The secret meanings behind Beef season 2's episode titles and artworks
Each episode title has a dark meaning
Beef season 2 may not be connected to the first season, but they share one big similarity: episode titles and artwork steeped in symbolism.
Season 1 followed two road-ragers in and around Los Angeles. So, the first episode was titled, ‘The Birds Don’t Sing, They Screech in Pain’, a nod to a Werner Herzog documentary, suggesting how much its main characters may actually be suffering.
Beef season 2 comes with a new story. It revolves around Ashley (Cailee Spaeny) and Austin (Charles Melton), two low-level employees at a luxury country club who become entangled in a fight between their boss (Oscar Isaac) and his wife, Lindsay (Carey Mulligan).
They share similar themes, and each episode begins with a very specific painting and title.
***Warning: spoilers for Beef season 2 ahead***
Episode 1
- Title: ‘All The Things We’re Never Going To Have’ (Esther Perel)
- Artwork: The Money Lender and His Wife by Quentin Matsys, 1514
The title comes from Esther Perel, a Belgian psychotherapist, relationship expert, and author. Specifically, it’s been plucked from Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence, and it’s part of a larger passage.
“Marriage is imperfect. We start with a desire for oneness, and then we discover our differences. Our fears are aroused by the prospect of all the things we’re never going to have. We fight, we withdraw, we blame our partners for failing to make us whole,” it reads.
Its meaning within Beef season 2 is clear. The first episode hinges on Josh and Lindsay’s fight, which stems from their dissatisfaction and lack of mutual aspiration; she wants to open a B&B, and he’s too focused on work.
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Whereas Ashley and Austin, their young, idealistic foils, are wilfully blinding themselves to any issues in their relationship.
As for the artwork, it depicts a man weighing out coins and jewels, and how his wife’s eyes are drawn from her book (likely a spiritual text). In short, material wealth is a distraction.
Episode 2
- Title: ‘A New Starting Point For Further Desires’ (Marcel Proust)
- Artwork: The Dissolute Household by Jan Steen, c. 1663–1664
In episode 2 of Beef season 2, Ashley successfully blackmails Josh to get a promotion at the Monte Vista Point Country Club. Josh and Lindsay also agree to embezzle money from the club, because “everyone is scamming” anyway.
So, how does ”A New Starting Point For Further Desires’ factor in? It’s a quote from Marcel Proust, part of this passage:
“There can be no peace of mind in love, since what one has obtained is never anything but a new starting-point for further desires.”
What does it mean? Well, look at what happens to both couples: they’re chasing wealth, power, and respect. They can’t be truly happy with what they already have, so they go to great (and illegal) lengths for what they want. It’s a pretty pessimistic outlook: love is just an acquirable asset that leads to more desire.
The painting, which shows disorder taking hold of a messy house, also serves to illustrate the consequences of a lack of self control.
“The Dissolute Household offers audiences a choice: to revel in the subjects’ hedonism, or to laugh at them while maintaining the moral high ground,” a Fordham University post also explains.
Episode 3
- Title: ‘The Increasing Flimsiness Of Any Certainties About The Future’ (Lynne Segal)
- Artwork: The Ages of Woman and Death by Hans Baldung Grien, c. 1541–1544
Episode 3 has overt connections to Segal’s quote. For example, Chairwoman Park (Youn Yuh-jung) extends Josh’s contract at the club, under the condition that he always does exactly what she says, potentially putting his future at risk.
Also, Ashley jumps out of the car because she starts panicking about the prospect of Austin leaving her.
The painting, showing a baby, two women, and death itself holding an hourglass, could be interpreted in different ways. The idea of time running out runs through the episode, and Dr Kim literally kills someone.
Episode 4
- Title: ‘Oh, The Comfort, The Inexpressible Comfort’ (Dinah Maria Mulock Craik)
- Artwork: The Temptation of Saint Anthony by Joos van Craesbeeck, 1650
The quote comes from Dinah Maria Mulock Craik, and it’s part of this larger passage:
“Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person; having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but to pour them all out, just as they are, chaff and grain together, knowing that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then, with a breath of kindness, blow the rest away.”
Neither Ashley and Austin nor Josh and Lindsay appear to feel truly safe or comfortable with each other. In episode 4, we see Ashley calculating how she talks to Austin and going behind his back to text Eunice (Seoyeon Jang).
The painting depicts a disturbing, large head with a gaping mouth as evil spirits pour out. The straightforward interpretation is its portrayal of allowing bad thoughts to overcome you (which links to Ashley’s actions at the end of the episode).
The name is important, though. St Anthony, a Christian monk from Egypt, is said to have endured supernatural temptations.
Episode 5
- Title: ‘I Am Killing My Flesh Without It’ (Sylvia Plath)
- Artwork: Nightmare by Nicolai Abraham Abildgaard, 1800
Episode 5’s title comes from The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath. “I must get my soul back from you; I am killing my flesh without it,” the full quote reads.
In Beef season 2, co-dependency is at the root of both couples’ conflicts. Their lives are intertwined, to a fault, and their pain begets further pain. Think about it: Lindsay tells Josh they need a divorce at the end of the episode, and he agrees.
The painting, showing a naked couple sleeping as a demon-like figure crouching on the woman, could give anyone the creeps (especially if you suffer from sleep paralysis).
Its relevance to the episode is a little harder to explain. You could argue it represents the bad things that happen to Lindsay and Ashley when they’re at their most vulnerable.
Wahoo Art also writes: “The artwork is not only a representation of a frightening dream but also an exploration of the human psyche. It invites the viewer to reflect on their own fears and anxieties, making it a deeply personal and relatable experience.”
Episode 6
- Title: ‘Those Blue Remembered Hills’ (A.E. Housman)
- Artwork: Landscape with the Fall of Icarus by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, c. 1560
‘Those Blue Remembered Hills’ comes from A.E. Housman’s poem, ‘A Shropshire Lad’.
In the poem, the “blue remembered hills” are the “land of lost content”. It’s a post-war text, but you can apply it to both couples in Beef season 2: in short, they’re too far gone from the happy times they once shared, and even if they wanted to, they couldn’t go back to them anyway.
The painting may be partly named after Icarus, but he can’t be seen anywhere. That’s precisely the point: even something as extraordinary and historic as a man flying too close to the sun and falling to Earth can go unnoticed.
Whether it’s Ashley and Austin’s struggles or Josh and Lindsay’s early divorce battles, they’re only momentous to them – to everyone else, life carries on.
Episode 7
- Title: ‘The Hour Of Separation’ (Kahlil Gibran)
- Artwork: The Eavesdropper by Nicolaes Maes, 1657
Kahlil Gibran wrote in 1923’s The Prophet that “love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation”.
Really, this quote could be applied to the final episode when Lindsay kisses Josh. Its meaning is obvious: you may not realise how much you love someone until you’re about to lose them.
The Eavesdropper shows exactly what it says: a woman eavesdropping. Considering season 2’s events begin with the ultimate eavesdrop-gone-wrong, and episode 7 mostly takes place on a plane where everyone else is likely bending an ear to hear what’s happening, it makes sense to include.
Episode 8
- Title: ‘It Will Stay This Way And You Will Obey’ (Marion Woodman)
- Artwork: The Four Seasons by Giuseppe Arcimbaldo, 1563, 1572, 1573
The title of Episode 8 comes from another larger passage, penned by Marion Woodman in Coming Home to Myself: Reflections for Nurturing a Woman’s Body & Soul.
“Old Mother God, Old Father God – they keep us trapped. And we do give up. We pull the covers over our head, and go back to sleep,” she wrote.
“Only to dream of old dragons, old alligators, old crocodiles drinking our blood. To dream of cold-eyed lawmakers saying, ‘This is the way it’s always been done. It works. It will stay this way. And you will obey.'”
The final episode of Beef season 2 ends with Ashley and Austin maintaining the status quo. Despite Austin’s brief hopes of running away with Eunice, he submits to the security of life with Ashley. Aka, “it works. It will stay this way. And you will obey.”
This one has actually been explained by showrunner Lee Sung Jin.
“At first, the main theme seems to be young love versus older love. But as the episode unfold, we wanted to show that this theme, along with others like class divide and hedonic adaptation, falls under the umbrella of generations. That’s why we lean so heavily into the symbolism of the four seasons,” he told Netflix.
“Each generation starts off thinking that they’ll never become what they see in the older generation. But with the passage of time and the pressures of capitalism, each generation soon discovers why the older generations are the way they are.”
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