Aahana Swrup
Josh and Lindsay’s marriage takes center stage in ‘Beef’ season 2 alongside Ashley and Austin and their youthful new engagement. While the latter Gen-Z couple is still finding their footing in their relationship, which is barely a year old, the older Millennial couple has already seen the best and worst of each other in their decades-long partnership. However, over the years, the romance between them has only soured under financial pressures, personal issues, and familial gripes.
Still, while their explosive arguments, but only behind closed doors, are commonplace, neither is actually fully prepared to let go of their reliable partnership. For the same reason, when Ashley and Austin manage to catch them in the middle of one such fight, Josh and Lindsay’s dedication to their mutual success brings them closer instead of turning them on each other. Even so, their brief moment of harmony doesn’t promise to be a lasting fix for the mercurial highs and lows of their imperfect romance. SPOILERS AHEAD!
Josh and Lindsay’s Flawed Marriage and Ensuing Divorce
From the moment Josh and Lindsay are introduced into the story, their dysfunctional marriage becomes one of the foundational elements of their characterizations. While they put on the charade of a happy couple for the outside world, their personal lives are filled with arguments, disagreements, and an overarching detestation toward each other. Thus, a general understanding of their marriage presents itself. Although the couple was young and very much in love when they got married, over the years, the world and their own issues have chipped away at their romance. Lindsay detests Josh for blowing through her inheritance on his mother’s medical treatment, without any concrete plans to recover their finances.
In doing so, Josh has condemned them both to a life that neither wanted for themselves. His own passion for music has gone dormant in the face of being the perfect country club general manager. On the other hand, Lindsay has been relegated to being the wife of the GM as her own dreams of opening a Bed and Breakfast have been overshadowed and budgeted out. Briefly, after Ashley and Austin begin blackmailing Josh for the progress of their own careers at the club, the manager has a moment of frenzied revival. He decides that before his contract is up, he’s going to embezzle funds from Monte Vista Point and amass enough fortune to fund his and Lindsay’s dream of a B&B plus live concert act.
This breathes in momentary life back into the couple’s deteriorating marriage and even rekindles their long-dead romance. Nonetheless, these decisions are made recklessly and in the heat of the moment. Once reality settles back in and the two begin to realize the risk of striking out on their own, their dreams go from aspirational to daunting. As a result, when Josh gets the chance to extend his contract, he and Lindsay agree that continuing his career is the smart move. Just like that, the brief reanimation of their romance diminishes. Ultimately, the disappearance and subsequent death of their pet, Burberry, becomes the final catalyst in their marriage’s end, which has really been a long time coming.
Josh and Lindsay Reconcile in Seoul
As the motions of Josh and Lindsay’s divorce go into effect, a bigger threat brews on the horizon for the pair. Chairwoman Park agrees to extend the general manager’s contract despite knowing about his embezzlement schemes because she wants something out of him. Recently, her husband has entrenched himself in a scandal by causing the death of one of his patients at his plastic surgery clinic, Trochos. Therefore, the billionaire wants to use the country club to launder money, which she can then use for bribing and criminal cover-ups. Thus, Josh, who has already figured out a system to embezzle funds, becomes the perfect candidate to oversee this illicit flow of finances. Nonetheless, little does he know, it also makes him and his wife the perfect scapegoats.
Once Park’s criminal actions threaten to be unearthed, she implements her contingency plan, which involves pinning the entire money laundering scheme on Josh and Lindsay. She sends an assassin after the manager. The plan is to stage his suicide and leave behind a note that portrays Josh as an embezzler who was working under his wife’s instructions. Fortunately for him, the manager successfully evades his own assassination. However, instead of fleeing to safety, he decides to travel to get to Lindsay to rescue her from Park’s clutches. By then, Lindsay is on a plane to Seoul for a wellness program. Nonetheless, before landing, she uncovers the truth about Park all on her own by accidentally getting in the middle of the drama unfolding between Austin, Ashley, and the club owner’s assistant, Eunice.
Shortly after arriving at the South Korean city, Lindsay also receives her ex-husband’s frantic messages detailing Park’s plan to frame her and Josh. The next day, she and the others try to escape from the watchful surveillance of the billionaire. Nevertheless, in the end, they are caught alongside Josh. Thus, the former spouses find themselves locked up in two rooms separated by a divider, awaiting their fates as decided by the club owner. During this time, instead of turning on each other, the two return to their familiar partnership. They talk about saving their own skins by throwing Ashley and Austin under the bus. In doing so, they inadvertently showcase the persisting loyalty and care they have for each other in spite of their recent separation. As a result, when the time comes, Josh decides to make the sacrifice for both of them and agrees to become Park’s ideal scapegoat if she agrees to spare Lindsay.
Josh and Lindsay Drift Apart, but Their Unselfish Love For One Another Remains
Josh’s sacrifice becomes the climactic turning point in his relationship with Lindsay. After the couple spends much of the story realizing that they’ve reached an expiration date on their romance, this moment proves the unselfish and eternal nature of their relationship. By this point, Josh and Lindsay’s marriage has already been dissolved, and both have even attempted rebound situationships to varying degrees. Yet, just because they’ve called it quits on paper doesn’t mean their feelings for one another have suddenly evaporated.
After spending decades together and building a shared life, they continue to have mutual love, respect, and care for one another. As such, when they’re both put in the same danger, they revert to thinking as a unit, finding comfort in their ability to rely on each other. The deterioration of their marriage, and subsequently romance, wasn’t a simple matter of personal feelings and emotions. Outside forces, like their family matters, infertility issues, and the reality of the capitalistic grind as working-class individuals, took a toll on their ability to be good life partners to each other. However, when all of that is stripped away in a life-or-death situation, only the reality of their love, nursed over the course of multiple years, remains.
Therefore, when Josh decides to sacrifice himself to save Lindsay, it compels the latter to reciprocate that devotion and promise her ex-husband that she will wait for him. Unfortunately, once Josh becomes imprisoned, the couple is taken out of that bubble where their romance is allowed to thrive. Life returns in full force, reminding them of all the reasons they don’t actually work well together. In the end, Lindsay’s prison visits dwindle out, and she ends up finding love somewhere else. Yet, she never stops keeping tabs on Josh. Similarly, the convicted ex-manager also keeps up with Lindsay’s life through his own means but never with hostile sentiments. Even as he finishes his sentences and leaves prison, he has no plans of seeking Lindsay out. Ultimately, he’s happy to have loved and sacrificed something for it, regardless of its cost or impermanence.
Read More: Beef: Is Monte Vista Point Country Club Based on a Real Club?
