‘Beef’ Season 1 Finale Explained: Do Danny and Amy Call a Truce?
Note: The following story contains spoilers from the Season 1 finale of “Beef.”
When it premiered all of its 10 episodes April 6 on Netflix, “Beef” became one of the streamer’s best-reviewed – and most popular – new series of 2023. So what’s all the fuss about?
“Beef” stars comedian Ali Wong and Steven Yeun, both flexing acting chops like we’ve never seen from them before. Boasting a 98% critical consensus and an 86% audience approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, the Lee Sung Jin–created series follows Amy Lau (Wong) and Danny Cho (Yeun) in the aftermath of a headline-making road rage incident that intertwines their lives in ways they could have never predicted.
Its surprising blend of dark humor and tear-jerking drama — plus some playfully surreal flourishes and bold explorations of race, class and mental health — has taken audiences by storm and notched it a top spot on Netflix’s TV ratings. (As recently as Monday, TheWrap reported that it’s raged through the streaming ranks with its first three episodes holding three of the top 10 most-watched programs on the streamer.)
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Lucky for you, you can buckle up and rage-binge this series in one fell swoop today — let’s just hope you don’t run into Amy or Danny while you’re behind the wheel.
And if you have already made your way through all 10 episodes of “Beef” Season 1, we’ve put together a handy explainer for you below, breaking down what happens, how it happens and what it all means.
But first: Why are Ali Wong and Steven Yeun’s characters fighting in the first place?
What starts as a middle finger in a hardware store parking lot (Amy to Danny after a near bumper tap has her sitting on the horn of her white SUV) quickly devolves into mild stalking, vandalism, illicit affairs, kidnapping, death(!) and … hopeful self-discovery?
To give you a quick refresher, we learn through the course of Season 1 that Danny and Amy, despite being at violent odds with one another from the get, are also kindred spirits. They’re Asian Americans who grew up experiencing friction with their predominantly white surroundings; young kids failing to find love and approval from their parents (Amy’s experience with her father is particularly unnerving, while Danny to this day is preening for his parents’ recognition); and in adulthood, two people who despite their vast differences in class, access, and so-called “stability,” harbor an unrelenting anger towards themselves and the people around them.
Neither of their lives have gone the way they expected nor wanted, and they feel trapped by their respective circumstances — Amy in the pressure to provide for her family and close a $10 million art deal with the ultra-wealthy (and intolerable) Jordan (Maria Bello); and Danny feeling the heat while running his own handyman company and trying to be a positive influence on his brother, Paul (Young Mazino). In the beginning of “Beef,” Danny is even driven to a suicide attempt.
Of course, the parallels between them are lost on Danny and Amy, and they simply use each other as the main target for their pain.
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What do we need to know going into the season finale?
“Beef” Season 1 covers the course of a full year in its characters’ lives and packs in a lot of plot and personal development over its 10 episodes — including an affair between Paul and Amy after she catfishes him as her assistant, Danny reconnecting with his religious roots in an evangelical church (only for him to commit fraud with a construction loan), and an accidental kidnapping.
About that latter part, let’s pick it up there: When Danny and Amy’s husband, George (Joseph Lee), get into an altercation in the Lau household and George is knocked unconscious, Danny speeds away in his pickup truck only to see that Amy’s daughter, June, is inexplicably sitting in his backseat.
Unsure of what to do, he rushes home and starts packing for Mexico when his fresh-out-of-jail cousin Isaac (David Choe) returns home to get revenge on Danny for betraying him. But instead of getting violent, Isaac calls up Amy and demands a $500,000 ransom for the safe return of June. Amy happens to be in Jordan’s home, and instead offers to assist Isaac in a heist of her boss’ most valuable possessions, to which he readily agrees. Of course, that doesn’t quite go as planned — and it leads to a gruesome death.
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Does anyone die in “Beef” Season 1?
Well, yes, someone dies in “Beef.” When the heist on Jordan’s estate goes wrong and Jordan learns that Amy was in on the plan, she rushes herself and her new partner Naomi (Ashley Park) to her panic room. But Jordan slips and stumbles on her way to the entry and the room’s steel door closes on her, crushing her to death.
Elsewhere in the series, there’s plenty of reason to think that its body count might mount higher: George’s elderly mother, Fumi (Patti Yasutake), falls down the stairs while defending her own home from an art robbery; George is knocked unconscious by Danny in their earlier scuffle; and Paul is even shot by the police in his escape from Jordan’s estate. But we can breathe a sigh of relief on that last part, as Danny and Amy learn before the end of the finale that Paul is still alive — even if his relationship with his brother might be irrevocably ruined.
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So, what happens at the end of “Beef”?
Having been called by George against Amy’s request, police descend on the estate soon after Jordan’s death. After a shootout with Isaac and his crew (one of his henchmen, Michael (Andrew Santino), is shot dead), they make arrests and settle the commotion. George leaves with June and files an emergency custody and restraining order, setting the stage for a divorce from Amy. And in an attempted escape over a wall from Jordan’s, Paul and Danny part ways only for Paul to be shot and detained by police.
Danny then steals one of Jordan’s cars and escapes the premises, speeding away into the desert — and who should he come upon but Amy, sitting in her own vehicle in the middle of the dirt road. What commences is a rage-fueled reenactment of the car chase that first got them in trouble a year prior, only this time it’s Amy chasing Danny in the middle of the night. The adrenaline-pumping sequence is brought to an abrupt halt, however, when the two of them, one after the other, drive off the edge of a cliff.
And that’s where the “Beef” Season 1 finale, titled “Figures of Light,” picks up. Danny and Amy are crashed, injured and stranded in the middle of the desert, no cell service, food or water to be found. They only have each other. And while their impulse is to first lash out in anger and aggression for having a hand in ruining each other’s lives — Amy has a gun and she’s not afraid to use it — they eventually realize they need to work together if they’re to get out in one piece.
After spraining her ankle, Amy rides piggyback on Danny as she tries to navigate them out of the desert. That doesn’t mean they keep the peace the whole time, though. Amy breaks Danny’s arm in another tussle over her gun, and to make matters worse, berries that they gorge on end up being poisonous and hallucinogenic. From there, it’s a long, trippy day’s journey into night.
Both of them get violently ill and are beside themselves in pain and confusion. But in their inebriated state, they also begin to soften to one another, having long, meandering, at-times nonsensical conversations that slowly peel back the layers of, not just who they are but why they are who they are. It is here that they begin to realize, as the viewer may have already surmised, that they’re one and the same.
The morning comes, and having warmed to one another and their stranger-than-fiction circumstances, they pick each other up and climb out of the mountain, where they find cell service and learn that there’s people on the end of the line still looking for them. But they’re not out of the woods yet. As they enter a tunnel and follow the light back to civilization, George shows up, running towards them with a gun. He used Find My Phone to locate Amy, and seeing her arm-in-arm with Danny, he pulls the trigger.
Do Amy and Danny end up together?
Danny survives the shooting. We next see him recovering in a hospital bed, apparently unconscious, with Amy, also apparently a patient in hospital garb, sitting by his side. They’re on the road to recovery. Thinking back on the year they’ve had together, and how they’ve in many ways ruined their lives in the process, there also seems to be the recognition that they’ve set each other free.
Amy climbs into bed with Danny and rests her head on his chest while Danny, moving for the first time, lifts his arm and wraps it around her back.
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So do Amy and Danny end up together? In the physical sense, yes: “Beef” Season 1 ends with the two of them quite literally sharing a bed together, having gone through hell and lived to tell the tale. It’s unlikely that the bulk of their history together has been forgiven and forgotten, but it now comes with a mutual understanding of the pain and inner turmoil that led them to those dark places in the first place. And it was only with one another that those emotions could be expressed without fear of judgment or misunderstanding.
They see each other in a way that, as Amy expressed wanting in therapy earlier in the season, comes with an air of unconditional love. They were there for each other through the light and through the darkness — what remains unknown is if there are lighter days ahead.
“Beef” Season 1 is currently streaming in full on Netflix.
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