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Beef Recap: Breathe In, Breathe Out

Season 1 Episodes 5 and 6 Editor’s Rating5 stars *****

Photo: /COURTESY OF NETFLIX If anger is Beef’s first theme, loneliness is its secondary one — the ways our lives and pretenses we keep isolate us, keeping us an arm’s length from the people we love. When we tell lies to cover up our inner ugliness, we build a wall, so people can’t get to know us genuinely. Soon, you’re in a marriage or family relationship with someone who has only ever known the palatable, watered-down version of you. Where does that leave you but alone inside of your heavily armored shell — trapped but unwilling to break free for fear of someone seeing your real self? As Danny and Amy’s anger has room to cool off, we see how their loneliness grips them no matter how hard they try to twist away. Buckle up, folks. These are some of the tightest, most charming episodes yet.

Episode five, “Such Inward Secret Creatures,” starts with Danny, who has decided to get back at Amy by getting to George. His plan is to pretend to be a biker named Zane (I snorted at this name choice), who bikes up next to George during one of his rides. George is classic George — so enveloped in his positive worldview that he immediately warms up to Danny, who, to anyone else’s mind, is a stranger with a sudden and weird interest.

As for what Danny is planning on doing exactly, we find out more when he visits Isaac, who is now under house arrest, thanks to the incidents in Las Vegas violating his parole. Naturally, Isaac is pissed. His demeanor toward Danny turns from chaotic but benevolent to furious. We meet Isaac’s other cronies — a white guy named Michael (Andrew Santino) and a Korean man named Bobby (Rek Lee) — who help Isaac carry out his various schemes. Danny tries to smooth things over by telling Isaac the plan to get back at Amy: using George to get into their home and steal their fancy art. Isaac is uninterested in Danny’s spy operation and would rather get the cold hard cash from the church-repair scam. But Bobby and Michael are down to play Ocean’s Eleven and participate in a heist.

The plan is nearly blown up before it can begin, when Danny shows up at George’s house and June remarks that she knows Danny. Remember, Danny almost lit Amy’s car on fire until he locked eyes with June in her car seat. But Danny is able to smooth things over with June, showcasing his soft side. After visiting the bathroom (the same bathroom he peed all over), Danny lies to George and says there’s a leak behind the toilet. But not to worry, he’ll contact some plumbers. The “plumbers” are Michael and Bobby, who, according to Danny’s plan, will show up later and conduct the smash-and-grab.

While waiting for Michael and Bobby to get the supplies and arrive, Danny wanders around the Lau house and comments on the art. He’s buttering George up until he sees his vases. After complimenting them on a surface level, George asks him to open up about how the vases make him feel. Danny answers the question sincerely — they give him a sad feeling. His description of the sorrow he feels from the vases profoundly moves George, who tells Danny that he’s a good person. It’s a moment that mirrors Paul and Amy’s heart-to-heart on the Vegas hotel-room floor, where Paul told Amy that he thinks she’s a good person. Danny begins to second guess whether he should rob George, whom he genuinely connects with, so he calls off Michael and Bobby.

However, this doesn’t deter Michael and Bobby, who still show up at George’s house after Danny leaves and unconvincingly pass themselves off as plumbers. George doesn’t buy it. Instead, George watches some videos online and “fixes” the problem himself. He calls Mia to tell her, elated, about his newfound handiness. At first, I thought he was calling Amy, but it becomes clear that George isn’t just liking Amy’s assistant Mia’s Instagram photos and jerking off to them privately — he ends the call saying, “I love you too.”

Before getting to Amy, the episode spends time with Fumi, George’s mother. Until now, she has been a peripheral, almost cliché presence: the overbearing mother-in-law doting on her son, making her daughter-in-law’s life difficult. In this episode, she goes to Köyöhaus to meet Amy for lunch and walks in on Amy taking a sexy photo of her butt. Amy begs off, rescheduling, and Fumi goes to a cafe alone, sadly leaving voice mail after voice mail for friends to chat. The only person who calls her back is her accountant, who reveals she’s in financial trouble. Her spending outpaces what little money her husband left her, and she needs to either ask Amy for a loan or sell the Tamago chair made by her late husband, which George adores. When she’s not constantly needling Amy, Fumi is broke and lonely.

Amy is less lonely these days, though. That picture Fumi caught her taking was for George, but George doesn’t respond. She complains about this to Paul, sending the picture to him instead. Paul asks if he can come over, because Amy is home alone, getting ready to meet George and June at an Airbnb, so work can be done on their “leaking” bathroom while they’re gone. Amy acquiesces, and when she meets Paul at the door, she tells him what she told him in Vegas: They can’t do anything physical. Except this time, it’s more of a taunt than a warning, as the two pe into an extremely hot, gold-toned montage of passionate sex. Everything is going swimmingly until Paul uses the postcoital comedown to ask Amy for a loan. He says he could be a millionaire like her in no time if he only had a jump start. The ask rubs Amy the wrong way. She has been working doggedly for years to get where she is. Tensions bubble over, Paul calls Amy a bitch, and Amy tells Paul to leave. Although she sobs as she remakes her bed, her face is impassive as she sets the security system before going to meet George.

After Amy leaves, who should pop out of the shadows but Fumi? Fumi has been hiding in the house this whole time, meaning she heard Amy’s sex marathon with Paul. More important, she’s there secretly to see which art pieces she can sell for the money she needs. Now that she knows her son’s marriage is on the rocks, she wants stability fast and is willing to sell the Tamago chair. Just as she calls someone to make the sale, Bobby and Michael break into the house, going ahead with the robbery. Fumi surprises them with a gun and shoots at them. The men run, and Fumi falls down the stairs, hitting her head. For a second, I thought she might be dead.

Episode six, “We Draw a Magic Circle,” opens with Fumi in the hospital. Fumi isn’t dead. She’s just banged up. As Amy squeezes her hand in the hospital bed, Fumi eyes Amy. She knows about Paul, and Amy suspects as much. Things get even more awkward as Fumi stays with Paul and Amy while she heals. Is it her meds making her loopy, or is she being strategically barbed when she suggests Amy and George might not stay together? Whatever it is, Amy drugs Fumi with her painkillers, leaving her passed out on the couch when Naomi comes knocking.

Naomi has been busy. Actually busy! She interviewed the man who caught Amy and Danny’s road rage on tape (and whose flowers they destroyed) and is starting to put the pieces together. When the façade of friendliness falls, Naomi confronts Amy with her version of events: Amy and Danny are the people in the cars, and they’re having an affair. This curveball of a misread causes Amy to break down, which pisses Naomi off. Naomi threatens to bring this story to Jordan if Amy doesn’t tell the truth, but Amy calls her bluff and laughs her out of the building. When Amy closes the door, though, her face falls. She needs to fix this quickly.

Meanwhile, Danny deals with an interloper: Isaac got a religious exemption to attend Veronica and Edwin’s church. Church was starting to become a legitimate sanctuary for Danny until Isaac and his cronies brought their theatrical hallelujahs two rows behind him. At the after-church coffee hour, Isaac charms some churchgoers and immediately clocks Edwin’s jealous, unwelcoming vibe before strong-arming him into letting the Cho Bros play in the church basketball tournament.

Back at home, the Cho brothers are both in the dumps. Danny feels boxed in by Isaac’s overpowering presence, and Paul is down over his breakup with Amy. The two brothers sit in their opposite rooms until Danny shoots a paper clip into a trash can in the living room. Paul, from his room, also shoots. What follows is the single most delightful sequence in Beef so far (way better than when Paul and Amy jump on beds in Vegas). I loved watching the two brothers reconcile, their unspoken alliance shining, as they play a silly, outlandish game of Horse, make some ramyun, and talk about the Sacramento Kings. Danny spots the old picture of Amy’s butt over his brother’s shoulder (file this for later). He even gets Paul to apologize to Isaac, so the three Chos can finish the church repairs. More important, Isaac shows Danny his secret stash of singing rice cookers he keeps at the church, where he has hidden all of his money. When Danny asks, incredulous, why Isaac would show him such a thing, he says it’s because they’re family. That’s the thing about being a minority group in the U.S. Often, the only structure of “solidarity” you have are people who are related to you, which means you excuse things, look past things, and allow things that run the gamut from nonsensical to harmful. The alternative to not letting family cover for a multitude of sins is being alone.

Not only is Danny reconciling with Paul, but he gets a text from Amy asking him to meet her. She wants to end their feud. Finally, we see Ali Wong and Steve Yeung play off each other in earnest — sniping, quarreling, and jabbing from their car windows. Eventually, the two come to a truce. Amy will pay Danny $25,000 if Danny calls the neighborhood tip line and says he was the truck driver in the road-rage video but the white SUV wasn’t hers. Everything seems neatly tied up, until Amy drives home to receive a call from Naomi. Naomi says sorry for her outlandish theory about Danny. Fumi had backtracked and told Naomi that she was the person in the road-rage incident and Amy was just covering for her.

It’s unclear what Fumi wants from Amy, but Amy takes her shopping as a sideways thank you. In the parking lot, Amy asks Fumi why she’d said she was responsible. I expected Fumi to blackmail Amy — but no, Fumi wants Amy to interrogate her recent reckless actions. It’s interesting to pause and think about whether Amy’s recent behavior lines up with what she envisions for her future. I’m not sure they do. I think Amy wants to want a stable family, abundant income, and peaceful inner life, but she’s the same person who gets off on the feeling of a gun between her legs. What she actually wants and what she thinks she wants are at war.

Meanwhile, Danny, initially crestfallen that he wouldn’t get the $25,000 from Amy, has figured out his own way to happiness. He calls the neighborhood tip line, like Amy told him to, but he doesn’t confess to being the truck driver. Instead, he throws Isaac under the bus — the truck is in Isaac’s name, and the security-camera footage of Michael and Bobby shows them wearing “CHOsen One” T-shirts. The business’s name is registered to Isaac. As a result, Isaac lands in jail and Danny is in the clear. Listen, Beef is intense, so sometimes we forget that it’s a comedy, but this final sequence is both euphoric and comedic gold. From Steven Yeun barely feigning ignorance as he talks to David Choe through the glass at the jail to Justin H. Min as Edwin shouting Bible-inspired insults as he plays against Paul and Danny, the sound I was making during this ending can only be described as hooting. Until, of course, I was cheering as Danny and Paul destroyed Edwin on the basketball court, causing him to have a screaming meltdown. We’re only six episodes in, which means the peace can’t keep, but damn if it doesn’t feel good to see Danny come out on top.

Beef Tips

• The scene when Amy and Danny meet in the parking lot and go off on the man who tries to yell at them — that’s amore.

• Or maybe what’s more amore is Danny accidentally masturbating to a photo of Amy’s butt only to be interrupted by her call? The way the show constantly toes the love-hate, lust-disgust theme between its two protagonists continues to impress.

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