Culture Diary: The Queen’s Gambit
I have never played Chess in my life. The few times anyone has tried to explain the rules to me, my eyes glaze over and my brain checks out. I have a mental block when it comes to strategy games—I just don’t have the patience for them. They seem boring and frustrating to me.
So when my friend Karen suggested I watch The Queen’s Gambit on Netflix, I was skeptical. But I trust her, and I’d seen mentions of the show popping up on social media followed by gushing reviews. I also needed an engrossing distraction from election week.
The Queen’s Gambit refers to a strategic sequence in the game of chess. I can’t tell you any more than that, but it’s not important. What’s important is that the show is about much more than chess and it’s anchored by some truly stellar performances.
The central premise is that Beth Harmon, a quiet, red-headed orphan in Kentucky, learns how to play chess from a gruff janitor at the orphanage where she lives after she survives the car crash her mother dies in. It turns out she’s got a head for it, memorizing the board and going through games in her head while the other girls are asleep, picturing the board and game pieces in dreamy shadows on the ceiling above her head.
There’s a kind of Dickensian goth-like darkness in the first few episodes as Beth tries to navigate her new life and…
