We Need to Talk About That Outrageous Ending to Netflix’s Road-Rage Induced Beef
Because there's more than just the violence and rivalry.
(SPOT.ph) You’re driving to your destination without a care in the world when suddenly, a kamote driver has to come and ruin your day. Instead of letting the matter go, though, they decide to flash you the finger–instant road rage. Worse if all this happens in a deserted area. What happens when you and your worst enemy get stranded together in an area far from any sign of Internet signal or phone reception?
Netflix explores this incredibly relatable question and more in Beef. In case you’ve been living under a rock, the series has been making one heck of a stir online thanks to an intense storyline and even more intense performances courtesy of Steven Yeun and Ali Wong. We round up a few fun facts behind the series, and because we can’t be the only ones who went down the ride, talk out that ending. Fair warning: massive spoilers ahead.
Also read: What Is an Ongo? Nocebo, the Horrifying Ending Explained
Beef Ending Explained: All You Need to Know
That road-rage incident in Beef and how it ends
The series opens up in a road rage between Danny Cho (Steven Yeun), a contractor, and Amy Lau (Ali Wong), a business owner who sells plants. The two live different lives in California.
Unlike the road-rage incidents we usually see on EDSA, the two first cross paths in an intense car-race-inspired move. The two meet each other on the road, and their Fast & Furious type incident becomes fueled by the inner struggles they have as individuals living entirely different lives, so yup, you know this goes back layers.
What starts out as an accidental backing-up into another car progresses into petty fights that lead to multiple attempts of revenge against each other. Their beef ultimately ends up with them injured at some remote area without phone signal, with little food supply to boot, and only each other.
In hunger-induced desperation, they stumble upon and eat berries that they think are elderberries. Plot twist: of course they aren’t.
While under the trippy influence of the berries and consumed by the feeling that they’ll die from poisoning soon, they open up to each other about their problems and who they were long before the road rage encounter took place. Eventually, they come to understand each other—only they think they’re about to die.
While the series could have ended poetically there, it doesn’t. Beef continues with another twist: they don’t die. Once they awaken from the berry high, they start to make amends. And while you think it may be a good thing that they’re being looked for, the two shift gears into an us-versus-them type of battle, in an excellent 180-turn from the beginnings of their relationship.
What the ending to Beef shows us
As crazy as things get in Beef, creator Lee Sun Jin admitted in an interview with Newsweek that what we got on Netflix was already toned down. He had originally imagined an even wilder and in-your-face ride for the show. Had Netflix and A24 Productions not intervened during the brainstorming, we may have gotten a bout of cray beyond our imagination. Who knows?
In Beef, we get to see two people’s POVs. If you had seen the road-rage incident play out between Danny and Amy IRL, it would’ve been easy to dismiss the two as crazy people who have nothing better to do but be shallow and angry. Yet as people who get to see what happens next (and understand what went before), it becomes clear that we can also easily forget that everyone has their fair share of challenges in life.
Judging others based on what we see on the surface is pretty much instinct for us. Beef is a reminder that a lot that could be happening beneath a person’s facade. Like in the case of Danny, a glance won’t tell us he isn’t just some deadbeat, he’s actually a smart guy trying to get ahead in his career, one hit with roadblocks thanks to his circumstances. And in the case of Amy, it’s not readily evident that underneath the veneer of her seemingly perfect life is a woman who wants to be more than what society expects her to be.
There’s no denying Beef is a violent series. It showcases all the ways humans can become cruel when acting on instinct, but hey, if you peel away the layers, it also shows us that, in the end, you can still choose to be kind. You never know what’s going on in the life of every idiot you meet while on the road, anyways.
this strange new world.