Beef Gives Charles Melton His The Graduate Moment

The following story contains spoilers through the end of Beef season 2.

WHILE THE FIRST season of Beef, Netflix’s anthology series centered on a social conflict that increasingly escalates with each passing episode, honed in on a conflict between two people (Steven Yeun and Ali Wong, giving performances that won both Emmys), the second takes things to the next level. Instead of once again putting a mano a mano feud under the microscope, Beef chooses to follow a pair of warring couples for its second go-around. Through this, we meet wealthy country club manager Josh (Oscar Isaac) and his former socialite wife Lindsey (Carey Mulligan), and we also meet part-time country club trainer Austin (Charles Melton) and Ashley, his fiancée who works full-time in a low-level position at the club.

The decision to center the season’s titular beef not between two people but two couples is a strong one. The show keeps its core premise, but allows for more angles through which we can evaluate the ripples of this story. We follow these characters not only as individuals, but within their chosen romantic relationship, and also how they act both in a larger society and within their feud with the other couple.

Part of the selling point of Beef, through two seasons, is that none of these characters really turn out to be who we think they are on first impression. Halfway through Beef season 2, you might be hard-pressed to find many redeeming qualities in Isaac’s Josh, a man who seems as heartless as just about anyone around, for instance. But by the end, we’ve seen enough from him to fully understand who he is and how he’s changed throughout this journey. We’ve seen later-episode Josh make decisions that early-episode Josh would not have made. That’s a mark of growth, and, when done subtly and in a way that feels believable (or that we barely notice happening at all), a mark of really good writing.

Melton’s Austin goes on a particularly interesting journey. The coming-of-age story is an attractive one for any ascending actor; It’s a chance for them to prove they can play a range of emotions and the capacity for change and evolution. Given that Austin is content with life and in a happy-enough relationship when the season starts, you’d hardly expect the arc he finds himself on over the course of the season. But through the circumstances that reach him, we do see that evolution. Perhaps its the fact that he wasn’t actively looking to rock his boat is the crux of where he ultimately ends up. His journey is a good one because it introduces all these questions that, in many ways, are vital questions to ask about human psychology.

Austin is hardly the most intelligent or most inquisitive character you’ll see on TV. But what we do see from him is an endearing good naturedness. Austin is constantly trying. When he’s a private personal trainer, he wants to find the best workouts for his clients. When Ashley texts him, he wants to make sure she’s happy and comfortable. When Ashley lies and says Austin is a certified physical therapist… that’s a bit of a tougher pill to swallow, but he nonetheless goes along with it in pursuit of the greater good for the two of them.

It’s through his fraudulent career as a physical therapist that Austin gets involved with club owner Chairwoman Park (Youn Yuh-jung), whom most of the season’s increasingly violent and dangerous story revolves around. Austin soon meets, finds a connection, and begins to believe he’s in love with, Eunice (Seoyeon Jang), Chairwoman Park’s kindhearted interpreter.

This ultimately evolves into Austin’s own battle with his own inner-self. As he begins to spend more and more time with Eunice, he also begins to question himself and his choices. Is Austin in love with Eunice? Or is he just trauma bonded with her, and so subconsciously fed up with Ashley’s needy nature that his mind decides to grapple onto anyone else he feels some level of a connection with?

Beef prides itself on the way its characters incrementally evolve from one episode to the next, and by the time Austin swears off of Ashley and professes his love for Eunice, it certainly feels fast, but at the same time, earned nonetheless. We’ve been along for the ride long enough to know not only how Austin feels, but why he feels that way.

It brings to mind one of the most iconic endings of all time, from a film widely considered among the greatest ever made. At the end of 1969’s The Graduate, Benjamin Braddock (Dustin Hoffman) has just bucked what everyone else thinks should happen. After a tryst with Mrs. Robinson (Anne Bancroft) and a whirlwind, forbidden romance with her daughter Elaine (Katharine Ross), he’s decided he needs to be with Elaine. And so he crashes her wedding to another man, yells her name, and thanks to some part adrenaline and maybe a little bit of a miracle, Elaine is on board. She runs away with Benjamin, and they hop on a bus. “Happy ever after,” right?

Except The Graduate dares to ask a further question. Is it really “happy ever after”? The late Mike Nichols ends the film with a bit of brilliance that can only be achieved with the ultra close-up shots of a movie. As Benjamin and Elaine sit on the bus and come to grips with what they’ve just done, the camera pans in slowly but surely. And we see the excitement, smiles, and happiness vanish from their face. The Graduate doesn’t end with a moment of “Happy ever after,” but rather a moment of “What now?”

In its final episode, Beef pulls from the DNA of Nichols’s masterpiece. After Austin and Ashley come to an understanding that their relationship is over and they aren’t meant to be together, Austin runs down the street to get into a taxi. His plan is to turn in Chairwoman Park for her crimes, and go live a life together with Eunice. He’s jumped the gun and told her he loves her multiple times, but, due to his relationship with Ashley (and, presumably, quite a few other factors), she’s refused to say it back. In the back seat of that taxi, still riding his own adrenaline high, Austin tells her once again how he feels. She responds, timidly, that she loves him too. And just like Benjamin Braddock, we see the joy and jubilation leave Austin’s face as the camera slowly but surely zooms in. Melton is brilliant in this moment—we don’t know quite what his thought process is, but it’s happening in real time, and we know he’s going through it. This was not the big release he was hoping for.

There’s one major difference in the two moments. As The Graduate ends, and Simon and Garfunkel’s haunting and iconic “The Sound of Silence” kicks in, and we’re left to wonder forever what comes next. (Well, there are some answers out there, depending on how you feel about the sort-of-connected 2005 film Rumor Has It…) Beef season 2, however, continues its story after that moment.

As it turns out, Eunice’s timid declaration of love isn’t good enough for Austin—and he decides that a guaranteed comfortable life with Ashley (and the help and protection of Chairwoman Park at the club) is something he values. Just a few moments earlier, we heard Dr. Kim (Song Kang-ho) discuss the dueling paths of marrying looking for true love, or for comfort in life.

This weighed heavily on Austin. It’s rare to pack so much punch into a single moment, that culminates in an off-screen decision. And in that decision—essentially guaranteeing Austin and Ashley step directly into the life that Josh and Lindsey were mostly miserable in—he goes against his adrenaline rush. He continues what Beef has established as a vicious cycle of ambition that evolves into complacency. And, like the end of The Graduate, we’re left to grapple with that.

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