Beef Season 2's Dark Truth Behind Ashley & Austin's Ending Revealed By Director Jake Schreier

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Austin looks toward the camera while Ashley sits behind him in Beef season 2

Published Apr 17, 2026, 6:00 PM EDT

WARNING! Spoilers for Beef season 2 below.In Beef season 2, everything comes full circle.

Netflix's hit series has returned with a new cast of characters centered on two couples, Josh (Oscar Isaac) and Lindsay (Carey Mulligan) and Ashley (Cailee Spaeny) and Austin (Charles Melton), and the complex world of wealth they exist in at a California country club. By the time the season is over, Ashley and Austin – younger, hungrier, and desperate for a leg up in a world that is insistent on pushing them down – end up on top. Ashley becomes the general manager of Monte Vista Point, a role previously held by Josh, with Austin at her side. But are they happy?

Charles Melton lifts two weights at home in Beef season 2

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Beef season 2 director Jake Schreier isn't so sure. Though Ashley and Austin seemingly have everything they ever wanted — money, status, and health insurance – there's a sense that not everything is right. The direct parallel is, of course, intentional, and in an interview with ScreenRant's Grant Hermanns, Schreier says wanted to leave audiences with the sense that Ashley and Austin could be at their own "tipping point" just as Josh and Lindsay were at the beginning of the season. Of the ending, Schreier said:

I think in the script, it says, "They wonder that it isn't definitive." You know what I mean? It's not that they regret the choice, or that he regrets what he's done. It's that they're maybe just starting to come to that point where they're tipping into where Josh and Lindsay were, where the cracks are starting to show.

And I think that that's what's sort of interesting in where [creator Lee Sung Jin] wanted to go at the end of the season is that it doesn't make strong value judgments about the choices that are made. It doesn't tell you this is the right choice, or it should have been this version of love, but more this idea of cycles, and that whatever choice you make, you may find yourself at these moments along the way through this journey that all of our characters are sort of trapped in. So, that's sort of what we talked about for that scene. And again, that's a very subtle thing to have to portray where it doesn't feel like we're telling you that this is all wrong, but also not that it's fine.

From a country club in California to the bustling streets of Korea, Beef season 2 takes its central quarter to some wild places. It's where they end up that is most shocking of all, though. Josh (Oscar Isaac) and Lindsay (Carey Mulligan), previously on the brink of divorce, find love again just as Josh is sent to jail after being framed by Chairwoman Park (Youn Yuh-jung), the new owner of Monte Vista Point. Josh is briefly seen in prison while Lindsay's new life is shown.

The Beef season 2 finale was really all about Ashley (Cailee Spaeny) and Austin (Charles Melton), though. Just as it seemed Josh might break out of the cycle of greed and self-destruction that these characters were stuck in, he gives in to Chairwoman Park, returning the evidence of her crimes and reuniting with Ashley, who he was trying to break up with in the season's later episodes.

Their final scene is a mirror of the first scene, with Ashley and Austin speaking at a fundraiser for the country club, thanking Chairwoman Park and seemingly in marital bliss. As they leave the club, they are showered with praise and make plans with one of its most prominent members. It's an exact parallel to Josh and Lindsay's introduction, which was quickly revealed to be a facade.

Josh and Lindsay aren't happy when we are introduced to them, and it's clear the show is wanting us to question whether Ashley and Austin are, too. This moment ultimately speaks to the cyclical themes of Beef season 2, underscoring the visual language Schreier established along with his co-directors Lee and Kitao Sakurai.