Beef 2: Is Burberry The Dog Dead? What Did The Coyote Symbolize?

In a world where everyone seems to be acting in self-interest, and the Joshes and the Ashleys are beefing it out with little regard for the consequences, Burberry is potentially the only actually pure soul. The 12-year-old dachshund is the center of Lindsay and Josh’s home life, so naturally, when he goes missing in the 5th episode of Beef season 2, it turns their lives upside down, and his death eventually spells the end of their marriage (oops, spoiler alert). Even though it affects Josh deeply too, it’s Lindsay who truly spirals, though we don’t know if it has something to do with her experience with motherhood. Apparently, Lindsay and Josh had gotten pregnant once, but she miscarried, so Burberry was the closest thing she’s had to a kid. Also, the fact that a couple living in California named their dog Burberry hints at their upwardly mobile intentions, which are kinda central to the show. The way Beef treats the Burberry subplot could say a lot about the message it’s trying to send. Let’s dig into that.

Spoiler Alert

Who Is Responsible For Burberry’s Death?

It’s almost a throwaway line in the episode after poor Burberry dies after being mangled by a coyote, but we find out that the reason coyotes have been coming into urban areas more and more frequently is because of the unchecked development Chairwoman Park has been financing. More and more forest cover being cut down to build condos and office blocks means less habitable land for wildlife, pushing them into situations where they interact with humans and domesticated animals when they would not have done so earlier. There was no reason for a coyote to be so nearby to a human inhabited area if its habitat was still intact, so in a very real way, Chairwoman Park is at least partly responsible for Burberry’s death, or at the very least she’s a pretty big cog in the system of international capitalism that prioritises profit above everything else, leading to a million small tragedies every day that are quietly ignored. It does seem to be a common line of thought that Korean writers have with subplots, or stories in general; capitalism and the fault of the rich. Of course, more recently it has been a global trend. 

Josh’s Vindictiveness Had A Role To Play

But at the same time, Burberry’s dad isn’t entirely innocent in his death. The reason Burberry got out was because Ashley visited Josh’s home looking for revenge after he delayed her medical treatment for so long that one of her ovaries had to be surgically removed. He pressured her to delete any backups she had of his and Lindsay’s fight, and when she refused, he simply walked away and kept her from getting prompt medical care through access to his contacts. And sure, the way her concerns are minimised and she gets treated like she’s acting hysteric is a crushing reminder of the failures of the American healthcare system, but Josh had the power to get her access to proper care and decided not to offer it.

Ashley would never willingly hurt Burberry, even if, after she loses her ovary, she seems just about prepared to murder Josh. You can tell that by how she plays with Burberry and says she’ll come back and adopt him after she’s done destroying everything Josh and Lindsay have ever built. Keeping the door shut isn’t an instinct she’s developed, not being a dog owner, so when Josh and Lindsay find Burberry gone, the blame game over who left the door open is immediate, because they both know that leaving the door open is as good as murdering Burberry. And Ashley would have had no reason to come to Josh’s house in the first place if he’d just been a decent human being at the hospital, making the whole thing feel like karmic justice, except Burberry always deserved better.

What Did The Coyote Symbolize?

If we look at the role Chairwoman Park played in bringing the coyote into the human-populated area and endangering the lives of domesticated animals, the coyote could be read as symbolising Park herself. An invasive, brutal creature looking to establish control in foreign land, no? So, if you think of it that way, Burberry in this case is Josh, and Lindsay is just herself. The only difference is, Lindsay gets crushed by Park, whereas here she kills the coyote in a fit of rage. I compare Burberry to Josh because, when they have to bring back a different dog to foster him, Josh feels like this other dog is Burberry in the same way that Lindsay replaces Josh, in the future of Monte Vista, nothing changes except the actual person. Even if Lindsay kills the Coyote, I can’t help but see this as the hierarchy, and Josh going to prison is essentially equivalent to Burberry’s death in his life. 

Burberry II And Lindsay’s Rejection Of Him

In the middle of Josh and Lindsay’s frantic search for Burberry, Lindsay’s social media post gets shared by Childish Gambino (name drop!), and that gets it way more coverage. So they’re delighted when a dog shelter reaches out to them and says they have their dog, but when they get there, it’s a completely random dachshund which they then get guilted into keeping, since the shelter isn’t a no-kill one, and the old fella doesn’t have much of a chance of being adopted otherwise. When they bring this dog home, Lindsay is actively mean to it, though it’s really just the trauma of losing a dog she’d been treating as her child for several years that makes her act this way. She snatches away Burberry’s toys from the dog and does pretty much everything she can to make the creature feel unwelcome.

In contrast, Josh is pretty neutral towards the dog, but he ends up caring for it much more after the divorce. Though Lindsay’s happy to let him keep the dog, the one thing she’s not super happy about is him naming the dog Burberry (I’ll refer to him as Burberry II from here on). The manner in which Josh and Lindsay react to the entrance of Burberry II in their lives shows how they both handle the difficulty they feel in moving on, in a way. Lindsay’s coping mechanism is based in the rejection of anything new and clinging to what was once familiar, which also helps her realise the Josh she knows now isn’t the same one she married. Josh’s coping mechanism is to try to replace Burberry, and we also see a hint of this in how he handles his love life post Lindsay, by trying to get back into his old playboy phase and sleep around. Eventually, Josh moves on by realising that Lindsay’s the only one besides his mother who ever really meant anything to him, and Lindsay moves on by remarrying and starting a family, though Josh will always be a piece of her, even if the loss of Burberry made her push him away initially.

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