The Queen’s Gambit: I Laughed, I Cried, I Started Playing Chess
My *Emotional* Journey Through The Netflix Series
Over the last year, I’ve experienced a sort of deadening of my emotions, as have many others, I’m sure. Nothing drastic, no depression, just a general feeling of numbness brought on by so many drastic changes and era-defining moments. Almost like I’m pulling a comforting little blanket of nihilism over my head, so that I’m protected from the instability of the world. And so, in my movie and TV watching, I’ve felt less connected to characters and situations which normally would have had a bigger effect on me. I’ve been less emotionally open or vulnerable to be affected by what I saw on screen. As a naturally effusive person, I would usually react emotionally to stories on the screen, but what used to make me well up or laugh heartily suddenly fell a bit flat. The Queen’s Gambit changed all that.
WHAT A SHOW!
A whirlwind of emotions took over me throughout every episode of this Netflix mini-series. Pride, betrayal, tragedy, humor, and an overwhelming sense of belonging, intellect, and friendship.
They were able to set up moments that unlocked the numbness from beneath me and helped me enjoy visual storytelling the same way I used to. I felt more in those seven hours of content than pretty much any other movie or TV show I’ve seen since last March!
Through its powerful storytelling and ability to set up emotional climaxes, I was deeply invested in the outcome and taken on a journey. Let’s see how they did that.
They made chess look interesting!
Not an easy feat as chess is not inherently cinematic and it’s more of an inert board game that takes place inside the player’s heads. But by juxtaposing it with the hero’s own feelings of loneliness and her pill addiction, we also saw how chess was a liberation for her, and we understood its appeal, even for those who didn’t know any rules prior to watching. We saw the board on the ceiling, we saw the psychological tactics players might use to trip up their opponents and we got a taste of the glamorous lifestyle of a chess competition jet-setter bouncing around international tournaments from around the world.
But The Queen’s Gambit wasn’t just about chess, it was about belonging and living with genius.
How can our lead, Beth Harmon, be part of this world while maintaining her genius? Will the head mistresses of the world weigh her down? Or will her misfortune with parental figures, her examples of depression or alcoholism be what blinds our hero to the very gift she worked so hard to construct? The intrigue permeates throughout the show and sets up a cathartic answer.
Society is simultaneously depicted as an unforgiving and forgiving place. There are moments of warmth throughout and continued support (like when Beth has her first period in the middle of her first chess tournament and her opponent gives her a pad, or anytime Jolene is on screen). And moments that are unforgiving. Cleo, for example, who seems to embody all that is wrong and distracting, seemingly knowingly disrupts Beth in Paris the night before the then biggest tournament of her life (which gives fodder to the fan theory that she is actually a spy working for the Soviets to take her down, so that the Russians maintain supremacy over chess).
But while the Russians are portrayed as brilliant, plotting and somewhat ruthless, their king, Borgov, is not necessarily the villain. He is Beth’s final frontier, and a machine when it comes to chess moves, but he is also a mild mannered family man, who does not have any particularly mean qualities. Instead, when she finally beats him, he stands up and applauds her. This makes for a powerful finale. It would have been cheapened if he perhaps got mad, threw a tantrum or showed signs of disrespect. But there was none of that. Like a proud father, he stoically hands her his king and makes sure everyone knows she won fair and square and is deserving of the title.
Layered Storytelling
The storytelling worked on many different levels. There was of course the visual and conceptual, like with the pills, and the chessboard on the ceiling. There was the interpersonal characterization, where we see the evolution of opponents turning into lovers then into friends. Harry Beltik has perhaps the most defined arcs from one of those secondary characters. Starting off as an arrogant asshole, he slowly shifts to a sweet and good natured presence in Beth’s life. He ends up earnestly looking out for Beth, not being afraid to stand up to her when he sees the destructive path she is on.
But I’d like to take a moment to appreciate the costume design and the sartorial storytelling as well. When Beth enters High School she sees all the popular girls wear black and white Oxford shoes. When the competition money starts rolling in, we see her wearing those shoes she fawned over just shortly before. It is not addressed in the dialogue but is indicative of the greater theme of fitting in. In the finale, once she has defeated the world champion, she is dressed all in white, just like the color she played in the night before, and she wears a hat for the only time in the series that makes her look like a queen piece. She is, indeed, the new queen of chess, adored by a foreign audience, top of the world, and the most powerful player in the game, much like the queen piece is in the game of chess.
This also nods to the title of The Queen’s Gambit. The word “gambit” comes from Italian “gambetto” and, in chess, signifies a sacrifice for the greater good. A Queen’s gambit therefore is an opening that runs the risk of letting go of your queen in order to checkmate your opponent and win the game. And so, Beth has to make an equivalent sacrifice in order to obtain her goal: stop using her pills. What she thought was her ultimate strength and raison d’être for being an amazing chess player was in fact, just getting in the way of her success. And in the end, we see she can visualize the board on the ceiling without the aid of tranquilizers.
Emotionally Poignant Moments
The most emotional moments have to be when Beth goes back to Methuen School and sees Mr. Shaibel’s board full of newspaper clippings, notes and pictures dedicated to her success. It is a tragic yet beautiful moment. His pride for her was enduring, and much to the audience’s confusion, he seemed to harbor no ill will towards Beth when she didn’t pay him back.
The second most emotional moment, which I believe to be the emotional climax of the series, is when Townes comes to visit Beth in Moscow and he sets up and fields the call from all her friends: Harry, Benny, the Kentucky twins, and the French players phoning her long-distance from back in the US.
They had all come together and worked out how she could beat Borgov once the adjourned game resumed.
That showed that even though she pushed them away, they were there for her in her time of need. It also harkens back to a line that Benny utters in an earlier episode, along the lines of “Russians are great at chess because they work together and Americans have trouble internationally because they are too individualistic”. And so, with this move, he, along with the dominion of Beth’s supportive and admiring friends, all prove that they can go beyond their natural tendencies of individualism and be there when it counts. This serves as a testament to the power of love and friendship and how it can be transformative.
The Queen’s Gambit made me feel emotionally liberated and deeply invested in its outcome. The depth of the storytelling and each layer all contributed to making this the most emotional viewing of my year and allowed me to forget about the world and break through my shell of numbness. To its writers, cinematographers, crew, directors, costume designers, actors and all those who made it possible, I say thank you.
