‘Beef’ editors Laura Zempel and Nat Fuller explain how they stuck the landing with the show’s final episode [Exclusive Video Interview]
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For “Beef” editors Laura Zempel and Nat Fuller, working on the Emmy-nominated Netflix limited series was for the birds in one specific instance. The series finale opens with two crows commenting on the action as if the winged creatures were some kind of Greek chorus.
“I love the opening with the crows – those are real crows and so the dailies of them were insane,” Zempel tells Gold Derby in an exclusive video interview about the special avian guest stars in the finale. “My assistant Lily Wild was wonderful and put locators on each crow in Avid and so I could see like, ‘Okay, I need this one to say two lines. So when does this one do two squawks?’ It was like cutting it together as though they were actors, was it was really fun and challenging. But I love how that turned out.”
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So did Emmy voters. “Beef” scored 13 nominations at the 2023 Emmy Awards, including Picture Editing for a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie for Zempel and Fuller for the series finale, “Figures of Light.” This is the second consecutive year Zempel has received Emmy recognition; she won in the Outstanding Single-Camera Picture Editing For A Drama Series category in 2022 for “Euphoria.”
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“The finale was so different than the rest of the season,” Zempel says. “I feel like the show goes so many different places. Sometimes it feels like a comedy. Other times, it’s like an action movie. When we got the script for the finale, and it started with two crows talking to each other, it was just like, ‘What am I in for?’ It could go anywhere.”
Created by Emmy-nominated writer and director Lee Sung Jin (who also goes by Sonny Lee), “Beef” focuses on two damaged people, Danny (Emmy nominee Steven Yeun) and Amy (Emmy nominee Ali Wong), whose lives intersect after a road-rage incident. Across the 10 episodes, Danny and Amy wage war on each other in increasingly reckless ways – something that culminates with a massive car accident that leaves them both stranded in the wilderness at the start of the finale. From there, the two realize their commonalities as human beings for the first time, before the show ends on an ambiguous – if hopeful – note.
“We wanted their relationship to feel as satisfying as possible because they’ve played cat and mouse them so long throughout the season,” Zempel says of the finale. “We get to spend time with them [in the last episode] and understand their relationship and watch them find common ground, which is what you know, hopefully, viewers have been wanting the whole time.”
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Danny and Amy’s relationship crescendos in a surprising fashion: after Danny gets shot by Amy’s estranged husband, George (Emmy nominee Joseph Lee), she spends time in his hospital room – and ultimately climbs up into Danny’s bed to hug him. It’s a show of connection to which Danny responds by raising his hand to hug Amy back as “Beef” cuts to its closing credits.
Zempel says Fuller was instrumental in editing the final moments, working with Lee to get the tone just right – particularly in a brief flashback sequence that returns the show to its opening moments when Amy flips off Danny and sets the series in motion.
“It was right at the finish line and we were close to being done with the episode and there were notes that were like, ‘Well we just want to kind of tie the room together a little more,’” Fuller says of the ending scene. “We went out on a shoestring at the very last minute and got that [flashback shot] and it worked so well because it clicks into place. We see Amy think about it, we see her make that decision that ultimately led to this point where they’re in the hospital. Who would have thought just flipping some guy off in the parking lot of some hardware store would lead you to this moment?”
“Beef” is streaming on Netflix.
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