Beth speaks very little. She is sullen and serious, taciturn to a fault. She's experienced death at an early age. What more must a young girl learn about the cruelties that life can impose upon her?
One extraordinarily revealing sequence occurs late in Episode One, where the high school chess club coach, Mr. Ganz (Jonjo O'Neill), presents young Beth with the gift of a doll. Beth does not know what to do with the doll. She looks to Mr. Shaibel for a sign as to how to behave. Shaibel motions with his head and eyes, signaling her to show some gratitude to the coach. Beth manages a forced smile and blurts out the words, "Thank you."
No sooner is their meeting over when Beth, dragging the doll by the arm, disposes it in the nearest waste basket. So this is what she thinks of "childish things." She has matured far beyond her years. For her, childhood never came and will never arrive. Thrown, unprepared, by a horrendous car crash into the adult world, the flashbacks to her and her mother's vagrant lifestyle reflect a plunge into survival at the cost of all else. But the memories remain intact. The knowledge that Beth's mother has run away at every opportunity, in avoidance of responsibility, will continue to haunt her footsteps.
There is no point in Beth's life that she can look back on with nostalgia or enjoyment. She lives in a joyless world, not always of her own making but put upon her by circumstances out of her control. Only now, control is in her court. It will take the remainder of the series to explore how Beth Harmon loses that control - through pills, alcohol, sex, what have you - and eventually regains it by way of, first, manipulation of the men and those around her; and second, by her understanding of her role in affecting a more positive change to her nature and, ultimately, her behavior. A realization that she needs the companionship of both sexes, male and female, to accomplish her goals.
To triumph over the hardships that Beth herself has placed before her is a tall order for one with such small shoulders. To bear that burden will come at a cost. Will Beth be willing to pay that cost?
The formula is set and must be adhered to. Old World decorum and ritual must be observed. These will enable Beth to move forward with her plans. She will conform, but will others conform along with her? Her only equal, she soon discovers, is snot-nosed Benny Watts (Thomas Brodie-Sangster), the reigning U.S. chess champion and as vain and full of himself and his abilities as Beth is not. Others will fall in line, but there will always be those who do not. Such is life.
Acceptance is routine, but not for Beth. The means by which she ultimately accomplishes her goal is what fascinates us. These are director/writer Scott Frank's opening moves, whereby his "queen" is sacrificed at the outset so as to attain a higher purpose: that of improving oneself.
Beth does not "need" men, at least not for the usual purpose. Nor, for that matter, does she need women. Or so she thinks. She accepts who she is; she's comfortable in her own skin. After all, she's the queen, so she must dress the part. Whatever approbation she has earned in the end must stand for the one she has so longed for in life: acceptance of one's fallibility. No one is perfect, not even a queen.
Still, she must confront several dilemmas in her interaction with others: 1) her fear and/or failure to commit to close relationships with the same or opposite sex; and 2) her realization that a father and/or mother figure is as important in her life as they are for every other person. This dualism in her psyche and nature leads to an awkward situation when Beth catches the unrequited love of her life, the handsome journalist and chess player Townes (Jacob Fortune-Lloyd), in a hotel room with another man. Later, there's a "reveal" (in more ways than one) that somehow placates Beth's crushed ego/illusions about this so-called dreamboat.
There's another incident, the "one off" she experiences with the boastful Benny, that could either lead to nowhere emotionally or cement an already budding acquaintanceship that, by all rights, will place these two sparring partners on a more-or-less equal plane. We know that Beth delights in subverting accepted norms, in overturning preconceived notions of a woman's place in society.
At her first chess tournament, the looks and stares she receives do not thwart her ambitions; quite the contrary, they embolden her. Her aim is to beat those preconceived ideas about what women can do in a man's world. In this instance, the world of professional chess. Beth tries to fit into this world, but there are those who serve as constant reminders that she's a square peg trying to squeeze into a very round hole. Don't let that awkward turn-of-phrase stop you from thinking the obvious. There are literally dozens, if not more, girls and women who would like to see Beth get "screwed" (in every sense), along with an equal number of men (boys included) who'd like to do the screwing.
But Beth does not give up her "charms" so easily. Having grown up with no strong male models, no loving father figure she can call "Dad," and no close relations to confide in, Beth remains what she's always been: a loner. Her stepfather, the brooding Allston Wheatley (Patrick Kennedy), is an uptight traveling salesman who spends more time away from home and his alcoholic, manic-depressive spouse Alma (Marielle Heller) than making a life for his newfound family. His condescending remarks to Alma and to the couple's adopted stepdaughter cut the teenaged Beth to the bone. However, they do serve to steel Beth's resolve to be the best at what she's best at.
After Mr. Wheatley abandons Alma, Beth becomes the main bread winner. Having won a chess tournament in Cincinnati, Beth is interviewed by a chain-smoking female LIFE reporter who might have been modeled after Hollywood costume designer Edith Head or novelist/screenwriter Ayn Rand. This reporter is more masculine than the men that Beth emasculates. While the reporter attempts to psychoanalyze her motives vis-à-vis the language of chess, Beth's reaction is plain: all she wants to do is "play." "Chess can also be ... beautiful," is her thoughtful riposte to a question about whether she sees the king as a male and the queen as a female in the age-old war of the sexes.
The LIFE article goes deeper, though, by depicting chess champion Beth as "out for blood." Adjectives such as these abound in The Queen's Gambit. In fact, they get to the central issue of whether a girl, a woman, a physically mature and mentally capable member of the opposite sex can overturn those boxed-in, narrow-minded opinions about the traditional roles women were meant to play.
The Chess Game of LifeSpeaking of which, Beth's frequent chess partners, like her precious chess pieces, are introduced one by one: Matt and Mike, the garrulous twin brothers; Harry Beltik, the grandmaster who harbors an unrequited affection for Beth; and bad boy Benny, the self-assured braggart in the cowboy hat (dressed all in black) with a heart of gold. Again, the outfits have determined the actors' roles in the chess game of life. Some are pawns, some are rooks. The twins are bishops, perhaps even knights. The others take turns as kings. Benny, for all intents and purposes, is more of a rogue piece: You never know where he stands or what his next move is. Symbolically and logically, Bess is always the queen.
Unfortunately, this queen turns once too often to alcohol. Bess is actually a lowly pawn who tries a bit too hard to surmount her present position. We know that she constantly strives to improve herself through her playing skills. She develops "defenses"; she studies her past moves on her own, the opening gambits, the usual and unusual plays, the strategies, the outcomes - all of them acting as a buffer against the (you'll pardon the expression) vicissitudes of her life.
Beth, and the viewer, learn that all the pieces in chess can be sacrificed. Yes, all, that is, except one: the king. Even the queen can be given up. But the king is always the last piece left standing. So why is the queen the most powerful? And why is the king so helpless, so useless, in fact? All the king does is retreat. That's not so in life, now, is it? These are matters worth pondering.
In Episode Six, we're back to where the series first began. Beth is startled awake by the concierge pounding loudly at her hotel room door. She's late for her match with Soviet-Russian chess champion Borgov. Earlier in Episode Three, she meets up with Benny Watts in Las Vegas, where they officially introduce themselves to each other. Benny beats her, badly, in speed chess and in tournament play. Beth takes the losses badly. My, my, how the mighty have fallen.
After Beth tries to cut Alma down to size, her stepmother rather bluntly tells Beth that now she knows how it feels to lose. Beth isn't mad at Alma, or that she lost to Benny. No, she's more upset at Townes, the man she reconnected with in Vegas, whom she earlier caught sharing a room with another man. She and Townes were beginning to get intimate when Roger, the roommate, barged in unannounced and unexpected. That ended a relationship before it had begun. Poor Beth. A woman spurned, she takes her disappointment out in drink.
She and Alma depart the hotel in a taxi. Beth reaches out to hold Alma's hand, as mother and daughter, the two commiserating as one. Two queens, still alone but needing each other all the more.
(End of Part Two)
To be continued....
Copyright © 2021 by Josmar F. Lopes