Photo courtesy of the Boston Globe
I have no idea how to play chess. The game was never part of my childhood and my family does not even own a set. Thus I was skeptical when out of the blue,
The Queen’s Gambit
was
the
show people told me I needed to watch. This Netflix original series, released October 23rd, has taken the number one spot on the streaming service’s top ten list. The show presents the game of chess as exhilarating and manages to keep the viewer pinned to the edge of their seat, no matter their level of interest in chess. The series follows orphan Beth Harmon’s sudden rise of success. Beth is compelled by her stepmother’s monetary greed to enter the cutthroat world of competitive chess. The pilot introduces Beth as an adult, already immersed in the intense atmosphere of the Paris chess scene. She is initially bedraggled and slightly hungover while on the verge of a career altering game. Who she is about play and how she got to this moment is yet to be revealed.
From there, the show takes us back in time to a young Beth, recently orphaned and living in the Methuen Orphanage for Girls.
The Queen’s Gambit
” does a powerful job of revealing how Beth, with the help of various other chess champions, propels herself up the social ladder, while simultaneously providing insight into how the game slowly becomes her only escape from an otherwise physically and mentally poisonous lifestyle.
The viewer is drawn into a narrative focused just as much on the effects of alcoholism, addiction, and blinding searches for power as it is on chess. From the very beginning of her time at the orphanage, Beth develops an addiction to tranquilizers, which grants her the power to astral project chess pieces onto the ceiling of her bedroom. This is one of the means by which the show displays the inner workings of Beth’s mind when it comes to the meticulous and consuming nature of each chess move. One of the reasons this show appeals to non-chess players such as myself is that it achieves a unique balance between a clear understanding of the game and the simultaneous need to teach it. However, this imaginative ability of hers is tinged by the effects of addiction and her ability to connect with the outside world.
The humanistic elements of this show may be why I’m drawn so deeply into a world I’ve never before sought to enter.The characters are real and flawed, which allows them to put that much more of themselves into the game, as they fear that they have nothing else to offer. Beth becomes a beacon of hope for anyone questioning their place in the world. She begins to view chess as all that she has and allows that sudden fear of minuteness to drown her. She is challenged to battle her critics, inside and out, in order to secure her mental state and establish her physical position in the world.