Two strangers let their road rage get the best of them in “Beef,” the 10-episode series from Netflix starring Ali Wong and Steven Yeun as a pair of hotheaded Angelinos locked in a battle royale that spirals out of control.
Their mutual reign of terror begins in the parking lot of a home improvement store. He’s backing his pickup truck out of a spot. She drives by in a gleaming white SUV, nearly hitting him — or he nearly hits her. They’re probably both wrong! No harm, no foul, you’d think. Except she lays on the horn for an aggressive length of time, flips him the bird and peels off. That’s all the provocation he needs to floor the gas pedal in pursuit.
That initial encounter is bad enough. But their feud takes on a new dimension when they figure out one another’s home addresses. Destruction and total annihilation become the goal, no matter the personal cost. Created by Lee Sung Jin and styled as an uneasy comedy of bad manners and even worse personal instincts, I admire the show and also found it pinged all my anxiety receptors.
