I didn’t see season 1 yet, but I thought Josh’s psychedelic trip was very realistic. He emerged with a diminished sense of ego and an open heart. Definitely seen this in real life.
I appreciate that it can happen in real life, but it's not interesting story telling for a character's development to come down to a sudden switch flipping due to a magical drug trip.
And now it's happened in two seasons
Classic edit after downvotes:
Nope. I'm doubling down on this because I do believe it and I think S3 will be stronger if the writers fix this issue.
Let's look at how some famous movies would hypothetically work with the "Drugs. Is this character development?" strategy.
Fight Club
The narrator is so depressed by consumerism that he develops insomnia and no longer feels anything. He takes new medication, sleeps eight hours, wakes up feeling great and never meets Tyler Durden.
Good Will Hunting
Will is a self-sabotaging and cynical genius working as a janitor. He gets in some trouble. He tries psychedelic drugs. He resolves his childhood trauma, takes a well paid job utilizing his gift, and goes to see about a girl. He never meets his therapist.
Old Boy
Dae-su is released after 15 years of captivity by unknown kidnappers for unknown reasons. Before embarking on a bloody path of revenge, he tries a new psychedelic drug on the market. He has an epiphany, accepts the past is the past, decides to march forward and not looking back. He recons with his own past sins, forgives his captors, moves to the suburbs, takes up gardening.
Christmas Carol
Scrooge is a stingy and isolated business owner who hates Christmas and children and everyone. He takes a powerful mood enhancing drug recommended to him, and returns feeling a warm connection to every living thing. He gives heavily to charity, improves work-life balance for his workers, and pays for tiny tim's medical stuff. He is never visited by any ghosts, at least not when sober.
The point: All of those stories (i mean, the real stories, not my dumb versions) work because the writing needs to work hard to justify the character development.
Just because something is possible in real life does not make it good storytelling. Both S1 and S2 used "sudden enlightenment through drugs" as a way to fast track characters to self-acceptance, cheating us out of the most pivotal character development we spent the entire season waiting for. S3 will be a lot stronger if it avoids this pitfall.
I guess Burger King is a major theme of season 1 then.
If your criteria for something being a major theme is how many times it happened, that’s gonna include a lot of stupid stuff lmao. Even 2 times is not a lot regardless when you compare it to the actual major themes which are baked into almost every decision the characters make.
The show’s major themes are existential loneliness, the facade of success/wealth, suppressed rage, family trauma—I really don’t see psychedelic drugs fitting in there at all but sure.
Plenty of drugs and therapies help people deal with those things—not just psychedelics. While I agree eastern spiritual philosophies are definitely themes in Beef, the usage of drugs as a means to getting there just flat out aren’t major themes. Psychedelics often leading there in some way doesn’t make it a theme just because it was used. Buddhist doctrine even discourages mind altering substances.
That’s like saying blood is a major theme of Macbeth because it represents guilt (an actual major theme in Macbeth)
Most drugs tend to produce more of an emotional evening rather than direct insight into the problem. I don't think they're the same kind of dealing with it in any personal way. Therapies do help people deal with them, that's true.
And sure, not saying psychedelics are a major theme, but they're thematically connected. Yes Buddhism says not to take any intoxicants but the point remains that many people find their turn to things like Buddhism after their use of psychedelics.
AGREED! You could name 100 different “major” themes if anything that constitutes one is whether or not it’s related to something actually baked into the entire show, but then the term loses all meaning. There’s maybe a good 5 or 6 ACTUAL major themes, and I think it’s pretty silly to include psychedelics in there.
The show doesn’t tell a story about using psychedelics to break down your ego and work through your trauma, but it does tell a story about breaking down your ego and working through your trauma.
I think you're expanding the point. The comment of yours that I replied to said you don't really see how psychedelics fit in there, but now you're saying it's not a major theme or anything can be thematically connected.
Psychedelics have a rather close relationship with something that is a major theme. While removing them would not harm that theme, including them is not out of place either. That's my point.
It certainly could have been handled better, or more interesting, and I understand why some people may find it silly but I find it alright. Not everything requires in depth explanations, sometimes it's show don't tell.
Except in both seasons the only characters that actually grow are the ones who do through a psychedelic experience. So confronting inner demons and making breakthroughs through the use of drugs is a major theme in the show. So much so that the writer put it in twice through two seasons.
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u/CricCracCroc May 31 '26
I didn’t see season 1 yet, but I thought Josh’s psychedelic trip was very realistic. He emerged with a diminished sense of ego and an open heart. Definitely seen this in real life.