It’s super predatory, but her reaction of “is that it?” did make me laugh. She reaps the financial rewards of success but forms a debilitating dependency on her pills and alcohol.īefore she has turned 18, she loses her virginity to an older student in her Russian class after they smoke marijuana. She also gets re-addicted to Xanzolam, stealing from the stash which Alma is medically prescribed.īeth rises in fame, playing across the US and eventually beating US National Champion Benny Watts, winning her place at the Moscow Invitational. With no prior experience in competitive chess, she takes Kentucky by storm and wins against state champion Harry Beltik, while befriending fellow player D.L.

She shoves a handful of the pills into her mouth, collapses off a chair, and is then shown alive and functioning in the next scene.Īfter a few years, Beth is adopted by Alma and Mr Wheatley (who soon separate) and decides to enter a chess tournament. When I say nearly, I’m not actually sure how she survived. Beth experiences such severe withdrawal symptoms that she eventually breaks into the orphanage storage room and nearly overdoses. While learning chess from the caretaker Mr Shaibel, the tranquilisers are removed from the children’s diets. The drama’s creators Scott Frank and Allan Scott certainly don’t hold back on the emotional rollercoaster of said journey.īeth is orphaned at age 9 in a traumatic car crash and quickly becomes addicted to the tranquiliser ‘Xanzolam’ (a suitably made-up drug name, but probably based on chlordiazepoxide) which her orphanage prescribes to the children as “vitamins”. Titled as the stages of a chess game, each episode moves through the stages of Beth’s journey towards her toughest match at the Moscow Invitational against the best player in the world, Vasily Borgov. Netflix’s 2020 hit mini-series takes us on a drug-fuelled, alcoholic joy ride in the wild world of competitive chess.

And it didn’t take long before she had the heart of almost every man she encountered.

In two moves Beth Harmon (played by Anya Taylor-Joy) had my heart. Volunteer writer, Amie Woodyatt, reviews one of Netflix’s new smash hit shows, ‘The Queen’s Gambit’.

Who plays beth harmon in queens gambit