Snark Squad Pod #110 – The Queen’s Gambit (2020)

Marines Alvarez 0:00
[OUT TAKE] Thank you to T— (nonsense noises) Almost done. You can do it brain.

Hello and welcome to Snark Squad Pod, a media podcast full of friendship, feelings and snark. My name is Marines.

Nicole Sweeney 0:21
I am Nicole Sweeney.

Marines Alvarez 0:22
And today we’re joined by Taylor Behnke.

Taylor Behnke 0:25
Hi, my name is Taylor. I make internet things at youtube.com/itsradishtime or itsradishtime on all other Internet places.

Nicole Sweeney 0:34
And Taylor is back with us again today to talk about The Queen’s Gambit, a seven episode Netflix miniseries adapted from the novel of the same name by Walter Tevis. I now have to do the synopsis. This is gonna be so long. I’m so sorry. I just I– It’s been… I’m out of practice, okay? So the story follows Beth Harmon an orphan and child chess prodigy. The show begins in mid-1950s Kentucky with the car accident that killed Beth’s mother and left her orphaned. Beth is taken to an orphanage where she is given daily doses of tranquilizers, which apparently was a thing that orphanages used to do. So that’s pretty fucked. Beth meets her friend Jolene when she arrives at the orphanage. Jolene tells Beth not to swallow the tranquilizers and to save them for bedtime, a further indication of how fucked this all is. I think because she’s just like, you know, you’re in an orphanage, so maybe, maybe get high before you go to bed. Beth eventually heeds the advice to not swallow but only so that she can save up the pills and take really large doses and get super high before bedtime, you know, like once a week instead of every night. One day Beth goes down to the basement to clap the chalkboard erasers together and she spots the custodian Mr. Shaibel sitting at a table playing chess by himself. She begs him to teach her how to play and he refuses because girls don’t play chess. But Beth watches him and figures out the basics. At night after she’s taken her megadose of tranquilizers, she hallucinates a giant chessboard on the ceiling, which is just a thing that she’s going to do throughout the show. There’s just going to be a giant CG chessboard on the ceiling, and this is how she starts teaching herself to play chess. She eventually gets back down to the basement and demonstrates this to Mr. Shaibel, who is impressed enough to be grudgingly allow her to play and he gradually warms to her and teaches her and low-key adopts her and it’s very sweet. He even gets her the opportunity to go show off and beat the entire chess club at the nearby high school when she’s like 11, maybe? I don’t actually I don’t remember, but younger than the roomful of boys that she defeats.

Around this same time, like laws happen, and the orphanage is no longer allowed to drug it’s kids, though before Beth leaves for the high school match– so like the drugs were not happening right before the high school match, and Jolene sees Beth like struggling and anxious and going through withdrawals. So Jolene swipes some of the pills because there’s still a huge jar full of them, and gives them to Beth so that Beth can feel confident and ready to play chess. Later, Beth tries to steal from that big jar herself. And it goes disastrous– disastrously for her and she gets caught and she’s forbidden to play chess. We jump forward a couple years skipping some sad chess free-years I assume and Beth is now Anya Taylor Joy and a teenager. Surprisingly to everyone, Beth winds up getting adopted as a teenager by Alma and Allston Wheatley. We quickly learn that this new home is in fact also not ideal. Beth was like functionally a puppy that Allston tried to bring home to comfort his wife who was extremely depressed because of her deeply unsatisfying housewife life. Allston abandons them shortly thereafter, and Alma and Beth agreed to like keep quiet about Austin’s leaving, because if they let anybody know, Beth would have to go back to the orphanage. At some point, Beth discovers that Alma has been prescribed the same drugs that she was taking as a kid. So Beth starts skimming from Alma’s supply. Beth’s substance abuse is a major running element of the show because Beth believes that the drugs help her be good at chess. One day Beth finds out about a chess tournament, but she doesn’t have the money to enter and Alma won’t give it to her. So she writes to Mr. Shaibel, promising to give him double the $5 entrance fee if she wins the $100 prize. Sure enough, she goes in and beats all the grown men including her final match against Terry Beltik, who we will see again. This is also where she meets Jacob Fortune Lloyd, her first crush, who is bemused by this child prodigy. Once Alma realizes that Beth is like winning-money good, and since they are very broke, Alma basically becomes Beth’s manager. They take that $100 Prize and put it towards a bigger and better match, which Beth also wins. Beth and Alma travel a lot and Beth wins tournaments and life is generally better for both of them. Beth gets to play chess. Alma gets to have a job. They both get to have money. School pretty much abandoned. Beth finally loses her first match, a tournament final against Benny Watts, who is I guess supposed to be like cool and swaggering but is also played by the little boy from “Love Actually” slash Jojen Reed from “Game of Thrones,” and truly I could never take this portrayal seriously, like I didn’t understand what I– like what vibe I was supposed to be getting from this man. But anyway, we’re gonna see him again, too. At that same tournament, she also meets up with her crush Jacob again. He is now a journalist and chose to cover the tournament partly to try to see her again. She misinterprets this and tries to make a move, but then his boyfriend walks in and she flees the room embarrassed. They go to Mexico, where Beth expects to face the Russian champion. This is her next big Boogeyman. Also in Mexico, Alma meets up with her pen pal boyfriend and has a really lovely time. She tries to get Beth to go do fun things with her, but Beth will not because she must prepare for the big match. Also, at some point, Beth has learned Russian like she started learning Russian. I don’t really remember when in the series has happened, but at some point she’s in the elevator and she overhears the Russians talking shit about how drunk and volatile she is. Anyway, when Beth is facing the Russian champion, she’s looking for Alma who’s not there and Beth is super disoriented and ultimately loses. She returns to their hotel room to find that Alma has died from hepatitis. Beth returns home to Kentucky distraught. Eventually, Harry Beltik the champion he defeated in her first match shows up to help her because even though she is much better at chess than him, she’s bad at training, I guess. He’s there to help her train, and they eventually start hooking up but that ends disastrously so Harry leaves, and Beth is alone again. Beth’s next big tournament is the US championship where she finally gets her rematch against Benny Watts. This time she defeats him becoming the US champ and earning an invitation to a match in Paris where she will face the Russian champion again. Beth accepts Benny’s invitation to train with him in New York before Paris. They also eventually hook up but this time it’s Beth who winds up disappointed. Beth goes to Paris and goes on a bit of a bender the night before the match against the Russian champion and she winds up losing again. After Paris, she was back to Kentucky declining Benny’s invitation to return to New York to train for her next big international match in Moscow. Instead of training, Beth falls deeply into her addiction and spends some amount of time just perpetually drunk and high.

She is again picked up off her feet by an old friend because Jolene has returned. Jolene is back partially because she knows that her friend is a mess and Jolene is a much better person than Beth. And also because Mr. Shaibel is dead and Jolene figures that Beth will want to go to the funeral. Back at the orphanage for the first time, Beth discovers this like really moving shrine of newsclippings about her that Mr. Shaibel had been assembling over the years. And Beth is really sad because she never paid him his $10. Jolene continuing to be the best, and in spite of Beth’s now established history of not paying back her benefactors, loans Beth the money that she needs to get to Moscow. Beth gets clean goes to Moscow. Jacob is there again, mostly just hoping to see Beth. Back in Beth’s hotel room, Jacob and Beth get a call from New York where all of Beth’s chess friends are gathered in Benny’s apartment and the gang gets together to devise strategies for Beth to win. This is also a part of the like cold war elements of this story, because we are reminded repeatedly that the Russians are collaborative, and that’s how they’re so good, whereas the Americans are individualists. But thanks to the power of collaboration, Beth wins. After the match, her CIA handler is telling her about all the cool stuff waiting for her back in DC but Beth is like, “you know what? Fuck this.” So she asked the driver to pull over and she walks into a nearby park where she plays chess with a bunch of old Russian men. The end.

Marines Alvarez 8:27
The end. How you want every story to end: with a bunch of old Russian men.

Nicole Sweeney 8:34
Yes.

Marines Alvarez 8:38
Okay, so we will start where we always start and I’m going to ask you that classic first question of “did you like this?”

Taylor Behnke 8:46
Yes, I liked it quite a bit.

Nicole Sweeney 8:48
I also really enjoyed it.

Marines Alvarez 8:49
I did as well. So we’re 3 for 3. I think that there are things that if I sat here, like as we’re going to do, and, and sort of get down to the nitty gritty of it, certainly things that you can kind of pull apart, but the bingeability of the show and all of that, like I was totally engrossed while I watched it. So we’ll start at the top, I guess, because Beth is clearly you know, main character, linchpin of this whole thing and the portrayal by Anya Taylor joy, I think is something really interesting. And as like, this whole thing is very stylistic snd there’s a very distinct look to the show, but also just sort of the way that Anya Taylor Joy brings back to life I think is really distinct. So how did you enjoy her portrayal and what do you think of the character?

Taylor Behnke 9:38
I quite liked kind of, I mean, gosh, the show is so pretty to look at. Anya Taylor Joy, also pretty to look at, but I really liked, in a way that I think rubbed other people the wrong way, the way that she like really femmes up the performance. You can see that every like movement of like the way that she holds her hands, the way that she like moves the chess pieces on the board, the way that she shakes the hand of the other players is all supposed to be like extremely feminine to kind of highlight this contrast that like, nearly everywhere she goes, she’s the only woman in the room, and that she’s kind of making her way in the all male chess world. But I found it kind of, like interesting and cool, not so much in like a girl boss way, but also like, because I feel like it would be very, very easy for the character to be kind of like mousy and boyish and like, cuz she’s smart. And I really liked that they played against that.

Nicole Sweeney 10:35
And it also tracks so much with everything else about the way this character is portrayed that like, in addition to Anya Taylor Joy, the actress making this decision as an actress like, it also feels, it feels like a choice that Beth would make, like that Beth would be– would lean into her femininity in that way, in these moments. I also really, really enjoyed her performance. That is a big part of why I watched the show. I watched this almost immediately after it came out. I turned on Netflix, and I knew nothing. I literally had never seen a trailer. I knew nothing about it. But I turned on Netflix one day, and Netflix was like, “Hey, here’s this actress you like and also it’s set during the Cold War.” And I was like, “well, that’s amazing.” So I watched it. And and yeah, she’s really fantastic in this role.

Marines Alvarez 11:20
I agree. I think that the physicality of how she’s portraying Beth is what I honestly couldn’t take my eyes off of. There were things here that were like exaggerated. And I feel like the moment that I really registered it was when she meets Cleo, I think what’s her name, the French model that she ends up like spending the night with or whatnot.

One of Benny Watt’s friends.

Yes, that friend and she she spends the night with her, and like all of her lines are like “we model are just pretty but empty inside.” And it was so exaggerated that it was like, “oh my God.” This show is like doing this with a lot of characters. They really feel like caricatures. Benny is another one, but in a way that I found, like compelling and part of what they were doing. And so you see that also in sort of what we’re talking about the way that Anya is carrying herself, the physicality of it, the way you know, she has all of these signature moves: the two fingers on her lips when she’s looking at something, and the way that she looks at her opponents, you know that that cliche of like, up, you know, through her lashes or whatnot, that she looks at people,and how she resigns and puts her hand forward, like just saying these things, I can picture them clearly in my head. So I think that that there’s something to say for the way that she brought this character alive in such a distinct way.

Taylor Behnke 12:38
Yeah, and I think like to Nicole’s point, like, this makes sense for the character. It’s not just like the actor overacted like, you see, I mean, like Beth learns how to play chess, I mean, by playing Mr. Shaibel, but like also just like memorizing chess games, and like reading books and stuff. And like that sort of same studiedness, I think shows up in her physicality. Like when she first goes to public school, and she’s looking at how all the other girls are moving and talking to each other and what they’re wearing, and like, she doesn’t really have anybody to teach her how to person. A lot of it is kind of external, and that she’s just sort of copying what she sees other people do.

Marines Alvarez 13:17
It tracks for me that, you know, the character of Beth coming from the orphanage and and then having Mrs. Wheatley as sort of a mother figure, and then being this person that is very studied and very smart, but also likes pretty things and didn’t get a lot of them growing up like that, all of that would produce this version of Beth. It all makes sense to me that all of those ingredients went into one character and that this is what you get on the other side, so.

Nicole Sweeney 13:46
Yeah, now that she finally has, you know, a home and money that she’s like, oh, okay, this is– I will now actively perform all of the things that I did not have.

Marines Alvarez 13:57
I think the next character we should talk about is Mrs. Wheatley.

Taylor Behnke 14:00
Yeah, I think she’s also a character that’s like super like heightened and kind of caricaturized and the way that like Benny is and like these chess guys, but like the first thing that struck me about her is like how she talks weird. Like, she like sort of speaks in like a really robotic way and she uses like a lot of large words and seems like kind of cold and distant and she’s also hiding a lot of trauma. But you know, Beth is kind of the right kid for her to be able to pick that out without her actually having to share it.

Marines Alvarez 14:34
It’s pretty clear once Beth gets adopted that, like Nicole said in her synopsis, that this is also not an ideal home situation, but watching the progression of them become family, and I don’t know the way that Mrs. Wheatley is kind of suited to Beth in a lot of ways. Probably not great for Beth, you know? She hands her– passes her alcohol and sort of enabled her in certain ways that are decidedly not good. But the way that she cares for her, the way she speaks to her, the way that she coaches her, you know, even on the day that she’s dying and telling her you need to have fun, you need to trust your intuition. So there’s a lot there that I think is very suited for Beth. And so watching them grow together and fall into this lifestyle was one of the things that I think pulled most at my heartstrings. I was invested in this. I don’t know that I had like very strong feelings while watching it. Like I was engaged, but it wasn’t something that made me cry or anything like that. But the relationship between Beth and Mrs. Wheatley was like, probably the thing that gave me the most feelings.

Taylor Behnke 15:43
Yeah, I think it was like, like, what really touched me was like, the scene right after Mrs. Wheatley’s husband has kind of like, abandoned her for good. They have this conversation where she’s like, “well, I may not be like a wife anymore, but I think I can learn to be a mother.” And it’s like this very intentional decision. Like, all right, I’m gonna just throw everything into learning how to mom now, which I think is kind of especially meaningful because there’s– I don’t know. Like there’s these flashbacks to Beth’s birth mom, right, where it seems like a lot of her struggle was like she just didn’t know what to do with this kid, and didn’t know how to be the kind of mom that she needed and sort of gave up. But then to see Mrs. Wheatley kind of come to a similar crossroads and be like, “alright, I’m going to, I’m going to figure it out. I’m going to do it. And like, I may not be perfect at it, but I’m going to try to be here for this kid” was just really sweet to me.

Nicole Sweeney 16:43
Yeah, I also found their whole dynamic incredibly moving. I agree that it’s the most, I don’t know, emotionally stirring relationship in the show. And even though it is technically an actual, you know, family because Mrs. Wheatley legally adopts her, the the way that it plays out– going back to what Taylor just said about intentionality– ithe way that it plays out is very much found family, like the way that found family stories happen, which is an established favorite trope of ours. But it’s this thing of them choosing each other in this very active way that is really really lovely. And even though they are both deeply flawed and broken, they managed to build something really special between the two of them and it was just incredibly lovely and moving to watch.

Marines Alvarez 17:34
This might be an oversimplification but an alternate title to this whole show could be like “Beth, chess, drugs and the various men who love her.” Because I feel like the balance of characters, save for Jolene, but the the the majority of the characters we have left are really just these men that move in and out of her life and love her in different capacities from Mr. Shaibel at the very beginning, Harry and Townes, who who both tried to train her and she falls in love with or you know, has feelings for in different in different measures. And even the way that like the her Russian opponent is portrayed, there’s like, I don’t know, a measure there of her like watching him, studying him respecting him. And then at the end, he like, hugs her. And it’s so like, I don’t know, it was not what I was expecting in that moment either that there’s like almost sort of like a fatherly figure aspect to it as well, especially in the way that they sort of set him up. All of his interviews are like, “you’re so old, when are you gonna retire?” And it was like very fatherly figure in that in that in that regard. So, are there any of these supporting various men who love her that stood out to you? Or, you know, best? Worse, all of that jazz?

Nicole Sweeney 18:55
I just want to say, though, that even the one woman that she meets after like, as an adult, also hooks up with her too, so?

Taylor Behnke 19:02
Yeah, I mean, like, one thing I will say is, well, first of all, so some context about the chess world is that I watched this with my my girlfriend, who was a competitive chess player in her middle school years. And so both explained to me that that the chess games were all very accurate, but that the chess world was too in that like, very much, that would be a thing that like, one girl walks into the room, and it doesn’t even matter that like, the actor is very beautiful. Like, they’d just be like, “girl!” Like, the fact that she ends up like sleeping with multiple chest dudes is not super off.

Nicole Sweeney 19:44
It’s not just like a movie, a movie Quirk.

Taylor Behnke 19:46
Right. Yeah. I think it’s, it makes sense for her character, but also like, I do find it really nice that like, this could have been a show that’s like, “it’s a man’s world.” And she’s like– I think it’s it’s really great that actually all of these men come to care for her deeply. And it’s not just like her constantly, like, there’s a little bit of it at the beginning of people being like “you’re girl, you can’t play chess,” but like, then they see her play and they’re like, “oh, yeah, yeah, no, you’re really good and you’re better and then all of us” and they just rally around her.

Nicole Sweeney 20:17
And even like, when she does, like, she hooks up with them and it is part of the the trajectory of the story. It sort of it moves things, moves things along in different ways. But it’s not– it’s never her central conflict. That is never an important conflict for her.

Taylor Behnke 20:35
Yeah,it’s never like she’s the slowest of the chess world.

Nicole Sweeney 20:39
Nor is it her, you know, even with the the one time that she does get hurt, like even that is not like, “oh, no, this is now like, this is the thing that’s us down and out about.” She does spiral out shortly after that, but it’s very clear that she’s spiraling out because of the loss in Paris, not because of him. It has nothing to do with him.

Marines Alvarez 20:56
And I think that not all of these relationships are romantic. I think that it is just the story– it is a very interesting story of a really gifted young woman who attracts all of these people because or around that, or people see sort of her talent and see her shine and see– so of course, they’re all like flocking to her. But it’s also a young woman who, you know, she grew up without family. She grew up in an orphanage. She doesn’t know what it is like to have a traditional family. And so you see her struggling with a lot of things throughout the series, but sort of relationships and navigating that is a primary thing that she’s trying to navigate. So even though she gains a mother, she never really gains a father, but we see all of these men and father figures moving in and out of her life. It was a very interesting aspect of the show, I think.

Taylor Behnke 21:48
Yeah, I think sort of like, because she just has never been adequately cared for in her life, he’s like, “oh, this man is trying to help me like, should we kiss?”

Marines Alvarez 22:03
I want to– I mean, I really don’t have anything to say about the character. But Benny Watts because you brought it.

Taylor Behnke 22:10
Oh, BennyHe gave me big, he gave me big… Uh, what’s the Weasley Brother that’s supposed to be cool, but in the movie, he shows up and you’re like, “that’s not cool.” Charlie is his name, I think. Same thing. Yeah. He– Benny watts, I think was supposed to be cool.

Oh, I didn’t get that at all. I mean…

Nicole Sweeney 22:31
I also got the impression that he was supposed to be cool, but I– but Taylor, I would love to hear what you, what your read is.

Taylor Behnke 22:36
Thee vibe that I got? And I just like, I feel like, do we all know, Benny? Because I definitely grew up knowing a Benny. Like, there’s a kid in your class who’s kind of weird, and he wears a full length duster and carries a knife. Like, I think that Benny thought he was cool. And he was like, “yeah, I got to like, learn how to fight.” And I think he’s the one maybe who tells Beth that she needs to learn Russian too. Because he’s like, “oh, yeah, like, I’m, I’m edgy. I like speak Russian and carry weapons.” But like, I think that and like everybody who kind of revered him for his chess skill. But there’s like, there’s a scene where he’s like talking to some like younger player and like, trying to, like give him advice about like, how he needs to live to be as cool as him and there’s a moment or best kind of observing this interaction. And I get the sense that she’s like, “Wow, what a loser.” That, that we’re supposed to be in with her being like, “this is the guy– like, this is the guy that everybody thinks is great?” But then they kind of both grow on each other. So like, they’re both kind of under estimating the other but they both kind of grow to appreciate each other morea and learn from each other. It’s a very mutual relationship, where it’s not just, you know, Benny, showing us how to play chess, but like, she helps him improve his skill. And there’s like, this great arc, where it kind of like, he’s beating her all the time. And then she starts to beat him and, I don’t know, I sort of felt like that, that like him being kind of a weirdo is like, just a nod to like, she’s eventually gonna surpass the sky and skill because like, she’s getting it more together and he’s just, like, never gonna quite be there.

Nicole Sweeney 24:16
I accept that read. I do know a Benny. You’re right. I absolutely know that guy.

Marines Alvarez 24:20
I do, too! As soon as you said it–

Nicole Sweeney 24:23
I think that, um, I the only thing that I would I kind of disagree because I do feel like he is meant to be perceived as cool within the confines of the chess world. I think that

Taylor Behnke 24:34
Yeah, I’ll accept that!

Nicole Sweeney 24:34
He’s ment to be perceived as cool by other chess players, but it does feel like a nod that okay, but like everybody else thinks that these people are really nerdy is that, and so this is– this is what is cool within this sort of space.

Taylor Behnke 24:48
Yeah, that like I think he kind of is the foil to like, when Harry Beltik is like, helping her out and then he’s going to college and gets a job at a grocery store. And he’s like, “I can’t just like spend the rest of my life being a chess bum,” and then that makes Beth kind of like reconsider the path that she’s on. She’s like, “oh, do I want to like be… Benny?”

Marines Alvarez 25:13
Yeah, soon as he said the whole thing about knowing a guy with like the duster, I literally saw him on the stoner hill at my high school. Like I know exactly where he was standing. So you are correct. I know Benny.

The last character I think we should probably mention his Beth’s friend Jolene. Her one true friend.

Nicole Sweeney 25:32
Yes.

Marines Alvarez 25:32
Jolene.

Taylor Behnke 25:34
Justice for Jolene!. Yeah, I– hashtag justice for Jolene. This is like the one flub the show for me is that like, she’s in the first two episodes and she’s kind of like- she’s almost like a surrogate mom for Beth when she first shows up at the orphanage, showing her the ropes and, being like, “hey, you might have a hard time sleeping because of all the trauma, so like, save your tranquilizer.” And really looking out for her. And then– I don’t know, she seems like a really interesting character. She seems like she’s got a story of her own. Like one thing that she asks that is like, “What’s the last thing your parents ever said to you?” And like that’s, you know, allows her to kind of go into a flashback. But I’m like, I want to know what the last thing Jolene’s parents ever said. Like, I want to know more about her story. Like she seems like a really interesting character. And then she just disappears out of the show until like the last episode when she’s like, “oh, I heard that one of the conflicts that you have right now is that you can’t pay to go to this tournament in Russia. Here’s some money.” And like, it is very much like a magical Negro, like I pop out, you know, of the woodwork to help you on your emotional journey. And it really sucks because like she could have been a great character and like, I think there’s a lot of side characters that we just get a little peek into their life and Jolene deserved that too.

Nicole Sweeney 26:53
Oh, and especially because it would have been so easy to incorporate her more and like everything about the way that she pops back in, it’s clear that Jolene knows what Beth has been up to all of these years. So why didn’t we see that? As Jolene’s building her life– Jolene is in a really solid place when she re-enters the story. And we have just seen Beth, you know, like spiraling. She has her big rise, but then it’s bad for her even when when Beth feels like things are going well, things are actually going really poorly for her for most of the show. And like during this time while Jolene was building this like really cool life for herself, we could have had her popping in and like seeing that as a very clear foil for what is happening with Beth. And yet.

Right. Like it’s very strange because, when she finally shows back up and it’s sort of at the end of this long bender that Beth has been on just alone in her house. And she’s like, “hey, I’ve been trying to call you for like a very long time.” Yet we get like seven scenes of Harry Beltik like showing up on our doorstep, knocking on a door and like looking sad and walking away. I’m like, where was any of that for Jolene, even to just for us to see that she– that there was still some like caring for each other and not just being like, “oh, you are at your rock bottom. Here I am to fix it.”

Marines Alvarez 28:17
That’s exactly what I was gonna say. I think that they gave to Beltik some of the scenes or some of the function that I think naturally belong to Jolene. Beltik could have come back and trained her and they could have had their hookup and him realize, “oh, this is not what I want and she’s going down a bad path” and leave. And that– and he could have showed up at the end and helped her and that would have been a natural progression for his entire story. The popping back in and out? That belong to Jolene 100% and they give her like a throwaway line like “I’m not your you know, godmother. I’m not whatever, we’re family, we’re friends. And this is what we do for each other.” And that’s exactly the spirit of it, but it felt empty because we literally saw her in the first two episodes and then the last one or the last two or whatnot.

Taylor Behnke 29:01
“Ah, family, that we don’t speak to for 10 years.”

Marines Alvarez 29:04
Correct. So had there been any indication that they did keep in contact or that you know, Jolene was periodically checking in on her and checking up with her that would have been a like fuller richer story and the fact that they did it but just with the wrong character makes it like extra frustrating for me.

Nicole Sweeney 29:22
Like it was there. You had the opportunity. This was part of your story. You just chose so wrong.

Taylor Behnke 29:28
And you could have shown how she got from like, the lifer who nobody picked to this glow up of her being a cool like social, like civil rights lawyer or something– like she’s trying to do some like social good law thing. And I don’t know she had her own shit like I’m very curious from how she got from point A to point B.

Nicole Sweeney 29:49
It also would have served so much more effectively than any of the the Harry Beltik stuff did in terms of revealing things about Beth’s character because part of what’s going on there is that Beth is incredibly selfish and does not give a shit about anybody else. And so like, but it’s hard to get that read with Harry Beltik because, like, we don’t– I don’t, I didn’t care about him. So like, it doesn’t, I don’t I don’t really feel much of anything about the fact that Beth is not– is shutting him out because fine. Like whatever.

Taylor Behnke 30:23
Right, he was awful to her in the beginning.

Nicole Sweeney 30:25
Yes.

Marines Alvarez 30:26
When he’s like, “you can’t do this.” And she’s basically like, “bye, boy.” I was like, “yeah, bye.” Even I knew what he was saying was true, like she should not be doing what she was doing. She was you know, going down like her her bender at that point, but at the same time, like I didn’t care about Beltik. I was like, “go away.”

Nicole Sweeney 30:44
That– those moments were weakened, both because just like we didn’t care about him, but also because it’s clear that this was a relationship that didn’t work out. She didn’t want to be with him and he keeps popping back into her life because he’s pining after her. And I just even– I would never encourage any of my friends to be like, “ah, yes, that’s who you should be listening to the advice of” like some guy you used to hook up with. I just– there’s no level on which this works.

Taylor Behnke 31:13
Yeah.

Marines Alvarez 31:13
So in preparation for this, like I binged this and then, in preparation for the episode, I looked up some reviews because I generally had the sense that people– it was well received. It was much viewed on Netflix. I think it’s like their number one viewed miniseries that they’ve ever done. So I had that sense of it. And I even like had heard that like chess sets, like the sale of chess sets, which got a bump in pandemic anyway, like, had also received a bump because of the show. So I had all of that in my head. I went to see these reviews and the negative ones that I saw were really interesting. Whether I agreed with them or not, it kind of varied, but the basis of a lot of the criticism here is sort of how some of the thematic stuff like addiction, like Beth being a woman in this time in a male dominated world, like it was not fully explored, or it wasn’t super deep. So did you guys get that sense while watching? Or do you agree or disagree with that sort of assessment that some of the heavier topics here are kind of glazed over?

Taylor Behnke 32:23
I mean, I don’t think the addiction part is.

Nicole Sweeney 32:26
Yeah, I totally agree. I mean, I understand. I have seen a number of people comment on mostly it’s the aesthetics of the very big spiraling out moment that she has, right before Jolene reenters the story, that is, that that looks too glamorous. And it’s just like, okay, whatever. But I think throughout the story, I felt like her addiction was being dealt with, and was being acknowledged, very repeatedly and aggressively, right.

Taylor Behnke 32:52
Like, I think, like, part of the story is like, “oh, she’s gonna beat the best chess player in the world, this old Russian guy” but to do it, she has to learn that she can play chess sober. Like, that’s like the big thing that she overcomes. And so, I don’t think it’s ignored at all. Like, it’s a like running theme. I think it’s like it would if it was just like, she took the pills and she saw the chess on the ceiling, like, and that’s all they did in the show, I could see that argument. But the whole big triumph in the final chess match is that she’s like, not high, and she sees the chess pieces on the ceiling. And it’s like, oh, she can like, play it– like, because that’s like a symbol of her playing at her peak is like being able to, like look up and visualize it. And like, comically they like she’s like looking up and visualizing it without the help of like, you know, substances, and then everybody else looks up and is like, “what is she looking at up there?” It’s both like, she’s gonna win the game and like, oh, and she’s like, gotten clean. Like, I think that that was like a dual win for her.

Nicole Sweeney 32:52
Yes, that was a huge part of her character arc. So it is it is really weird to me that that is a complaint.

Marines Alvarez 34:03
I think that part of what makes this I think really engaging and why I enjoyed it is that it is a darker story and it’s got some dark elements, obviously, but it feels like a very clean and tidy sort of storytelling. I think right off the bat, you get the sense that you are watching a story about a very gifted woman who will prevail at the end. I don’t think that I was ever asking myself “will she beat the Russian?” because I I had a sense that the story was okay telegraphing to us that this is obviously what her destiny was. And so it was that entire journey of you know, her losing to him twice and and having to get to the place where, yes, she is–that’s sort of the whole thing is that she has to be able to do this sober and believe that she kind of is gifted in this way without the use of the drugs and the alcohol. So that’s sort of the middle bit that we’re navigating. But the fact that at the end, she gets clean and she wins. I understand why that might feel tidy and you kind of gloss over some of the things like withdrawl and, you know, she just, you know, goes from bender to being like, “nyet ” to vodka that one time and it’s like “she’s clean!” So I understand, but I think that that’s a function of, I don’t know, TV, and sort of the package of this. But also, I think that’s the story we were telling from the beginning. And and that’s telegraphed in a way that was actually part of the enjoyable experience for me is like, I went into this knowing it was going to be messy and dark. But in the end, somebody was going to triumph. And that’s what it was,

Nicole Sweeney 35:46
Yeah, there is an inherently escapist quality to it from the beginning. So like, even even when the show gets dark, and has those darker sort of elements to it, like that is also that is part of what the show is, is doing. It is not trying to be a super gritty portrayal of addiction.

Taylor Behnke 36:05
Yeah, I think one thing that actually tripped me up is like, watching it, I thought, like, eventually, right? She’s gonna win. But like, the very first scene of the show is her like waking up in that bathtub in Paris, and like being late for her game, and like, clearly in a rough spot. And so when I and I, like wasn’t looking at, like, the number of episodes that were left or anything, so when she was in Paris, and like she’s in the same dress, and you see that she’s in that same scene that the whole show started with, I was like, “oh, no, this is a tragedy.” You know, she is about to go on this like bender and like, lose this game. And this is going to be the end of the show. And they’re gonna like wrap it up right here where they started.

Nicole Sweeney 36:44
And this is not what I expected to happen! This is not what you’ve been telling–

Taylor Behnke 36:47
Right I think it’s like such a much more interesting show that it went on.

Nicole Sweeney 36:52
Yeah. I another sort of related to this– I bring up the sort of escapist thing too, because another thing that I saw was talking about the ways that period dramas are often meant to provide a like sharp juxtaposition between the then of the story and the now of the viewer, and like this show– the ways in which the show sort of fails at doing that, because it leans so into the aesthetics in the ways that it does. And I, I agree that the show isn’t doing the thing that this critique wants it to do, but I also don’t think that that is a flaw. Like, I just think it’s doing something else. So like, I don’t, I don’t know what else to tell you. It’s just not doing that thing that you want period pieces to do.

Taylor Behnke 37:43
Yeah. And I think like, if you do shownotes, you should link this video in it. There’s like, before I even saw the show, I watched this video, there’s a YouTuber who like makes media criticism videos, but they’re all through the lens of fashion. She’s like a fashion historian, essentially. And she’s like analyzing the outfits that Beth wears through the show. And like, she does a lot of like historical accuracy videos, but it’s not just about being like, “this isn’t accurate.” It’s like “they made this tweak and it makes sense because of her character. Like it does something for the story.” So she made made a video about the outfits in “Queen’s Gambit.” And like my first watch of it was just like, “ah, the pretty like outfits from the 60s.” I love it. Like I think that’s a big criticism of a lot of these shows. It’s like, like “Mrs. Maizel” and like “The Crown” and stuff where it’s just like, “oh, it’s so pretty to look at and it’s hiding like terrible things.” But they like actually do a lot of like characterization through her outfits, like kind of highlighting the fish out of water thing when she’s goes from the orphanage to the public school. Or, like, I think one of the things was like she’s she only started wearing pants after her mom dies, or her adoptive mom dies. And so it’s sort of like this is like, like, she’s a woman alone. Like, she’s got to wear the pants now. Or like, the Paris scene, the dress that she’s wearing is the same colors as the pills that like plague her for her whole life of like this addiction. And she’s literally like, wrapped up in it so much that it’s, you know, obscuring her ability to do anything else. And I’m like, they took what could have just been big budget Netflix show pretty outfits and like did interesting things with it.

Marines Alvarez 39:19
The Escapist quality also, I think comes into play with like this other idea of them not, you know, like “she’s a woman in this time. She could have never” or like that there it should have been more difficult for her to be a woman in the chess world in the in the 60s. But I kind of– yeah. It’s just that’s not what the show was here to do or to dig deep into. And I think they gave like a few nods to her being the only woman and her being– it being novel. And you know, even at times just some of the problems that she had to deal with. So when Mr. Wheatley left them and whatnot and they just had to keep playing this game or keeping the secret or I’ll say wouldn’t be able to live their lives or whatnot. So add little mentions of it here. And I agree that it didn’t go deep into like, the politics of being a woman in the chess world. But again, it just not what I think the story was trying to do anyways.

Taylor Behnke 40:16

Right. And I think that we’ve gotten stories before that are “a woman up against the system.” Like, I don’t know. I don’t want this to be the RGB biopic. Like, we have those stories.

Nicole Sweeney 40:31

And that’s not who this character is either. Like that’s not who Beth is.

Taylor Behnke 40:35

Right! Right. And it’s not to say those stories are bad. It’s just nice to have a different shade of it, where her big struggle is not her gender.

Marines Alvarez 40:45

Which, I’ll just mention something I saw here too, just so we can rage a little bit together. But another big complaint and this– the one article that I saw was particularly coming from someone who had read the book that this is adapted from so the fact that Anya Taylor Joy is too pretty to be Beth was also a complaint that I saw. So… cool.

Taylor Behnke 41:09

I just… it’s like what? Actors are pretty people. What do you want?

Marines Alvarez 41:18

We also talked a little bit about the stylist stuff so I just want to mention in addition to the outfits and stuff, how much I loved the Wheatley home. And the floral patterns everywhere and all of that but in general, the sets I think were really interesting in the way it kind of bounced around showed her life from some of these dingier things like the orphanage but also the fact that they were playing in these gymnasiums and stuff, so you get the sense that she’s a really big deal in the chess world, but also chess is still being played in gymnasiums. So a lot of that contrast was really cool in the sets as well.

Taylor Behnke 42:00

Oh yeah. I think that was also like a discussion that characters had where it was like “you should see how they play chess in Russia. They have stadiums and they’re celebrities there, but we’re still weird nerds in a gym.”

Nicole Sweeney 42:13

This is also not a complaint of the show. This falls into sort of the category of things I wanted and really it wasn’t that thing. I was expecting more of the, I don’t know, just the dynamics of– the Cold War dynamics. There was actually very little of that. I mean, it is part of it because that is the final boss is the Russian, but it’s really, very very little of this story.

Taylor Behnke 42:41

Yeah, I think it shows up basically like– cause some organization is trying to pay Beth’s way to Russia to like beat the Russians, but she has to be like “I love God and America.” And she’s like “I’m not gonna do that. That’s goofy.” But nothing really more comes of that.

Marines Alvarez 43:00

Yeah, and I got a sense at the end too that it was kind of like, you know, “Russians are people too!” because of the way it ended with her amongst the people playing chess or whatever, but again, a very light touch. Just the sprinkle-ing-est of sprinkles there sort of about that dynamic and the way the U.S. viewed Russia and Russians. I thought it was hilarious too that at one point, she just calls the State Department and they’re like “uh, okay, we can’t give you money but here’s an agent to go with you.”

Taylor Behnke 43:33

Yeah, we’ll send the CIA to Russia.

Marines Alvarez 43:35

And I was like “cool? Okay? I guess that’s how that works.”

Taylor Behnke 43:38

Like one other thing– I know we were talking about how touching the kind of adoptive mother daughter relationship was. The one that really got me was the dynamic between her and Mr. Shaibel who was like the janitor who teaches her how to play chess. She first wants to play just because she thinks that interesting and it’s an escape for her. And they– Nicole you were saying in the synopsis that he kind of low-key adopts her, but like in a way that like, you can tell that he cares deeply for her, but he never shows it to her. There’s always some distance there and it seems like he’s got his own baggage where like– nobody in this show knows how to love. But yeah, so she comes back and sees basically the little shrine that he’s made to her and it’s like, she never really kept up with him except for that one letter that she writes asking for money and that broke me open when she– there’s the picture of the two of them both kind of like looking like scared rabbits in the flashbulb of the first time she plays chess out with other people. And what really kind of brought that home for me is like that final chess game in the park. The man that she sits down to play against? He doesn’t look exactly like Mr. Shaibel, but it’s like to me, clearly supposed to be kind of a stand-in for the first game that she played against this man and it’s sort of like “I’m doing it for the love of the game and not to like beat the Russians or to win a bunch of money so that I can survive.” It’s just like “I love this thing and it can be as simple as that” which I thought was just very sweet.

Nicole Sweeney 45: 22

The full circleness of it all.

Taylor Behnke 45:24

Right.

Nicole Sweeney 45:25

I am a little bit curious how you guys felt about the chess board on the ceiling.

Taylor Behnke 45:31

The first time that I saw it because it’s like this weird CGI thing, I was like “oh, this is gonna be annoying.” But it didn’t really bother me at all as the show kind of went on. I think they use it sparingly enough that it’s not just like “ah, her ghost chess is here to visit us again.” But I think part of why she’s so good in the beginning is because she’s able to like visualize this game in a unique way, but part of her getting better is not just like being able to play with that instinct, is like actually memorizing games and studying. Like I think that’s kind of a cool part of it where they’re like “you can just keep relying on your like, you know, little deus ex machine come from he ceiling and help you win.”

Nicole Sweeney 46:12

Right. You have to study kids!

Taylor Behnke 46:16

Right! Like I think it would’ve really bothered me if she won the game in Paris ’cause the chess board was on the ceiling. She saw, but then she just couldn’t figure out where, like, where the pieces went next.

Marines Alvarez 46:28

I thought it was gonna be more explicitly like a Lyra in “His Dark Materials” thing, where she has to like sort of zone out in order to get the alethieometer to work and so that’ part of like her innate talent in reading this thing is that she can get into the right frame of mind in order to do it. So at one point, I thought they were going in that direction of like the drugs were enabling her to get out of her mind enough in order to visualize in this way and so part of what she’s trying to overcome is to be able to let go of the planning and control in her head long enough in order to visualize and like accomplish this without the drugs. If that is what they were going for, it wasn’t explicit enough, I don’t think. I think that was my reading of like “oh, this makes sense, like the drugs help her see things a way that she can’t when she’s sober.” But they never really went there. It was just kind of like “oh, she was able to do it, this time in Russia. I don’t. This is just something she does.” And they had again, like a throwaway line with Benny where she’s like “do you play through games in your head?” and he’s like “doesn’t everyone?” I don’t know what that means. So, I don’t know that I like fully connected why this is a thing for Beth, but functionally and visually it didn’t really bother me in the story anyways.

Nicole Sweeney 47:51

I had a similar initial reaction to like what Taylor is describing. The firs time I saw it, I was like “oh my god. This is– I’m not going to be able to take this seriously.” I was into the story and that like took me out of the story, that moment. But, I agree that the frequency and manner in which it was used, ultimately wound up being so effective that I was also like “aw man!” when the chess board shows up the final time. Like it absolute grew on me– I don’t know. I had a whole separate journey with the CG chessboard, I guess is really why I asked this question.

Taylor Behnke 48:29

I will say it– the reason it like really worked for me is that they did make fun of it like at that last scene, the fact that they all look up and they’re like “what is she looking at?” I think if they weren’t being like self-referential and poking fun of that there, it would’ve been a little like less exciting to see in the last scene.

Marines Alvarez 48:53

And I think in general, it just really fits with, again, the story that this is. Which is a little exaggerated. It’s a little soapy. It’s a little, you know,  quirky. These characters are larger than life. All of them are. All of them are tropey in a way and the set-pieces are as well so the fact that she looks up and sees a ghost chess? Yes, that fits this story. Maybe somewhere else I’d be like “what the fuck is happening with the ghost chess,” but for this particular story, and they way that they’ve done it sort of beginning to end, absolutely it fit.

Nicole Sweeney 49:27

Yeah, I think– that’s really interesting. I had not thought of it that way, but I think that that is probably a really big part of the joinery that I experienced with the CG chess board because the first time it shows up, we don’t really– I don’t think that nature of the story is clear yet, because we are still just doing all of the establishing of the world and we’re not yet with the very larger than life characters. Beth is too young to really be the kind of exaggerated person that she becomes as an adult. And so the first time we see it, I was like “okay, what?” But as we spend more time with this very exaggerated story, the chessboard starts to feel more and more like a thing that fits and makes sense.

Marines Alvarez 50:10

Team ghost chess.

Nicole Sweeney 50:12

Yes. In conclusion!

Marines Alvarez 50:14

And on that note, that brings us to the end of another episode. Thank you to Taylor for joining us this week and thank you all for listening. If you are enjoying this podcast, consider sharing it with your friends or rating and review it wherever you are listening. We’d love to hear all of your thoughts on “The Queen’s Gambit.” There will be a post dedicated to this episode up on snarksquad.com. You can sign up to join our community on Patreon.com/snarksquad . You can also find us on Twitter at @Snark_Squad You can find me @mynameismarines.

Nicole Sweeney 50:45

I am @sweeneysays

Taylor Behnke 50:47

And I am @itsradishtime

Marines Alvarez 50:49

This podcast is produced by the Snark Squad and it is edited by Nicole Sweeney. The theme music that is playing us out right now is by Stefan Chin.

Transcribed by Marines.