Unveiling the Psychological Layers of 'Beef': A Deep Dive Encore

Step into the psychoanalytical arena with hosts Erin and Tanya as they dissect the Emmy-winning Netflix series, "Beef," in a groundbreaking podcast episode that's as riveting as the show itself!

In this thought-provoking discussion, Erin and Tanya unravel the intricate layers of mental health, societal pressures, and familial dynamics portrayed in "Beef." 


With razor-sharp insight and genuine empathy, they navigate the tumultuous journey of the main characters, Danny and Amy, as they grapple with suppressed emotions, toxic relationships, and the quest for self-discovery.

From explosive road rage incidents to poignant moments of vulnerability, no stone is left unturned as Erin and Tanya peel back the curtain on the psychological underpinnings of "Beef." They delve deep into the characters' past traumas, societal expectations, and the profound impact of unresolved emotions on personal well-being.

But this podcast isn't just about analysis—it's a call to action for listeners to reflect on their own lives and relationships. Through candid conversations and expert insights, Erin and Tanya explore the importance of seeking support, embracing vulnerability, and finding healthy outlets for self-expression.

So whether you're a fan of "Beef" or simply intrigued by the intersection of psychology and pop culture, tune in to the Wicked Psychotherapists Podcast for an eye-opening journey into the human psyche. Get ready to laugh, cry, and ponder life's deepest questions alongside two dynamic hosts who aren't afraid to tackle the tough stuff.

Don't miss out on this must-listen encore re-release episode! Subscribe now and join the conversation on mental health, resilience, and the power of empathy in the modern world.

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Transcript

Tanya: 0:08

You are listening to Wicked Psychotherapists, a podcast where two psychotherapists show you that taking care of and learning about mental health doesn't have to be wicked hat. I'm Tanya Dos Santos. And I'm Erin Gray. And this is Wicked Psychotherapists, today we're talking about the Netflix series called Beef. We had both watched it. Erin got the tail end and I kind of filled in

Erin: 0:44

the last couple. I asked Tanya for the spoilers

Tanya: 0:47

for the last episode, which if you've all seen the last couple episodes, you know, it was really hard to explain, but it's very trippy and bizarre. So today we're going to be talking about a lot of topics that relate to mental health. I thought that this would be something that would be good to discuss because There certainly are a lot of people who experience these different things and themes that we had seen within the series, and it is really important to pick those out and take a look at that, not only from an individual level, but also societal, and be able to just reflect on them. Yeah. We both enjoyed the series. Thief. Uh, just to let you know, if you are going to continue listening, if you haven't seen it, if you want to see it and you don't want any spoilers, unfortunately, there's going to be spoilers in here. So we don't know when this is coming out. Maybe everybody who watched it wants to watch it, but relatively new around right now, I would say one of. The primary themes that we really touched upon and that we were discussing is was how the two main characters who are in this really horrific road rage incident, the rage that gets expressed in this, and where does that come from? We start to see both of their stories and things that are happening right then, but also things that have happened to them leading up and how they process things, how they handle emotions, feelings, support, things like that. Sense of who they are. But there certainly is a layer of. I would say repress emotions and oppression that runs the gamut between the two of these main characters, Danny and Amy, that you can see that's very apparent in their lives for different reasons, but they really relate to each other based on this and they really see each other as competition because they see themselves expressing these different feelings and wanting to really project a lot of this stuff and this rage onto the other person. It's really extraordinary the way it comes out. So what did you think about? I thought that it was

Erin: 2:38

interesting how the show is basically about a road rage, but you get to know as the episodes go on, what is really happening with both of the characters and the similarities, I thought was interesting that both of them have the responsibility of taking care of their family. And financially, emotionally, but they're not really encouraged or expected to express their own emotions. So they're that person being there for their child or making sure their husband's fine or taking care of their little brother or their parents. But nobody's really there to listen to their concerns or help them.

Tanya: 3:17

Yeah, and you see all these other characters in their lives that have supported this way of expression, or actually repression of emotions. In Amy's life, we see her parents very much have a very strong thread of denial and not talking about things. Even to the point where Amy confronts her mom about an affair that her dad had when she was a teenager. The mom's just saying, why do you want to talk about this? I know this. He's a good man. And just basically brushes it under the rug. And Amy at one point, I think, tries to say, okay, this is where I get it from. I need to just be upset with my family. This is all their fault. And you see that this is definitely the start of this internalizing and this ignoring of, of emotions and feelings and things that need to be expressed. But she also took a route in her life where there was a lot of pressure in her job. There was a lot of pressure to succeed. Even her partner has this toxic positivity of not acknowledging when she does have a negative emotion. There's this one scene that we had talked about where she is trying to confess about the road rage incident to her husband, and he's just completely cuts her off and just is like, don't think positively. Don't let this get to you kind of thing. When she was trying to really say, Hey, this is something that's really bothering. And I'm afraid for what's happening to me. And instead, that also got brushed under the rug, which is something I think is becoming more and more popular to talk about, but just as much as her parents denied these feelings and weren't allowing her to express the ways that she felt about her father's affair, or maybe many other things that probably you can only imagine happened all throughout her development and her life. She chose a partner who actually ended up doing the same thing. He seems very in touch with his emotions. He appears to be emotionally intelligent, but actually he expresses himself in a way that's very limited towards them. So it almost becomes toxic positivity because he has a way of. Just saying, okay, you just need to think positively. You got to do the gratitude journal. We got to do these exercises. And she's thinking I have rage and you're not listening to me. So there's a dismissal, right? There's a belittling in Amy's life of these different emotions. In that sense, it definitely gets supported. I think it continually gives her the message of, nope, you're not safe to be able to talk. And that's what she learns. And with Danny, it's a little different when you kind of learn about his backstory. I do think there's definitely crossover. There's definitely similarities. I

Erin: 5:51

do see the similarities with their personalities and even the expectations of them, but maybe they're raised differently with their parents. His parents seem very loving, but there is an expectation that he is expected to take care of everybody. Where Amy's family doesn't feel as loving because there is a scene later on where she talks to her therapist asking about unconditional love and it seems like, is there such a thing or can people have it? And seems like she might not have ever experienced that from her own

Tanya: 6:23

parents. There is actually something that, I don't know if this happens in the last two episodes, but they do flash back to a scene when Amy is little, she overhears her parents arguing, and it sounds like her father did not want her. He basically was just espousing all the money that it would cost to have kids, and felt like it wasn't Maybe the greatest idea and even when she's born flashback to the scene where they're putting a lot of their expectations on her and there's a feeling of oof this is going to be a lot of responsibility, a lot of money, the feeling of what's on them as opposed to hopes and wishes and expectations. Great. Which is contrasted with Danny when he's a baby, the parents are looking at him and they're like he's going to be really, really great. He's going to be amazing, kind of thing. And, you know, there's all these expectations and they're very amazing. But then again, there's still a lot of expectations, right? So they, even from the get go, they contrast this and they're like, it can still turn out and feel the same. Yeah. With this, you know, kind of how this gets externalized and how. Yeah, well, one is weighing heavy on

Erin: 7:32

the financial burden and what we're gonna have to do to her and what she can do to us. And the other one is masculinity and the manhood and how he might achieve great things based on that.

Tanya: 7:44

Yeah. And like responsibility to the family. Yeah. Good point. It's funny. And Amy just go at each other all throughout the series. I mean, they are competitive and trying to take the other one down all throughout this and they come up with these wild ways. Which I think that might be why it's called a comedy, because some of those things are pretty funny. We were trying to, before this, find out why this was called a comedy. But I think that some of those things were kind of darkly funny in that way, and the way that they handled that. But I do think there is this element of Amy is in this high end position, a job where she, uh, is What does she do for work? I couldn't really quite

Erin: 8:24

understand what it was. She sells plants. And plants in pretty pots, but it feels like it's like a plant is this I couldn't really understand

Tanya: 8:33

what exactly like high ends or something, right? She really is just looking for this buyer and she's into this space where she feels, you know, towards the end, she starts to transform herself into this person to say, well, I deserve to get all the money. I will work really hard, even if I have to kind of give up my soul because. This is what I'm working towards, right? This is who I'm supposed to be. And there's a lot of that flung and projected onto Danny and saying he's nobody because he has these kind of blue collar esque jobs. He's not really in a sophisticated job. I'm using air quotes, you know, and, and things that are, you know, maybe what she looks down upon and. She uses that as a mask a lot of times, I think, to kind of say, Hey, I'm better than you. And he'll kind of fling it back and say, You're a stuck up snob. They kind of mask against each other in the way that those expectations came out from their respective parents. Right. They'll also kind of use that as part of the mudslinging, too. It really is, I think, heartbreaking to watch them. They are tearing each other down. And it's almost to the point where it's absurd and silly, but there's an element that feels kind of real in it. And that feels like, not, not to say the actual events, but to say the feelings. Yeah. The feelings of

Erin: 9:44

being all consumed and obsessed with this person feels very real and to a complete stranger and all your thoughts and, well. I'm going to retaliate, or I'm going to do this, or they did this, so now I need to one up them to make myself feel better. But nobody's ever feeling better because you're in this constant competition with yourself and with

Tanya: 10:07

them. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And there's that quote that keeps coming up over and over the series that says something like, I continue to fade away, I'm just a snake eating its own tail. Something, I'm totally butchering that, but it's something. Related to that, how Amy repeats that a couple of times. And when Amy's kind of at the top of her game, and she's holding a party at her house, and Danny shows up because he wasn't invited. He doesn't want to go, but he's like, okay, I guess I will go, kind of thing. And she thinks he's there for nefarious reasons, and she confronts him. And he's like, no, seriously, like, how do you, how do you feel though? And she's like, I don't know, we're all just kind of fading away, and chasing our own tail, trying to eat it, kind of thing. Some kind of a weird response to think she'd be really happy. She's successful, this is what she's chasing, but she seems to be really disconnected and really in pain and really, to me, that really clenched showing how depression can be and how it can look on the outside and feel on the inside. I thought that was really, really important to know. Yeah. So, so no

Erin: 11:06

matter how far you think you're going, you're fighting with

Tanya: 11:09

yourself. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. That was, that's really well put. I found the quote and it, they said this a couple of times, nothing lasts, everything fades. We're a snake eating its own tail. And I just think that for some people that might be their philosophy, they may think. Okay, you know, this is just, this doesn't really have meaning, but in that picture you see that she doesn't really have anything tethering her, there's no real meaning, she's just kind of going through the motion because this is what she's supposed to do. And he's like, no, but really, how do you feel? Like, how do you feel? Kind of thing. She's just this, you know, I got stuff to do thing. I also found it really I think, like, redemptive towards Danny's character when he goes to church. I know I talked about this. When he goes to his church and he has that whole moment where he just connects in the community there. And he just breaks down crying. Like, you can tell he just finally feels a little bit of relief and not feeling like he absolutely hates himself. And it really illustrates this sense of isolation. I think they both experience and depression. Yeah, I

Erin: 12:14

thought it was pretty emotional too because you could feel it, you know, maybe this is the one point even though he's in a room of people, he feels this is a safe place to just cry or be in it and that's why a lot of people are so connected spiritually or with church or with religion because they have that community, that safety to feel that maybe I can be a little more emotional and no one will see me or notice me because there's so many people or I'm not alone. You know, it's could be either way, or this was the first time that he, since all of this happened, you know, with the music and the singing and the prayer that he was really anything out at all, because he's been internalizing everything.

Tanya: 12:55

Yeah, that's true. Yeah, he was kind of maybe he was really numb, locked up in there. That really reflected a lot of, I think, themes of people going through pandemic people be isolated and kind of this. Cultural societal point of view. I know this is kind of a really meta type of, of thing, but I do think there was a little bit of that in there where it was saying, Hey, people are, are disconnected and not to say you just go to church and everything's fine, right? It probably points to if there's isolation or depression, they always talk about support. Safe supports, right? Right. That can feel good emotionally. Yeah. Cause

Erin: 13:29

you mentioned the safe support because it sounds like he had some connection and support like his cousin and his brother, but his cousin was not very safe. His cousin had, I did this for you, you owe me. And a lot of his things were not healthy. And his brother, there was the support, but Danny was mostly supporting his brother, almost like a father figure. So it was not evenly weighted in either of those

Tanya: 13:53

relationships. Yeah, that's true. And there's, there's a lot of pressure that gets created just from that, those two relationships. Him, when we learn that Danny has been kind of screwing over Paul his whole life. He's been trying to keep him within his purview. And I think at one point he does say to him, you need to get away. This is when they're, they're at the house, the lady who's over Amy's business. And he says, you need to get away from me. I think I'm bad for you. And he has that moment of realization. He tells him, I threw away your college applications. And that's why you're kind of stuck in this, you know, apparently we get the idea that Paul could have gone away and could have been really successful, but he didn't get any response to his college applications because his brother took him away before he had a female male. Yeah.

Erin: 14:35

And maybe it was like fear, um, seeing his brother succeed would mean that he is a failure. And so he inadvertently or on purpose sabotaged his brother just to keep him where he was. And it was probably really hard for him to finally

Tanya: 14:49

tell the truth. Yeah. Yeah, and I think you're right. I think it definitely was. A lot of his, if I keep you here, then you won't recognize your potential, because maybe there was a part of him that felt like, I never got to recognize my potential. Why should you? Kind of a very young way of feeling about your sibling. And also just like competition in general. If you don't get the extra cookie, I don't, you know, or if I don't get the extra cookie, you don't either. Right. I think speaks to that kind of inner child in him, what he could do without all the pressure of having to take care of his family. And it's so heartbreaking when you see the house blow up and the Or the parents come, they see it on fire, and they're just like, The parents are just so disappointed, and Danny's like, No! Everything was fine! I don't understand, I don't understand! And the parents are just like, We're jet lagged, can you just take us home? We knew that this wouldn't work, kind of thing. Yeah. And now they want to go back. Yeah, and he just feels like a complete failure. And then to learn that it actually, it was his fault. He did have faulty wiring put in there. And there's just this feeling that he always is reaching for greatness. He's always trying to do the wiring in the house, trying to save money, kind of thing when he could have hired a contractor, right? He could have hired someone to put this in appropriately. Seems like with the house, I don't know that he was trying to really save money everywhere, but it was almost. To prove to himself, I can do this, and, Yeah, like at

Erin: 16:07

the beginning, Yeah, where he's so desperate for money at that one guy's house, he's like, Oh yeah, I could do the trees. I could do this. I could do, you know, even though he's not licensed or bonded or trained in any of

Tanya: 16:19

this other stuff. Yeah. He just, he, he kind of just feels like I should, I should be able to do this. There's, there's that kind of always pressure he's always had. And I think these two people just absolutely self destruct and. I mean, to the point where they drive each other off of a cliff, literally. Then we get to that trippy scene where they're just interacting with each other, and then something Really important happens where they connect, they genuinely connect and see each other and they realize oh my gosh This is what you've needed. This is what I've needed Why didn't we spend our time with this and then they get another chance and then they lose it very quick Yeah, Danny does Danny loses his chance. It's literally kind of a self destruct and then destruct Yeah. I

Erin: 17:03

mean, and there's so many things too, like with this show, uh, not knowing what the other person's going through. I mean, like, that's why you always hear, don't beep at people. You don't know what people are going through in the line at the checkout. You don't know what coworkers are going through unless you ask them. It's really easy to be pissed off and mad at the next person, but it takes a little bit more time. It's a little more difficult to go inward to think of like, what could they be

Tanya: 17:28

going through? Yeah, and I, I think when you're so, you have that much pressure like these characters, Danny and Amy had at the beginning, when we realized all the stuff they were doing from the start and all the things that were going on in their lives, they didn't really have an outlet. And this kind of almost seemed to be that discovery of, Oh, this is, you see a part at the beginning where Danny discovers Amy's address. And then when Danny comes in, he's all over her floor and then she runs after him. She starts to plot this counter attack and there's almost a sick pleasure, almost kind of like, this feels good to release. So being aware of the need to kind of say, Hey, am I also, am I so kind of locked up to hear that someone cutting me in line is going to cause me to lose my shit is also a big thing. It's a, it's a huge thing to be aware of that. And not to say that we haven't all felt like we've all had bad days and feel like everything's going wrong or weeks or phases in our lives. Yeah. It's just, I think, the awareness of that. And I think that's probably why we decided to talk about that, is that it really can be important how much control you have. Yeah, or the awareness of

Erin: 18:35

why does this affect you so much? Because I mean, I have, get angry for no reason driving, or I've been annoyed, like, at people, you know, at checkouts or whatever, but then you're like, okay, is it really the end of the world? Or it's, you know, sometimes it's, you notice that you carry on, repeat a conversation that you had with a coworker a few times in your head. It's hard. Sometimes it's hard to just drop it until, you know, sometimes you have to process it with

Tanya: 19:01

somebody else. Yeah. And it really can be a lot of weight to process through things, which is why going to therapy helps. You know, we're big advocates of not only of course, seeing a therapist such as ourselves, but also going to therapy for those very reasons, because it's very, I mean, human existence can be very stressful, right? And having to, to just go through these things that we have to go through and these unexpected events, life events, stressors, people, anything can really kind of start to add up and you really have to be. Aware of that and how this comes out, not only on other people, on the world, society, but also what's going on there. You know, if you're kind of disconnected from that, that, that can be a very dangerous place. And this is an example of how this can really get, get out of hand, that disconnection. Important

Erin: 19:48

to have that outlet, that person, something to let things out. Yes, journaling or gratitude journals are great. Exercise is good, finding a community, but try not to just go inward for everything. Sometimes you do need another release so that it doesn't all explode.

Tanya: 20:08

Yes, absolutely. And not feeling like you have to project the perfect image or do everything that you're expected to do. No matter what, without having feelings, without having emotions, and without having setbacks in that, because that is very human. That's not Instagram life, right? But Instagram life is not real. And that's unfortunately, I think a lot of the pressures that people have. Yeah, I think

Erin: 20:33

a lot of people still have not fully realized that it's not reality. You know, it is difficult. And people still feel the need to portray themselves a certain way. Whether it's to family, friends, or social media, and what they really are, or how they're

Tanya: 20:47

really feeling. Yeah, I mean, you definitely can see the pressures, you can see that around you, but this is also an example of how it can get very, very far, and very dangerous, and, and express itself in this, in this way. So, With that, that is BEEF. Check it out if you have not already, I'm sure you probably have if you clicked on this, but let us know what you think. If there's anything else that maybe we didn't touch upon, something that you would have liked for us to talk about, or just any comments or anything like that. And, yeah, like and subscribe, and we hope to see you next time! I don't know why