The second season of A24 and Netflix’s highly acclaimed drama eloquently demonstrates how healthcare inequality can derail your life.
This article contains mild spoilers for season 2 of Beef.
Lee Sung Jin’s Beef is a show that hinges on the catastrophic potential of drama spiralling out of control. In its debut season, road rage between two strangers was the inciting incident that escalated beyond comprehension. Beef’s second season ostensibly maintains the same rich tapestry of meaty characters and layered plot – but this time the catalyst that propels this explosive drama all traces back to an ovarian cyst.
With a fresh slate of characters unconnected to season one, the eight episode collaboration between Netflix and A24 follows two couples – exclusive country club bosses Josh (Oscar Isaac) and Lindsay (Carey Mulligan), alongside Gen Z club employee Ashley (Cailee Spaeny) and her fiancé Austin (Charles Melton) – at pivotal moments in their relationship. The latter are trying to establish stability in their employment, finances and relationship, while their older counterparts are clinging to control amid the arrival of the club’s billionaire owner, Chairwoman Park (Youn Yuh-jung).
Amidst high-stakes coercion and volatile behaviour, this season’s most quietly powerful narrative thread pertains to reproductive rights and the painfully fraught experience of accessing adequate health care (particularly in the USA). It begins when Ashley and Austin witness – and document – an explosive argument between Josh and Lindsay. Ashley’s recording shows red stains smeared on Josh’s shirt and him wielding a golf club like a weapon as the pair scream. Initially Ashley is willing to let the footage slip into the back of her mind to avoid drama, but everything changes when she doubles over in excruciating abdominal pain, throwing up uncontrollably.
Cut to the young woman sitting on the crinkly paper of a hospital examination chair under glaring sterile lights, post-ultrasound scan. If you’ve got ovaries, you probably know the reality of an unsettling moment like this – the vulnerability of the examination experience followed by the stomach-dropping wait for the doctor’s return.
“You have an ovarian cyst,” the doctor tells Ashley bluntly. The camera lingers solely on her expression as it shifts from studious to shock to worry over a slow zoom, as the doctor explains she needs urgent surgery to prevent a potentially fatal ovarian torsion. The propulsive force of this scene in the narrative becomes clear later, but in the moment, it’s gut-wrenching. Spaeny’s performance is devastating as a young woman whose expectations of her own body and her future crumble with the doctor’s declaration: “You’re only 26, so too young to be thinking about this, but it might make getting pregnant difficult. Any questions?”
Having been in Ashley’s shoes in a moment like this, it’s refreshing that creator and showrunner Lee Sung Jin treats it with visceral emotional force. This revelation causes waves that ripple through the show, not just contained to a single moment for dramatic effect. The emotional cocktail of dejection and rage is shattered by the dawning realisation that Ashley needs health insurance, something her current job doesn’t offer. Luckily, she has a bargaining chip: the footage in her camera roll of Josh and Lindsay’s fight. This is the decision that knocks the first in a cascading line of dominoes for season two of Beef.
The topic of reproductive health also binds these two couples; the individual struggles of Ashley and Lindsay become intertwined, just as womanhood is too often synonymous with motherhood. Both women are stuck in a waiting game; Ashley is seeking surgery before another ovarian torsion, and Lindsay is toying with the idea of trying again for a baby with Josh. While rifling through her wardrobe, a baby onesie falls out – Lindsay looks at the small garment emotionlessly before stuffing it on the back of her shelf. The silent gesture speaks volumes, and reproductive challenges become a haunting device resonating throughout the show with these parallel experiences.
However, in a mid-season episode set entirely in an emergency room, the conversation about the cracks in the American health system is loud. Even in the hospital Ashley’s condition and symptoms are brushed off and misdiagnosed, the limits of her pain tolerance being tested to the extreme. Beef doesn’t let viewers escape the reality of Ashley’s debilitating pain; she crumples into her waiting room chair in pain and twists in Austin’s hold while covered in a sweaty sheen. In a heated argument between Ashley and Josh, he refuses to help her get medical attention until she wipes all of the backup footage of his fight. It’s the most spelt-out moment of this narrative arc and extends even beyond the privatised world of US healthcare: you can access medical attention, but only if you can afford it. This episode of Beef is practically a horror film – among the jump scares is Ashley discovering she has a high-deductible insurance plan and will have to pay up to $5000. In her last moments before surgery and her first when coming around from anaesthesia, she is asking about the cost of the operation. This mounting climax reflects a reality for many people, where instead of worrying about her medical outcome, Ashley’s stressed about the fact that her healing comes with the promise of debt.
This thread continues throughout the season, from Lindsay’s OBGYN recommendations to the start of an IVF journey for Ashley and Austin. Beef repeatedly brings these silent struggles with reproductive health into the foreground, but importantly, the approach isn’t clinical. In an early scene where Ashley tells Austin about her doctor visit, she tearfully confesses, “I can’t do the one basic thing that this whole… like, everything is about, everywhere. Nature.” I can assume most who’ve had a similar experience have said words to this effect (I know I have) while processing a new reality of life with an ovarian condition. It’s validating to see such a realistic moment included amidst the heightened dramatic medical elements and criticism of the monetised healthcare system. This is especially true considering more than a quarter of women in England have a serious reproductive health issue, while in the US the government continues to seek control over women’s bodies more and more. Yet the topic of reproductive health is rarely covered in mainstream media. While Beef is a show which tackles much more than just this subject, this actually mirrors reality: what it means to push forward in life while in pain and constantly having to fight for better health care.
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