“Do You See It Now?”
By: Joe Shetina
Tags: Netflix, Storytelling, Pop Culture, The Queens Gambit, TV Series

In its first fifteen minutes, The Queen’s Gambit presents as many opportunities for terrible things to happen as any horror movie I’ve seen.

A five-year-old girl left orphaned by a car accident remembers her mother’s last words before the impact: “Close your eyes.” Clearly, there’s more to this “accident” than meets the eye. Afterward, this girl is taken to an austere and dusty orphanage run by drably-costumed religious fanatics who force-feed their charges vitamins and tranquilizers every morning. Then, the girl encounters the creepy custodian who seemingly lives in a secluded corner of the orphanage’s grungy basement.

There is a deliberate ambivalence — even ominousness — to so much of the early episodes of The Queen’s Gambit.

We are set up to anticipate a number of dark turns only to be taken down another narrative path. New state law forbids the orphanage from continuing to feed the children tranquilizers; the director of the orphanage is stern and religious, but sympathetic to the girl’s situation; and when the girl finally ventures into the basement, she doesn’t encounter a monster. The creepy custodian, Mr. Shaibel, is just a stoic recluse who enjoys playing chess by himself.

Maybe this orphanage isn’t the cradle of evil it seemed.

Mr. Shaibel teaches Beth the game of chess. The daughter of a brilliant but troubled mathematician, Beth is immediately drawn to the game. She recognizes it as a complex series of patterns, movements, and strategies rather than a game of chance. As she studies the various avenues and pathways to victory, she becomes as close to a master of the game as a girl her age possibly could.

However, a dark side to Beth’s new passion emerges. Her chess excellence seems directly connected to her recreational use of hoarded tranquilizers. A hallucination of a chessboard appears above her bed every night. She uses it to map out the games she plays with the custodian. Her dependence on the pills reaches a fever pitch when she experiences withdrawal symptoms. She overdoses after stealing mouthfuls from the orphanage infirmary. As punishment, her chess privileges are suspended.

As an adolescent, Beth is adopted by the Wheatleys, a deeply miserable middle-class white couple. While Mr. Wheatley maintains a purposeful physical and emotional distance from his wife and Beth (and, in effect, us), the troubled Mrs. Wheatley is equally hard to read.She seems sympathetic to Beth but incapable of being present. It makes her come off as aloof at best and uncaring at worst.

When Beth realizes her adoptive mother has been prescribed the same tranquilizers she became hooked on as a child, Beth’s addiction to both the pills and chess reemerge. When Mrs. Wheatley realizes just how much Beth’s chess playing could benefit her, a self-satisfied smile creeps across her face. Will she become comrade or parasite?

In a way, she becomes both. She allows the underage Beth to live out her dreams of chess supremacy while she benefits from their lavish hotel stays, elegant dinners, and a new sense of self. The two dine well and drink together, trade stories of their new adventures, and eventually enjoy a loving relationship more akin to a close friendship than a mother-daughter bond.

The rest of the series explores Beth’s successes and failures as a player, daughter, and friend. Her dependence on tranquilizers morphs into an addiction to alcohol. This correlation between her chess prowess and her drug use finds her wrestling with the question: must success as a chess player must come at the expense of her sobriety and sanity?

Beth Harmon (Anya Taylor-Joy) Kubrick-staring at us

When I first saw the trailer for the show, I figured the answer to that question would be a seven-episode slow-burn that led to a devastating and resounding “Yes.”

I was wrong.