This episode really caught me off guard with how the plot developed. After her loss in Las Vegas, the story skips forward in time to show Beth’s growing frustration with her life and her chess skills. Paired with this frustration and struggle with her current skill level we see Beth rely more on substances, going to parties to drink and smoke and distract herself from her problems. With her ever-growing focus on being the best possible chess player she can, Beth takes up learning Russian to have the upper hand on future tournaments against Russian players. This episode really highlighted the cracks in Beth’s seemingly perfect prodigy image, as her stress and turbulent emotions get the better of her in her chess matches this episode. While in previous matches she would silently be poised and demolish her opponents, in this episode she paces around, doubts herself, and gets very visibly frustrated. It was a good visual cue into how her character and skills are stagnating at this point in the series. However, the real stand-out point in this episode was Beth’s mother’s death towards the end. I’m curious to see how this large change in her life, and the loss of one of the only people she’s really connected with, will affect her character going forward.