Beef Season 2 Ending Explained: Which Couples Stay Together and What the Symbol Means

So, Austin escapes Park’s trap and jumps in a taxi, calling Eunice to meet her at a police station with the device. Then, he suddenly changes his mind and the smile is slowly wiped from his face. Why?

From Austin’s phone call with Eunice, it seems he jumped too quickly into a new relationship. He told Eunice that he loved her right away, and this time, she said it back. It’s possible that Austin recalled when Ashley told him that it was too soon to know if he loved Eunice, or perhaps he could see that he was continuing the cycle of entering another similar co-dependent relationship. (We also never really find out if Eunice was playing with Austin’s feelings just to use him to escape her terrifying situation.) So, Austin chooses the devil he knows and returns to Ashley.

His choice points back to Chairwoman Park’s earlier nihilistic point: that capitalism supersedes everything in society as a system, and love only exists as part of this system. Selfishness essentially trumps everything else. So, by returning to Ashley and giving the USB to Chairwoman Park to cover up the murder and her embezzlement, Austin essentially chooses money, wealth, and status over love and morals.

Sadly, Dr. Kim (Song Kang-ho) doesn’t survive to see the end of the series.

Where Does Everyone End Up in the Epilogue?

Following an eight year time jump, Ashley and Austin are now the general managers of the Monte Vista Point Country Club. They are direct replicas of where Lindsay (Mulligan) and Josh (Isaac) are in the beginning of the season, and the shot of them at the club is is almost beat-for-beat the same introduction from episode 1. They even arrange to go on the same double date, at the same restaurant, with Troy and Ava.

The one difference is their son, Ashton (a twee amalgamation of their names)—though viewers may wonder how they managed this with Austin’s hand-sanitizer-esque sample. But once Ashley and Austin enter their car to leave, they starts bickering. At the start of the series, they were love’s young dream. By the end, due to their own grasping and scheming, it looks like all the love has gone. All that remains is the trappings of their illegally-gotten success. Chairwoman Park was right. The system always wins, and now it’s claimed another couple.

Meanwhile, Josh took the rap for the embezzlement. He’s sorting out ciggies and nail clippers for the other convicts in prison. When he’s finally freed, he’s told that—despite her saying she would wait for him—Lindsay has moved on to start a new family. But whether it was the life-changing hit of bufo or prison-led enlightenment, Josh says that he doesn’t need to know where she lives now. He gives a TV interview about his release and says that he’s “just really glad everyone I love is happy” while looking directly into the camera.

Speaking of Lindsay, she’s tuning in to the interview from the bathroom of her new house. It’s decorated again in that cheap style she loves, with the wallpaper that reminds her of the doodles her brother did before writing his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. Lindsay now has an English husband and a daughter. Perhaps they’re back in England now, as they offer her a decidedly un-Montecito snack of sausage rolls. She seemingly has everything she wants now, right? Well, she’s left looking a bit forlorn, presumably thinking back to her former love, Josh, and all they went through.

Then, to the strains of Phoenix’s “Love Like A Sunset,” we end with a quick visit with Chairwoman Park. Of course, she’s gotten away with everything scot-free. But buried beneath that cool, murderous exterior, we do see she has a bit of a heart. She visits the grave of her first husband—not Dr. Kim, whose murder was framed as suicide—and she tells him she’s full of regret. Poetically, she says: “Even all the money in the world cannot buy us time, ever passing. Seasons, ever changing this great, even beautiful cycle of life, which leaves us no choice but to accept it gladly.” Time marches on—no matter how much money is thrown at it, or how much of it was filled with great acts of love.

The final scene pulls out to reveal a circle that is separated into sections, containing previous scenes from the series: Ashley and Austin chilling on some sun loungers; Josh and Lindsay arguing with each other. It resembles a samsara, from Buddhist and Hindu religions, with the different sections reflecting the universe and the stages of life. At its center is death—specifically the death of Chairwoman Park’s first husband—but there’s life all around it. The symbol seems to reflect that relationships, however they develop, are cycles that all end the same way.

As the credits roll, the sound of buzzing insects is heard, following the motif of insects that runs throughout the series. The insects work as one, in harmony, and that’s what keeps the universe ticking. Does the outro suggest that humankind should start practicing more of a hive-mind for unity too? It’s another example of the war between the individual and the collective at play in Beef season 2. Of course, there’s no answer. It’s the universe’s own, never-ending beef.