Beth Harmon loses the US Open. While she’s lost chess games before, this one is harder for her to digest, especially because she badly wanted to beat Benny Watts for the title. Beth’s mother points out that the reason Beth didn’t see Benny’s winning strategy was because she was too focused on winning, which shows how perceptive Beth’s mom can be. I also think that it’s an important point, because sometimes being overly competitive and focusing only on the end goal makes it easy to miss out on the journey. This is a major milestone in Beth’s character development too, since she is humbled by the loss and is learning to not let her competitiveness affect her focus.
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I think that since the beginning of the show Beth was portrayed as a quiet kid who was mature for her age. Her outburst with Benny went well with the time because it’s showing that Beth isn’t always mature for her age; like most young adults, she also loses her temper and can sometimes take things for granted. I don’t think she’s humbled by this loss, though. I think this will only push her to become more obsessed with winning.
I did not watch the any of the episodes but your blog post reminded me of a cattle show that I was competing at two summers ago. The previous summer three years ago, I had won the entire show and walked out that weekend with over a thousand dollars. I walked in there the next year and expected to do the same thing, I thought that my cows were better than everyone else and that I would be better than everyone else again. I was very wrong! I won showmanship again but once we got to the breed classes the farm that I had beat the previous year had brought double to amount that they had brought last year to beat me. I had put in the work but just not quite enough to win it all again. It was an eye opener for me for sure!