Beef

Netflix

We have our first official numbers in for the release of Beef season 2, the follow-up to the Emmy-winning miniseries that was so successful, it turned into an anthology instead. But it may end here now, given what we’re seeing.

I was shocked to see that Beef season 2 landed all the way down at #10 on Netflix’s top 10 list right after its debut. That worked out to 2.4 million views, which, if you do some math about Beef season 1’s first week back in 2023, compared to 5.8 million views, is around a 60% drop. The good news for Beef season 2 is that in time, it did crawl up to the #1 spot on the top 10 list after a few days, and maybe people are now…realizing it came out? I didn’t think it had more or less advertising than most other non-blockbuster Netflix shows, but perhaps that was part of the initial problem. Still, we don’t know additional totals for another week.

Beef season 2 saw both its critic and audience scores drop compared to season 1, a 98% to an 86% on Rotten Tomatoes from critics, and an 87% to a 61% from audiences. Having watched the entire thing, no, it’s not as good, and I’m not instantly lobbying for the cast to win Emmys like I was Steven Yeun and Ali Wong (both of whom won). Now, even though there are some great performances in here across its all-star cast, Oscar Isaac, Carey Mulligan, Cailee Spaeny and Charles Melton, it would have much steeper competition now that it’s not a limited series.

The drop is still a surprise. It’s not as if the original Beef was some megahyped series when it landed. Word of mouth spread about its quality in time, but you would imagine a follow-up to a show that was now famous would do better than a #10 debut. The argument, of course, is that no one really asked for another season of this so perhaps there was not that much interest initially. Still, going from #10 to #1 is no small feat either, so perhaps the recovery will make these figures less bad in time. But I doubt they’re going to do this for a third time, and we’ve heard nothing about that so far.

I do recommend it. It’s stressful, occasionally funny, and the performances are extremely good, particularly from Mulligan and Spaeny. Also, Seoyeon Jang, not a part of one of the two warring couples in question.

I would watch more Beef if the concept were good enough. I don’t think a viewership drop makes the season bad, and I don’t think just because it’s worse than the all-time great season 1, that means it's lacking either. Give it a shot.

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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.