The 5th episode of the series brought with it a new upward swing to the overall plot. Coming out of episode 4, Beth is forced into independence by the loss of her mother. During this period, she begins to learn more about herself and her relationship with her emotions. She displays a detachedness when faced with intimacy, and recklessness in a state of frustration. In addition to Beth’s exploration of how her emotions affect her, it also becomes clear that Beth’s ability as a chess player has continued to grow, as signified by her winning the chess tournament at the end of the film.

This week’s episode of the Queen’s Gambit saw Beth facing new challenges, such as her growing substance abuse problem, further chess related stress, and the loss of her adoptive mother. It’ll be interesting to see how all of these struggles interact with one another in the following episode, as it certainly seems as though the latter two struggles will only worsen the former. But aside from the challenges Beth continues to face, I’ve continued to enjoy the sound design of the show. I’ve found the punctuated echoes from the chess pieces really add to the overall mood of the chess-related scenes, further emphasizing the stress Beth is feeling in those moments.

In the third episode of The Queen’s Gambit, Beth goes through a radical transformation over the course of the episode. The episode begins with Beth feeling confident and in control when she plays chess, often viewing chess as beautiful rather than a competitive sport. In spite of this relaxed, confident perspective, Beth is quickly thrown out of her comfort zone by the end of the episode. The realization that there’s a more skilled player, one who quickly disassembled her idea of invulnerability, threw her into a nervous frenzy of self-criticism and doubt. Seeing this transformation was interesting, and its core elements were incredibly relatable in terms of a seemingly unshakable self-confidence founded on a consistently impeccable performance that’s eventually toppled by the realization that there’s someone else who’s performance is well-above your own. I’m interested to see how Beth deals with this humbling experience in future episodes.

The second episode of The Queen’s Gambit introduced a slew of new characters and circumstances that are sure to bring about interesting plot points in the future. One particularly interesting plot element is Beth’s rekindled dependence on tranquilizers. At the climax of the episode, Beth is shown to utilize the tranquilizers as a way to calm her nerves and get the edge she needs in order to win the final match. This seeming dependence on the drug is sure to have consequences both in terms if the plot and themes, and I’m excited to see how it all develops in following episodes!

Going into watching the show, all I had heard was that the show was:

1. Very well done
2. About chess

I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect from a show about chess, and I myself have only played extremely casually. Regardless, I found the first episode to be incredibly engaging! The show so far is incredibly well done (as I was told), and music/sound design helped to punctuate important events throughout, which resulted in an added dimension to the experience. Something that I found to be kind of funny was the significant lack of explanation on how to play chess as Beth began to learn. The show put forth a lot of effort to showcase her incredible observational powers, allowing her to absorb the rules of the game, but key concepts (such as how to win) were not emphasized explicitly, making it unclear how she derived such rules. This particular point does nothing to detract from my experience however, as the show was fantastic and I look forward to watching more!