The Queen’s Gambit and Self Destruction | Best show of 2020 Explained

you know there's something really special about a show that can make something that should be a little bit mundane maybe even boring interesting and exhilarating to watch like a good football movie football digs aside the queen's gambit was a really fun show i'd say fun knowing that the show is actually about the tortured reality of obsession loneliness and substance abuse but yeah i had a great time smiling at the intensity of a chess match watching the strategy 4d chess mind games that are literally happening on a chessboard so the queen's game it tells the story of beth harmon a chess prodigy who becomes an orphan after the death of her mother and quickly enters the tumultuous world of professional chess it's a quick seven-episode mini-series based on the novel of the same name by walter tevis and it stars anya taylor joy more like anya taylor this was a joy to watch but it was an absolute delight i wish i was talking about this earlier but i felt the need to read the book and show stuff always takes longer but i'm on it and i'm happy to be here the show does a great job building the dramatics and theatrics of chess having characters explain out movements so viewers unfamiliar with the game understand the tension they use a lot of fun editing to pull you into the story and the tournaments while also staying a very solid drama with a look at the severity of addiction loneliness links between substance abuse and genius and the weight of that expectation and the self-destructive tendencies it often leads to now in a lot of ways this is very much the same as the book right down to the moment of ordering a large coke which feels so much like product placement the themes track the same so much of the dialogue is absolutely identical but the show does make some key changes mostly all for the best one particular change i'm like really happy they made but i find most of these changes help flush out beth as a character her origins and her relationships with the people around her so let's get into it spoilers chapped lip season baby no show made the very smart choice of showing our lead at the moment just before her greatest downfall before it can cut back and build us to that point or break us to that point we're in paris it's 1967 she wakes up in a tub fully clothed to urgent knocking and realizes she's late at this point we don't know who she is but we know she's flustered panicked and she's popping pills with mini bottles of liquor and immediately starts running through this hotel to a match so how did she get here it brings us back to her at the age of eight right after her mother died in a car crash she miraculously survived and she's brought to the methuen home orphanage for girls this is where the stage is set for the rest of her life in so many different ways as mentioned the show's gonna have a really heavy focus on substance abuse and the optimist guided belief that drugs and alcohol help unlock someone's full creative potential or full genius and this is especially true for beth because these two aspects of her life enter at exactly the same time the orphanage hands out tranquilizers to kids and one of the older girls who quickly becomes her best friend jolene tells her she should save them up for bedtime which she does but she quickly starts to stockpile the pills so she can take multiple doses at once to help block out all the noises of the orphanage at night and it's almost immediately after this that she sees mr scheibel the janitor playing chess in a basement and starts to vividly visualize the board at night after she's taken the pills she quickly becomes obsessed with the game using any spare time she can to sneak away to get matches in and learn more from him he may not be a warm man but he genuinely cares for her and believes in her talent even gives her a book about chess openings she continues to build her skills wins the 12v1 simultaneous against the local high school club and everything is looking up all things considered but it all comes crashing down when she breaks into the medical room to steal a bunch of the tranquilizers after their band gets caught and then is banned from playing chess for the rest of her time at the orphanage which you know when you're the one who got the kids hooked on tranquilizers maybe that's not the punishment you dole out but whatever it then cuts to years later when she's 15 and being adopted by a couple that specifically wanted an older child and schaible is watching from the stairs and my heart is breaking now i was super concerned that the husband kept kind of looking at her in the back mirror weird but it quickly becomes apparent that he was on board and encouraged the adoption specifically of an older child so his wife wouldn't be alone when he leaves her which he does pretty quickly and while mrs wheatley seems nice enough there's definitely a lack of understanding between the two beth largely keeps to herself and mrs wheatley mostly wishes that beth would make some friends and while she hasn't been able to play chess for years it's still something she's passionate about one of her first priorities at school is trying to find a chess club and books about chess and when they go shopping for clothes she's clearly crushed that mrs wheatley won't get her a chest set however after stealing a chess magazine from a local store she realizes that there are entire tournaments with cash prizes it's something she wants to do but mrs wheatley just doesn't understand and says they don't have money i just don't know where all the money goes i've bought little more than trifles this month and yet i have seven dollars 10 out of 10 visual comedy as she glances down at those cigarettes so beth ends up sending a letter to mr scheible to ask him if he can help her cover the entry fee and damn it that sweet man sent it to her but this is also the moment where the tranquilizers come back into her life and even though she's been without them for years the temptation is just too much to pass up why do they only fill these bottles half full but i will say these pills gave us an amazing line from mrs wheatley after she realizes that mr wheatley is gone forever a line that i feel like i will be using a lot in the future my tranquility needs to be refurbished so she makes it to the tournament she's a complete unknown she doesn't understand about clocks or placings but pushes to be included in the open with the best players and quickly dominates her way through the tournament and it's here she meets towns someone her little teenage selves gets a big ol crush on and he becomes the first player she doesn't actually want to beat because she's having such a fun time playing but for beth nothing is as fun as the win sexuality and intimacy are other things we're gonna be touching on in this video but she beats all the pro players including dudley here henry beltic the reigning kentucky champ who shows up late but she feels like she has to use the pills to do it one minute she's flustered and overwhelmed she runs to the bathroom to take the pills and comes back with enough intensity that it even unsettles beltick so she wins and leaves him with this no i can get out of this i don't think so maybe if you'd gotten here on time it's at this point that mrs wheatley really seems to understand the possibility of these tournaments because beth has now come home with a check for a hundred dollars which in the 1960s is significantly more than what a hundred dollars would be today so this is the start of the chess tour circuit with mrs wheatley as her manager beth finally has a bit of money to spend on herself gets a chess set books and she actually gets herself a really nice outfit because her whole life has been people dressing her up like a doll in clothing she's clearly not happy with but had no ability to turn down that should do nicely this will do nicely this is the first moment of her life where she really has any kind of control or agency up until this point things have always just been done for her chosen for her and a lot of those fears of lack of control swing back to thoughts of her mother each of these episodes includes some kind of flashback to her childhood her mother and the day of the crash a moment she never forgets and is always looming because as the series progresses it becomes very obvious that her mom made the decision to crash the car knowing it would probably kill beth as well what's the last thing they said to you before they die close your eyes that's something that keeps bubbling back through the series with her concerns for her own mental health but at this point she started to make a name for herself in the chess circuit beth harmon [ __ ] and she dominates this tournament as well beating a chess master and meeting the world-renowned benny watts who calls her a little girl back when he was your age little girl homie your facial hair is not helping you look any older obviously her success starts to build attention in different publications and while the journalists are hell-bent on trying to focus on her skill as a woman not just the fact that she's skilled and trying to make some weird analogies do you imagine that you saw the king as a father queen as a mother they're just pieces there is a lot of insight to this particular conversation it's an entire world of just 64 squares i can control it i can dominate it and it's predictable so if i get hurt i only have myself to blame that is one of the most telling things about her her whole life she's been in situations outside of her control and the people around her almost constantly let her down chess is her dominion and it's where she's in the most control it's where she excels and feels safe you must have been very lonely i'm fine being alone and it is true she is fine being alone but it becomes all too obvious that she also craves that connection and that companionship putting her in this weird situation where she's both afraid of being alone but also afraid of being hurt and let down by the people around her because everyone in her life has let her down so it's just easier to be on her own like i said some of her earliest memories deal with the fear of abandonment and it ends with the interviewer asking her about apophenia something that causes people to find patterns and meaning where other people don't or where there are none and it creates feelings of revelation and ecstasy the idea of creativity and psychosis or genius and madness you think i'm crazy no so to touch on those flashbacks again those are memories she has with her mother and they build a story of a woman who is like beth very bright but also deeply struggling and while it's not verbalized until closer to the end of the series these are concerns beth has for herself after the profile in life magazine she ends up getting invited to a local event with the other girls but she still just doesn't fit in with these people so she leaves but not before stealing an entire bottle of alcohol it then cuts ahead to 1966 one year before our intro in paris and beth is 18. she's continued her proclivity for fashion finally styled her hair different than how it was in the orphanage and she sees towns again for the first time since she was at the event in kentucky and he is still the only person she's ever had any kind of feelings for so he's there covering the event as a journalist and offers to do a piece on her for the lexington review so he invites her up to his room now in the book it specifically says that while she's playing chess with him she wishes it was sex and in the show she's still quite nervous around him he even seems to be feeling some kind of confusion while taking her photos but then talon's presumed male lover comes back into the room their room with only one bed roger i'm not interrupting am i and yeah even though she's 18 he met her when she was young and awkward and underage so let's get off that but hey it's fine she works her way through the tournament with ease until she meets back up with benny watts who psyches her out by pointing out a flaw in one of her games leading to her pill popping before bed but she's still thrown off during their match over analyzing every single move she makes and just at the moment she thinks she finally has him beat he flips it and she suffers her first loss but overall draws for the tournament but to her it's still a loss but it doesn't deter her from continuing on she starts taking russian in preparation for potential tournaments with the big players and gets invited to hang out with the college kids after class and partakes in her first marijuana which you know honestly after slamming back tranquilizers for her entire life musa just felt like a particularly strong breeze this is also where she loses her virginity in the show it just kind of looks like he's dry humping her but in the book it's definitely sex and while we've seen her drink before this is the first time we essentially see beth go on a full day binge hanging out in the apartment alone all day and night drinking but time goes on she graduates continues to dominate the tournaments before heading down to mexico where her mom meets up for many an exciting time with manuel her longtime pen pal so this is the first time her mom has been occupied at one of her tournaments leaving beth alone for almost the entire trip while she does do well alone she craves that affection and connection and it bothers her that her mother someone she's essentially had to herself for the past three years is now too ill to get to her matches even though she's out almost all night with manuel this is also the first tournament where she'll be encountering borgob the russian world champ but then beth is fazed with something potentially even more unnerving than the russian world champ another child prodigy and she hates this kid for no real reason other than the resentment that she could have been greater so much earlier had she been afforded the same opportunities this leads to a tense match that ultimately ends in an adjournment until the next day and before she leaves the kid asks about drive-in movies because it's just not something they have where he lives and this perfectly proper robotic 13 year old boy responds with i would take that now i've seen a few different interpretations of this scene some people seem to think he was flirting with her which i don't get at all i think on the one hand this is the moment she realizes that he's probably not as invested in chess as she is and at the end of the day he's still just a kid he was raised to be amazing and he has goals but it's just not the same as what beth has so the next day they resume play and she just starts wandering around instead of the intense board analysis it's like she doesn't even care at this point she's spent the entire evening going over multiple scenarios and wants to get it over with but it's definitely more than that she's doing all this to throw them off i know some people do think it was just because she was so confident in the outcome of the match that she was bored but she's staring him down she's tapping her feet all similar to the things that she's had done to her in the past that caused annoyance and distraction anya taylor joy even confirmed that she asked if she was allowed to just psych this poor kid out while they were filming without actually warning him and it works she wins the match but the hate she felt for him yesterday is dissipated i've never been to a drive-in either but she starts to ask about his history with chess how he plans to be the world champ by the age of 16 but when she asks what comes after that he literally doesn't know how to answer if you're world champion at 16 what'll you do with the rest of your life i don't understand imagine thinking that all your accomplishments would be achieved by the age of 16. you're just setting yourself up for a massive downfall a downfall that beth might be staring down but hers is going to be different in the elevator back up to her room she ends up with borgoff the world champ she needs to beat to win the tournament and they don't realize she can understand russia and they're talking about the rumors that she may be a drunk that makes mistakes when she's angry like all women but it's actually borgob that points out that she's an orphan she's a survivor that like them losing just isn't an option because if she's not winning what does she have which may be true but it's not necessarily something you want to hear so it's time for the match and borgob immediately throws her off with an unexpected play her mom's not watching which distracts her even more and she thinks back to her first lessons with schaible where she learns when it's time to concede so she gets back to her room she's explaining the loss to her mom how the second he made a move it felt like she had already lost how she felt humiliated but then realizes she's dead mrs wheatley had been regularly sick throughout the show and had commented that she was feeling unwell during their time in mexico but beth just assumed it was all the late nights and just like that she's not only suffered her first major career loss but she's also lost her only support network her best friend and she's orphaned again also the moment that she realizes that you don't need a prescription for those tranquilizers in mexico and no baby does she stock up but she has no real idea of what to do she has the hotel tracked out mr wheatley who really just doesn't want anything to do with the situation and tells her that she can keep the house as long as she keeps making the payments so she heads back to america having a number of gibsons mrs wheatley's in-flight drink of choice strongest person is the person who wasn't scared to be alone so she makes it back home and deadly boy reappears to offer her chess lessons and she makes the offer for him to stay with her mostly so that she doesn't have to be alone but he clearly wants more the two do end up having sex and it clearly means more to him than her he notices her pills realizes that she's not into him the same way he is and that she's gotten to the point where he's too slow at visualizing to present her with challenge and he leaves to start his life because to her he was helpful but the primary reason she wanted him around was for different reasons and it's in this final conversation that he brings up morphy a chess player who dominated his way through european masters before retiring at 22. he'd stay up all night drinking before matches then show up perfectly fine and play like a shark but crashed out you know what they called him the pride and the sorrow of chess and you think that's gonna be me i think that is you be careful beth and in the book after he leaves it specifically mentions that she doesn't miss the sex but she does miss something and it's obviously the companionship and just not being alone but it's time for the ohio championships in 1967 against scrawny boy benny she's back to taking pills before bed she's ready to dominate her way through the championship and get her invite to russia you should see the places they play in the soviet union i'm planning on it you have to get past me first i'm planning on that too and if beth is confident in herself benny is in love with himself he loves the publicity he loves surrounding himself with books he's written articles he's featured in and for decent reason he's a very good player so when the opportunity arises to play him in a series of speed chess rounds the night before their match she feels compelled to accept and he wipes the floor with her taking both her money and her pride but championship matches are not speed chess and after a weekend of wins she continues the trend and beats him something up having some post-match drinks and even he comments that she can out-drink him too you always drink this much sometimes i drink more which concerns him because after mexico she's scared of losing to borgob again and kinda wants to sell sabotage before she even has a chance to play him because being the champion gets her the invite to the russian invitational where she'd be going up against numerous skilled russians and the world's best players and he thinks that she's the only one who might be able to beat him and offers to have her stay with him in new york to train before her match in paris you know this paris match but she agrees to go to new york and he says awesome we leave tomorrow and no sex so the glamorous new york chess lifestyle is a basement with no couch but at least she's getting her practice in away from alcohol and he ends up inviting over a couple chest champs one who's actually a grand master but they bring cleo a french model who beth is fascinated by in a couple of ways she appreciates her fashion something she's also passionate about people in the chess world even claim that she's too glamorous for chess which is ridiculous and this is the first female other than her mother that she's had a decent conversation with since leaving the orphanage but benny brought them over to have a simultaneous with her where she proceeds to kick all their asses multiple times at the same time and wins back her money so now they sleep together and she's like wow that's what it's supposed to be like sucks to be hairy oh my god in the book benny still wasn't all that amazing i guess but whatever but then he immediately starts talking about chess which pisses her off but she makes it to paris they ask how she feels about the match with borgob and she says she feels good and she's spending most of her time going over matches stay in my room and study mr borghof's old games including the one against you in mexico city hassobina but of course this is where our story began there probably won't be any triumph here so when cleo shows up at her hotel borrow the night before the match with borigob and bev heads down in that same dress she wakes up in the tub wearing i knew it was over she gets drunk for the first time in ages because again because again she longs for that companionship and understanding and hates being alone and she finds cleo and her lifestyle fascinating just like i find it fascinating that cleo is in her bed naked now beth does wake up fully clothed in a bathtub late for her match so who knows what happens probably nothing but this is where the disaster starts as fascinating as cleo is showing up to the biggest match of her life hungover after popping a couple tranquilizers with a liquor chase was certainly not the plan and though she does shockingly well considering her state she can't chug water her way out of these shakes to a win so she leaves paris benny's upset that she's not going back to him in new york is upset that she played hungover and while she turns down the in-flight liquor she gets home to mr wheatley wanting the house back so she ends up buying out his equity for a fat 7k which i think is about 54 000 adjusted for inflation and starts to remodel and decorate to her taste which might have been a financially poor decision considering she has to get herself to moscow but thankfully the christian crusades are ready to stick it to the russkies so they'll fund her trip and pay benny to come as her second and if she does the promotional circuit the chess federation will toss in some money as well all that on top of some smaller local tournaments she should be set and recouped but beth on her own is not set benny wants her to come back to new york which probably would have been the safest choice but i don't think she wants to admit that she cares for him and she's still nervous about going to russia after what happened in paris it's not long after this that she starts drinking again one trip out to a restaurant she's drunk stumbling home with wine in the book beth actually describes this as consummating her relationship with alcohol after flirting with it for years she's drinking because she's lonely to punish herself and then when she feels too much she takes the pills to counteract it beginning her downward spiral of all day binge drinking general self neglect that's my girl in the show harry comes around to check on her and tries calling a couple times but she never answers at this point in the book most of the people that she's pushed away or dropped don't reappear but i thought this was actually a nice change but her fear of failure has led to a complete and total self-sabotage something that a lot of people who have genius imposed upon them feel when they don't achieve those expectations you've got your gift and you've got what it costs and those local small tournaments well one is the very next day and her extended bender just isn't attuned to her needing to be somewhere for 9 30 in the morning so she shows up with some striking makeup inspired by the venus music video in need of some aspirin but then she actually runs into the first person she ever beat at the kentucky open and she's literally just there to tell her how much it meant to her to watch her succeed in her career because it proved that you know girls could achieve this that it was possible for them to succeed against the top names and this really unsettles beth in her current state so when harry finally tracks her down and points out that he's concerned about her drinking and he can see how bad it's getting based on her eyes she ends up super mad at him but she's still upset enough to just leave the tournament so she sinks back into self-pity before jolene shows up to tell her about mr schaible's death in the book she actually reaches out to jolene for help which i personally liked more i like that she had to actively make the decision to change and ask someone for serious help and then trust them but even in the show she's finally hit a point where she's worried she's destroying her brain with alcohol what used to be something that calmed her in the same way the pills did but faster is causing her downward spiral and destruction and like i mentioned she's already been concerned about her mental well-being because of her mom but julene tells her that she's not like her mom she doesn't have to go to russia if she doesn't want to but she shouldn't just keep falling into this pit so they head to schaible's funeral beth feels bad because she realizes she never gave him back the ten dollars he sent to enter that first tournament which literally changed her life i feel bad i owed him ten dollars but it isn't until she visits the basement at methawin house that she has her full breakdown in that basement where she learned to play was a series of newspapers and magazine clippings articles and pictures of her successes her wins her stories the letter she sent and the picture the two of them took together just before she went to the high school for her first simultaneous that moment really changed things for her she's committed to cleaning up her life she's committed to making it to russia even after giving the money back to the christian crusaders because she didn't want to make a propaganda statement for them in the press because it's [ __ ] nonsense but at this point after buying a house and drinking her life away for months and giving the cc back their money she doesn't have enough to make it to moscow in the book it's just that she doesn't have enough to bring benny who at this point is extra upset that she never went back to new york and essentially tells her to go [ __ ] herself which he still does in the show after he asks if he has any money to put towards the trip come on i don't want to go to russia by myself first you don't come back to new york and you basically tell me that you'd rather be a drunk than be with me no you can [ __ ] well go alone and i can't blame him so in the show jolene pulls through lends her the money that she was saving for law school because she's confident beth can win and if she doesn't she'll just take some of her nice dresses what time that was all you had and for a time it was all i had so she makes it to russia with her own security dude with fun rules to avoid her falling victim to russian spies and immediately the russian players underestimate her and she works her way through confidently much to their dismay even borgob is studying her board after matches something she's exceedingly proud of russians also take chess super seriously so with every victory there's an increased number of people waiting outside the tournament for her autograph she even walks by a park filled with older men playing chess that in the book specifically remind her of mr schaible and through it all she's continuing to turn down alcohol she hasn't been taking her pills and she's still dominating the matches her first bit of trouble actually comes from this jolly fellow a dominant world champ who beth actually admires and seems to enjoy playing until they have to adjourn when she makes it back to her hotel after that match she sees that he is working with the two best players including borgov to help him with this strategy while she's just completely alone to do this but she manages to work out her recovery and beats him rather quickly and he's genuinely pleased at this i resign with relief you are a marvel my dear i may have just played the best chess player of my life and her popularity in moscow is at an all-time high people are genuinely excited for her even though she's american but finally it's time for borgov she's stressed the night before unable to think getting caught up in the memories of her mother purposely driving her car into another vehicle trying to kill them both and as tempted as she is to take the pills she just ends up flushing them down the toilet breaking the possibility of her relying on them and it's like the whole city is following this match the two go back and forth for ages before adjourning and when she leaves that match the press is waiting she insists they print about mr scheible something they've always neglected before and surprise towns is here again not a thing in the book but a welcome friend in the show it turns out the moscow embassy actually expedited his visa because they'd hoped he would be a distraction to her but if anything that rekindled friendship is exactly what she needed someone to point out that it isn't the pills that got her here and that the booze almost took it all away someone to help her go over the match with but it's not just him benny harry and the chess bros are on the line the next morning to help because they've been going over the match for hours so many of the people she's encountered over the years are willing to pull together to help her even when she'd done so much to push some of them away he didn't chase him away no even though he yelled at him well of course not so the match resumes everything's going as planned until borghoff makes an unexpected move and then beth does what she's done on the pills for years and visualizes the board on the ceiling 100 confirming that she doesn't need them to succeed that they weren't the secret to her intelligence and talent or some kind of cheat code and borgov does what he never does offers a draw a draw however is not a win the one thing we know about elizabeth harmon is that she loves to win so even though borgov is known for his end games beth makes it through beats him claims the title but more importantly she does it herself not with any substances taking her win and the show ends quite perfectly with her wandering into that chess park with these sweet old men who love the game so purely where they're so excited to see her and she sits down to play showing a full circle reclaim of her love of the game and my god what a beautiful series it had no business making me feel this much why am i crying i've watched the show three times now while making this video and it's just as interesting as the first time i went through it so it is absolutely worth your time there's a reason why it's still top trending on netflix so if you haven't watched it yet i would urge you to do so but that is the queen's gambit let me know what you guys are thinking in the comment section down below did you love it did you hate it i know there's so much going on in the show that there's some things i missed and i honestly decided to leave a bunch of the stuff that happened in the book out because i just don't feel like it served anything for this video but thank you very much for watching i hope you're all having a fantastic day thank you as always to my patreon supporters subscribe to the channel if you're new leave a like on the video if you're into that kind of thing i hope you're all having a fantastic day i'm mostly okay and we'll catch you all later you

Channel: Amanda the Jedi

Views: 426,486

Rating: 4.9752622 out of 5

Keywords: Queen's Gambit, the queen's gambit, queen's gambit netflix, the queen's gambit netflix, anya taylor joy, best of 2020, reacting to queen's gambit, best of netflix, best television 2020, amanda the jedi queen's gambit, thomas brodie sangster, harry melling, beth and townes, beth harmon, benny watts, the queen's gambit explained, beauty in the breakdown, queen's gambit themes, top on netflix, chess, chess show

Id: pIdxbLFkkk0

Length: 27min 38sec (1658 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 08 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/Clarity_Page]

Kira the hedgehog... Turned jedi!