'Beef' Creator Told by Netflix To Ditch 'Crazier' Idea, Talks Shelved Plan

Netflix's new show Beef goes to some dark and unexpected places, but creator Lee Sung Jin told Newsweek that it would have been even "crazier" had the streamer and A24 not intervened.

Beef follows Steven Yeun's Danny and Ali Wong's Amy Lau, two people who are pushed to their limits when they are involved in a road rage incident with one another. The longer they are faced with each other the more extreme their methods become as they try everything they can to get revenge on each other.

Danny is a contractor with a chip on his shoulder who believes that everyone is out to get him, while Amy is a self-made entrepreneur who has everything society thinks she might want from life, but yet still feels empty. What they have in common is both their sadness and their rage at the world.

The 10-part drama puts Danny and Amy in increasingly drastic situations and this is especially true of the ninth episode, which Lee wrote and directed. The filmmaker told Newsweek how he would have made it even more extreme had Netflix and A24 not suggested he try something else.

Warning: This article contains spoilers for Beef Episode 9 and 10.

'Beef' Creator Told by Netflix To Ditch 'Crazier' Idea, Talks Shelved Plan

Episode 9 of Beef sees "everything hit the fan" as Lee calls it, with Danny's cousin Isaac (David Choe) being released from prison and out for revenge on his relative after it was him who told police that Isaac was the person involved in the road rage incident.

Isaac is also determined to get his money back that Danny stole earlier in the season, and he decides to try and extort Amy when he learns that Danny accidentally kidnapped her daughter.

In the end, Amy suggests that he come and burgle the house of billionaire Jordan (Maria Bello) where she is staying and leave her daughter in her car during the incident. But the plan takes a dark and twisted turn, though, and there are even a few gruesome deaths, but Lee explained that originally he envisioned the episode as even more grisly.

"I knew that I wanted everything to hit the fan," Lee told Newsweek. "We'd been stretching this rubber band for eight episodes now, I knew I needed the thing to snap.

"And truthfully the outline of that episode was, believe it or not, even crazier, with so many more deaths. But it was too much, and Netflix and A24, rightfully, were like 'you, OK?' And so we brought it back.

"Then in writing it I started to focus less on everything hitting the fan and more on character. Like, what is it ultimately heading towards? And it is really ultimately about, on Danny's side, his relationship with his brother, on Amy's side, her relationship with [her husband] George.

"And so in writing I really tried to hone in on what was the end emotional place I wanted them before we get them together in the finale."

"It was fun to write, it's definitely a departure tonally, and it wouldn't have worked without the excellent direction of Jake Schreier," Lee added. "You write something like that and you're like 'eugh, it's not going to work' and then his direction and the cinematography of our DP really helped ground some of the craziness and made it feel true to this world."

'Beef' Ending Explained: Cast and Creator Reveal Amy and Danny's Fate

Danny and Amy's journey ends on a very different note to how it started, with the pair getting lost in the desert and having a spiritual moment of healing together whilst high on poisonous mushrooms they'd foraged.

When they finally make it back to civilization, Amy's husband George (Joseph Lee) finds them and shoots Danny, leaving him in a coma. But, even after all that time fighting, Amy decides to stay with Danny in his hospital room and even hugs him whilst he's in bed, with the show ending on an emotional note.

Wong spoke to Newsweek about the ending, and said that she was happy with the way in which Lee had chosen to end things.

"I wonder if audiences will expect us to get together, like to hook up and get together, and that this has all been this romantic comedy that they've been watching, and when we first meet that's a meet-cute," Wong said. "But, when we talked about that scene at the end I was like, 'OK, Sonny [Lee's English name], what are you looking for in this?'

"And when we were talking about the performance of me climbing into bed he said I want to feel a sense of you two coming home, and that's a big part of what the whole series is about.

"I always love that, I mean it would get tiresome to have to [end] the way we started off, it would be exhausting for us to keep up that tempo until the end, you know? So I love the arc of their relationship and that in itself is like its own character."

Lee was keen to give credit where it was due, as he said: "The hospital bed moment, we came up with, me, Steven, Ali and A24, before we even pitched it to buyers. My pitch presentations are pretty involved and I pitch the whole season, and so I had to figure out an ending for the pitch and Ali actually came up with the idea of two people crawling into into bed together.

"Something very poetic and simple and minimalist about it that says a lot, and so, you know, credit to her she kind of came up with the initial idea."

Lee directed the episode, and said the final shot of the show was actually the first scene he worked on but because he contracted COVID he was unable to actually be on set when it was shot and instead had to direct via videolink with the help of director Schreier.

"I'm very happy with how it turned out, the top shot aspect is almost to kind of create a God POV," he added. "But, how that's all interpreted and what people think these two characters are getting into next, I do want to keep ambiguous and I'm curious about what the viewers think."

Beef is out on Netflix now.