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Queen's Gambit

Authors: Ben K. <benk@tilde.team>

Date: 2021-01-03

Here we finished watching Queen's Gambit, and personally I thought it was great. I had heard much about it for some time before watching it, and I guess I was slightly skeptical about how much I would enjoy it, but my skepticism was unfounded. Some say it is the best show produced in 2020, and that might be the case, especially when compared to the other stuff I saw this year.

After finishing the series I read a little bit about the criticism of it online. It seems one of the main arguments is that it's too much "fantasy" and that the story is not realistic enough. For example, pretty much everything works out to a happy ending, and all of the characters are essentially good.

I'm going to be straight up and say that I don't mind this at all. One thing that you have to accept is that it's a work of fiction, and if it wants to be a freel-good story or even a fantasy, that's fine. It's been a tough year with me getting sick and grappling with anxiety, and some shows genuinely stress me out. Its' sort of my fault because I like watching things like historical dramas, and the drama part relies on tension, but I also don't want to relegate myself to just watching comedies.

Queen's Gambit did stress me out a little bit, as other viewers have noted, since you worry about all the things that could have gone wrong in the plot but didn't. The fact that it defies our negative expectations is a good thing.

Also, regardless of the philosophical takes, one thing that just really made me happy about the show was its textured portrayal of the 1960's, a time that I never lived in but for some reason seemed to have inherited a lot of nostalgia for. Here the show really shines, with the characters, settings, clothes, visuals, all taking you back to that other time. It might as well be another world.

There were a few well-placed pop culture references to the 1960's, particularly with respect to the music. The show features several notable songs of the era that can be said to be definitive of a generation, and they were used to great effect. These are also songs that I grew up with, hence the nostalgia. In one episode there is a sequence set to Mason Williams' Classical Gas that was just an absolutely brilliant confluence of everything. It felt like a moment of crowning achievement for the show, and it was not the only one.

As someone who has lived in the former USSR and can speak a bit of Russian (admittedly little), the last line of the show just punched a hole through my gut. It was funny that it was that moment in particular in the show that almost moved me to tears considering all the other poignant moments, and I somewhat doubt that it would have the same effect on the average American viewer who probably wouldn't relate to it as strongly, but really hats off to that. I guess Queen's Gambit is, in some small way, also a love letter to Russia.

Obviously the show is not entirely about chess, although it also does a pretty good job of keeping chess front and center. From what I read, real players of chess were very pleased by the accuracy of the show with respect to its portrayal of the game, which was fairly extensive, but it also smartly avoided requiring the viewer to actually know how to play the game in order to follow it. I used to play chess when I was much younger, and I never got that serious about it. (Of course, I was never that good.) However, it was a fun passtime, and I would have to agree that the show gets the game right. Since I never played it at a competitive level, though, I couldn't totally relate to the tournaments and stuff, but a little bit sure.

The show is also made by a varied cast of characters, all with different and interesting personalities. That also overall made the show interesting to watch from start to finish, since the cast is interesting and full enough not to spend an inordinate amount of time on just one. The pacing of the show was perfect in my opinion, so each epside stands strong on its own and does a fine job of pushing the plot forward. That means each one can be delt with as a unit in its own right.

I would also be remiss if I didn't mention the show's pretty obvious feminist message, which is a theme well-kept from the beginning to the end of the show. My opinion probably doesn't count for much, but I felt like they also did a very good job with this. It sort of makes it look like the 1960's was a horrible time to be a woman, and in many ways this must be right, though I also wonder if it wasn't just horrible for everyone, and at the same time perhaps not really that bad? The fact that things end up going well for the protagonist also seems to act as a sort of silver lining, and I guess people who actually lived in the 1960's might agree that it was a time where they could also feel that women were making progress too. Either way, it treats the topic in a way that seems more valuable (to me anyway) than "Captain Marvel" style feminism, which I considered rather dry or flat, in spite of what flaws it may have.

Does the show have to be taken too seriously? Well, I guess not. Like I mentioned earlier, it is something that you can just enjoy. It's the sort of feel-good break that we all need to be able to accept