In private, Josh shows more passion toward cam girls he patronizes online while Lindsay pines for the status she once enjoyed among Britain’s upper crust. Meanwhile, low-level staffers like Ashley (Cailee Spaeny) and Austin (Charles Melton) carry out their plebeian tasks with grins on their faces and a bounce in their step, pleased as punch to be a part of such an exquisite slice of Montecito luxury. The club’s regulars would never guess or care how precarious the engaged couple’s lives are, with Ashley carrying the financial burden of their household while Austin, who works part-time as a fitness trainer, posts videos online.

To the club’s new Korean billionaire owner, whom everyone calls Chairwoman Park (Oscar winner Youn Yuh-jung), all of them might as well be ants. (Creator and showrunner Lee Sung Jin puts a fine point on that idea by opening the season with the image of said insects industriously marching in a line, only to be crushed underfoot by a human worker unaware they were in his path.) (Netflix) Charles Melton as Austin Davis, Carey Mulligan as Lindsay Crane-Martin, Oscar Isaac as Josh Martin and Cailee Spaeny as Ashley Miller in “Beef” Nevertheless, the Chairwoman is also tied up in a loveless marriage to a cosmetic surgeon, Dr. Kim (Song Kang-ho, star of “Parasite”), who’s too arrogant and insecure to retire despite the risks he poses to his patients.

“You know, as you get old, friends go away. Parents die. Even children leave,” she cheerfully tells Ashley in an early scene, when she finds out she and Austin intend to marry.

“The only person by your side is your spouse.” A few scenes later, we question whether that companionship is worth the trouble when her husband’s mistake threatens to undo her empire. “Beef” links the potential liabilities women face by locking into long-term relationships to the realities of the capitalist trap, which draws women into not only unpaid housework but uncompensated emotional labor, too. The second season’s inciting incident occurs after a successful fundraising event, when Josh and Lindsay’s domestic bickering quickly deteriorates into a knock-down physical altercation just as Ashley and Austin stumble up to witness it, phones recording away.

They capture enough of Josh and Lindsay’s confrontation for Ashley to use to blackmail her way into a better job with healthcare benefits, which she needs to afford a surgery that could save her life and her fertility. Of course, this is only the beginning of a tit-for-tat spite fest that yields terrible collateral damage. If “Beef” were solely about the corrosiveness of rage, this season’s rivalry wouldn’t be worth slicing into.

But Lee marbles other theories and indictments into his meat concerning the privilege of extreme emotion and behavioral honesty. Both seasons of the show demonstrate that only the wealthy can afford to indulge in extreme emotional displays or cheapen honest ones. Josh and Lindsay, who still grind for their bread, must smile brightly in public while their private lives fall apart.

Similarly, Austin grins as Ashley barrages him with her insecurities. Once he’s by himself, he screams out his frustration while pumping iron. Anger, like love, is an entitlement the well-to-do define for themselves in ways middle and working-class couples can’t afford.

Related What makes “Beef” so seductive? Understanding the intimacy of rage While it would appear the Chairwoman doesn’t have much in common with a social climber like Lindsay or Ashley, whose instinct to embroider her meager administrative qualifications earns the owner’s respect, each has chained their lives to a man who, in some way, elevated himself on their backs. Between Ashley and Austin, he’s the one who attended college while she never finished high school.

Yet she’s the one who maneuvers him into a better job, where he accidentally fails upward into more responsibility thanks to his himbo charms. Posh Lindsay’s family was well-off enough to leave her an inheritance. As she bitterly reminds Josh, they spent most of it on his mother’s medical bills in her final days — that, and their massive home, which they locked themselves into with dreams of transforming it into their own bed and breakfast. But they can’t build that if he’s indulging in gambling nights with buy-ins costing thousands of dollars, hoping to fool his rich clients into seeing him as one of their own. (Netflix) Cailee Spaeny as Ashley Miller and Carey Mulligan as Lindsay Crane-Martin in “Beef” Between “Beef” and