Let's get your biggest question out of the way: Does Season 2 of Lee Sung Jin's anthology series Beef surpass the highs of Season 1?

It does not, but that doesn't mean the season is a disappointment. Season 1 set an extraordinarily high bar for any follow-up to clear, and Lee does his best to clear it by going bigger than before. In Season 2, the people involved in the show's titular beef have multiplied. Instead of two people going head-to-head like Steven Yeun and Ali Wong did in Season 1, Beef Season 2 throws two couples in the arena, played by Oscar Isaac, Carey Mulligan, Charles Melton, and Cailee Spaeny. It also goes international, spinning a tale of cover-ups and corruption that will take its rage-fueled antics all the way to Seoul, South Korea.

The widening in scale leads to both Beef's biggest successes and pitfalls. Everything involving the couples is divine: a dizzying whirlwind of blackmail, shifting allegiances, and astounding performances from the show's core four. It's when Beef Season 2 moves beyond them that it loses some of its focus (although it never lets up on the stress).

Oscar Isaac and Carey Mulligan face off against Charles Melton and Cailee Spaeny in Beef Season 2.

In one corner of Beef Season 2, we have married couple Josh (Isaac) and Lindsay (Mulligan). He's the general manager of a swanky country club; she's an interior designer who's helped shape the club's look. (Think crushed velvet and swaths of patterned wallpaper.) From the outside, they look extremely well off. They rub shoulders with the California elite, host elaborate fundraisers, and exude an aura of love, even 15 years into their marriage. In reality, they're drowning in a money pit, and those financial troubles have festered into rank hatred.

That hatred spews forth mere minutes into Beef Season 2's first episode, with an argument that starts at a 10 and escalates to Marriage Story levels of personal attacks and beyond. Adam Driver punching a hole in drywall pales in comparison to Isaac and Mulligan tearing Josh and Lindsay's house to shreds.

Watching the fight is Beef Season 2's second pair of combatants: lower-level club workers Ashley (Spaeny) and Austin (Melton). The engaged couple stopped by Josh and Lindsay's to drop off Josh's wallet, only to stumble on a war zone. Now armed with a video of Josh accosting Lindsay, Ashley and Austin realize they have enough leverage to blackmail their way into higher-paying jobs, kicking off a simmering workplace feud that interrogates both couples' relationships.

The ensuing beef is full of jaw-dropping moments, from electrifying shouting matches to a gag-worthy scene involving a Shirley Temple. But what's really enticing about Beef Season 2 is seeing the ways in which these couples become a twisted mirror to one another. Josh and Lindsay are a couple on the last legs of their romantic relationship, while Ashley and Austin's own relationship is truly kicking off. (They've been together for one and a half years.) The former are jaded yet accustomed to fights. After their episode 1 blowup, they laugh it off and calmly rearrange the wreckage of their argument. The latter, on the other hand, are so conflict-avoidant that they can barely express their true feelings. Instead, they couch them in therapy speak about radical honesty and being each other's "safe space." But as money becomes more and more of a stressor, the anger becomes clearer, and Ashley and Austin's love, like Josh and Lindsay's, begins to decay.

As the couples interact more, Lee plays with alliances. Unexpected friendships pop up between the men and women, adding a gendered layer to the tense proceedings. The pairs also become more similar, with one couple unknowingly echoing the other's manipulative tactics or nasty revenge plots. In the end, Beef asks, is rage the great equalizer? Are these couples really the same, deep down?

Beef Season 2 is full of spectacular performances.

Each of Beef Season 2's leads delivers exceptional work. Isaac is both magnetic and repulsive as Josh, who occupies a strange middle ground between managing his staff and being at the beck and call of his club's clientele, who treat him as a friend before asking for a free round of golf. Josh is always calculating how much power he has in a room, and Isaac makes sure these calculations — as well as Josh's menacing power trips and nightmarish humiliations — ring loud and clear even in Beef's most pregnant pauses.

Mulligan thrives in Lindsay's nastiness, even in text conversations where she doesn't have to utter a word. But between her pointed remarks and clear disdain for the other women at the club, Beef and Mulligan find ways to deepen Lindsay, highlighting insecurities about aging or her relationship with Josh. Watching Lindsay facetune herself is heart-wrenching, as are scenes when Mulligan sheds Lindsay's prissier exterior for more introspection.

As Austin, Melton often displays the wounded-puppy melancholy that earned him acclaim for May December (for which he was eternally robbed of an Oscar nomination). However, he also proves he has serious comedy chops with Austin's daffy sweetness, which later morphs into a more steely cunning that's among the show's biggest and most compelling transformations.

Spaeny's Ashley undergoes a major transformation of her own. Early episodes see Spaeny channeling the fresh-faced ingenue energy she brought to projects like Priscilla or Civil War. But as Ashley gains more power and status, that sweetness curdles into Karen-esque expectations of servitude from those around her, including Austin. Darkly funny and a little frightening, it's delightful to see Spaeny play against type.

Another key piece on the board is Academy Award winner Youn Yuh-jung as Chairwoman Park, the new billionaire owner of the country club. The most powerful player in Beef's game, she's also its quietest, sitting back while everyone scrambles to please her. Youn is formidable as this calm titan, yet Beef Season 2 often struggles to thread the needle between Park's bigger plans and the meaty couple drama at its heart.

Beef Season 2 offers a frightening look at late-stage capitalism.

Beef Season 1 earned rave reviews for its examination of Asian American identity. That examination takes a backseat in Season 2, with the exception of Austin, who is half Korean and realizes he needs more "Korean presence" in his life after connecting with Park's translator Eunice (Seoyeon Jang).

The lessening of that theme is a shame given how crucial it was to Beef Season 1. Lee does keep Beef connected to South Korea in Season 2, though, using Park's involvement at the club as one of the many ways in which the season examines late-stage capitalism.

Name-dropped throughout the season, capitalism is the reason Josh, Lindsay, Austin, and Ashley are struggling. Austin and Ashley weather horrifying debts, including health insurance woes incurred in an episode that makes The Pitt look like a pleasant daydream. Josh and Lindsay are also in compounding financial struggles, all while trying to keep up appearances of their own wealth. (It doesn't help that all four are surrounded by the ludicrously wealthy club members.) These problems all eventually lead them to the same place: under Park's thumb.

Most of Park's shady dealings feel disjointed from the rest of the season. They eventually culminate in a series of wild set pieces, ranging from corporate espionage to bloody slapstick. These are big swings that don't entirely gel with what's come before. However, they do emphasize how our four leads' problems may seem big until they're dwarfed by the machinations of the ultra-rich doing their best to protect themselves at any cost necessary. That's why Beef Season 2 is littered with imagery of ants and bees, all worker insects laboring in service of their queen. In the end, that's all Josh, Lindsay, Austin, and Ashley are to Park.

Of course, it's the relationships between these four that truly make Beef Season 2 tick, so the switch-up isn't always the most satisfying. Still, Beef Season 2 is ambitious, impeccably acted, and proof that the series, while brilliant as a stand-alone, does have legs as an anthology.

Beef Season 2 is now streaming on Netflix.