginning of the season are the main caretakers of the elite country club in Montecito, California as general manager and interior designer-cum-hostess, while Austin, a people-pleasing trainer, and Ashely are their subordinates. By end of the season that shifts.

Austin and Ashely ultimately get what they want after overhearing a conversation between Josh and Lindsay by blackmailing their way up to grab their positions. They indeed inherit the chaotic lives of Josh and Lindsay but that isn't anywhere close to a happy ending they'd initially desired. Ashely get's Josh's position as the GM while Austin's job is to smile for the club members. Both get trapped by the chairwoman Park's schemes as they are driven by manipulation and difficult compromises.

The entire sequence of event in the Netflix series is set in motion by Dr. Kim, who unintentionally causes a patient's death during a plastic surgery as his hand tremor worsens. Rather than reporting what happened, his wife and billionaire owner of the country club intervenes to safeguard her interests. She leverages here power and influence to conceal the incident and evade any legal fallout.

And here's where the plot thickens!

The owners are not the only cheaters on the show. Josh, who is in deep financial crisis and in an intensely volatile and unhappy marriage, has been stealing small amounts of money from the club's accounts using fake invoices, which is the perfect little scheme for Chairwoman Park to expand and manipulate. But this isn't where it gets complicated in the worse way possible. The hot gym trainer and his wife need the money for a health insurance to deal with an impeding health condition and luckily overhear a fight among Josh and Lindsay that opens the perfect door of opportunities for them.

For one couple to rise, the others must fall.

Who Is It That's Going To Be The Scapegoat?

By the end of Season 2 of Beef that's split between California and Seoul, and also an 8-year jump, Josh is put in prison for embezzlement and in a way to save his wife. He is first abducted by a fixer who is sent to kill him and cover up the homicide as a fake death by suicide The fake confession shows Josh admitting to the allegations. Some true. Some, obviously, exaggerated to benefit the chairwoman.

However, instead of getting killed, Josh manages to kill the fixer in a self defense. But ultimately, turns himself in and takes full responsibility for whatever misdeed the chairwoman wants to save Lindsay who is abducted once they reach Seoul. In the flash-forward, we learn Josh has spent the past eight years in prison. He was found guilty of embezzlement and money laundering. The chairwoman wrapped up this crime story in a neat bow and added her late husband to the official telling. In the public version of events, Josh committed his crimes to help cover up the death at Trochos for Dr. Kim — who “took his own life.” Still, Josh found solace in prison by acting as the general manager among his fellow inmates, glad-handing and securing them coveted items like nail clippers. 

The last time we glimpse Josh, he’s enjoying his first day as a free man. He tells a news camera that he’s glad everyone he loves is happy — like, say, his ex-wife.

The Final Scene Explained

The final shot zooms out to reveal a circular form divided into segments, each containing moments from earlier in the series

—Ashely and Austin once in love lounging in the sun, Josh and Lindsay arguing. The image evokes samsara, a Buddhist and Hindu tradition, with its sections mirroring the universe and the cycles of life. At the center sits death that's surrounded by scenes of ongoing life. The death is of Chairwoman's first husband. The symbol suggests that relationships, no matter how they unfold, move cyclically for all, ultimately reaching the same end.

The ants that operate collectively in the last shot are in sync and sustaining a larger order of things. The pairing of samsara and ants builds a layered metaphor about cycles, control, and the tension between individuality and collective existence. It's the contrasting existence of collective harmony against thecost of personal autonomy.