With a nearly flawless rating on Rotten Tomatoes, Netflix’s newest series Beef is already generating buzz among viewers.
Beef, a dark comedy made by A24, made it’s debut on the streaming platform on Wednesday, April 6. Actor Steven Yeun from the movie Minari, and comedian Ali Wong play two strangers involved in a collision due to road rage.
Beef now has a 99 percent rating on the critic-supported Tomatometer on the review website, as well as a 96 percent rating based on audience feedback.
Beef is expected to win this year’s Emmy Awards because of the respect the screenplay and performances (by Yeun and Wong) have received from critics.
Writing for Salon, Melanie McFarland said: “One day in the future academics may view Beef as a convincing TV distillation of the early 21st-century’s collective mood, a lingering and worsening state of society-wide pandemic anger.
“Hyperbolic? Maybe. But I challenge you to find another series that channels the spectrum of fury as wildly, beautifully and crazily while, for the most part, maintaining its focal clarity.”
On RogerEbert.com, Brian Tallerico wrote: “Steven Yeun is quite simply one of the best actors of his generation, and he makes so many fascinating decisions here.
“Wong matches Yeun beat-for-beat from the first episode to last. It’s easily the best acting work of her career, and I hope it opens dozens of doors for her in terms of future collaborations.”
Meanwhile, Jack King of British GQ claimed that Beef was the streaming service’s best new programme since Squid Game.
“Thank god, then, for Steven Yeun — an evergreen statement if I’ve ever seen it — and Beef, a Russian Doll-esque return to form for the streamer’s original programming, and unequivocally the best new series they’ve released since 2020’s Squid Game,” King wrote.
“Riding the welcome wave of new Asian-American media emerging over the last couple of years… Beef is an inventive drama-comedy from mega-hip studio A24, 10 30-minute episodes spun from an incident of quintessentially LA road rage.”
And it seems like viewers agree, as one wrote: “It was a great show, some of the crazy stuff that happened all seemed possible and I could identify with many moments of high stress! Don’t sleep on it! Well written and casted! Great music too!”
While another said: “The WTF moments just kept on snowballing. It’s worth the time to watch, very good storytelling.”
However, not everyone agrees: “It’s a good show, but I’m shocked by the incredibly high praise the show is receiving. It’s well made and quite funny, but it does nothing that makes it stand out as a masterpiece or even remotely being considered a “best ever series” as the article claims it is.
“I kinda might be a sadist, but I feel as if the show would benefit by ending with the conclusion of episode 9. It would’ve made for a much better ending IMO given the kind of series that it is.” a third added.
What do you think, is it as good as everyone is making out?
