finished this morning. The stylist and art department clearly had a blast on this. Happy its a limited series. I don't need more. Anya is everything but I really enjoyed Thomas Brodie as Benny Watts doing a rock n roll chess player
There’s been a lot of great content online surrounding the importance of the actual chess games in this, but I found this video to be particularly interesting for breaking down the unspoken dialogue in Beth’s first game with Beltik, and why you don’t need to know how to play chess to feel a lot of movement during the gameplay sequences
Finished this last night. It was spectacular, pretty easily my favorite show of the year. Just immaculately written and directed and acted and scored all the way through.
Play Chess With Beth Harmon from The Queen's Gambit You can play against Beth on Chess.com now. I just beat her as an 8 year old because I'm smart as hell
Good ending. I’m glad they didn’t go the usual route with the Russian antagonists and actually humanized them.
Just finished this and thought it was only ok. The acting was great, but the plot was too cliche for me. It felt like every coming of age story/plot point was added in (orphan, special talent, orphan again, hits rock bottom, is saved by friend/family from past, all friends come together to help in end) which made it very predictable. My fiancé related it to the “and then” where you start with her as an orphan and then (insert something bad) and then (more bad) and then...until it becomes unbelievable. The start of episode 7 (the funeral and her return to the basement) were the best moments of the show and I wanted more of those real moments and less “really?” Moments like her Dad trying to take the house or her mom dying in Mexico.
cliches work for a reason. Yes, the plot wasn't ground breaking. But everything else (acting, sets/costumes, music...) all more than made up for it.
I’m not following this “and then” structure you’re referring to, at all. I also don’t think any of the moments you mentioned are “unbelievable” or “sensationalized” in any capacity. This felt like a very realistic story to me, to the extent that I thought it was nonfiction at one point.
The only thing that a little unbelievable is the last episode all her past opponents gathering to help her and it’s really not that big a deal. It kind of feels earned by that point
I also felt that was a stretch. Hard to believe anyone's exes would all gather to help someone like that. But even that moment is singular and supported by previous conversations with Benny, and she hasn't burned any of those bridges (they all want her to succeed), and she's basically famous at that point.
Finally getting around to watching this. This is really good. Shocking really, because usually the popular shows in the Netflix top 10 are horrendous