Like most of the world, I watched The Queen’s Gambit to learn how to play chess, and because Anya Taylor-Joy’s eyes possessed my soul. I sat through each meticulously crafted episode, absorbing the dialogue, mimicking the moves, and staring at my ceiling while lying in bed, ripped on ayahuasca. I saw shit moving, alright, but they weren’t chess pieces, and the next morning I still sucked ass.
They focus a lot on “openings” in The Queen’s Gambit, so every day I’d set up the board and play myself for the first seven or ten moves, using their tactics, and no matter what, I still lost. Not once did they explain how the horsey travels the board, so I had to use a patchwork version of what I witnessed on screen, arriving at a sort of zig-zag hopping attack that involved nine total squares. If it hopped over a shorter piece, I immediately captured it and gave myself an extra queen. I’d still usually lose to my other self, though.
When I was president of the Hasselhounds—the David Hasselhoff Fanclub—I made a point to mention in my weekly newsletter that Baywatch was awesome not simply because of the bouncing mammaries and cerebral dialogue, but also because of its precise realism; you could watch a couple episodes and you knew you were ready to save a chubby kid from drowning. The Queen’s Gambit offers no such guarantee. I got worse at the game the more I watched, which sank my chess.com rating from seven hundred and nine to five hundred and three. I lost three games in a row to my nana and she’s blind and has a goiter.
A major distraction in The Queen’s Gambit, other than Ana’s possessing gaze, is the Benny kid in the outback hat. I mean, what the fuck? He never explains the hat, it looks ridiculous, he’s always inside so he doesn’t need it for the sun, and he starts making you think he’s obsessed with Crocodile Dundee, but that wasn’t even out when this took place! Then, incredibly, Beth—the girl with the googly eyes— even asks him about his knife. He has a knife! And a weird fucking jacket just like Paul Hogan. It’s the most Crocodile Dundee shit I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen plenty.
Beth Harmon, the fake chess master star of the show, is an intriguing character and beautiful woman, but she has a responsibility to her audience and it’s that she must guarantee we all play better chess. When Cooter took to the screen in Dukes of Hazzard, you became a better backyard mechanic just by watching him work. When Angela from The Office orchestrated a company meeting or event, your planning game exploded simply by observing. I’ve watched this freaking chess show half a dozen times and I’m still not sure if the king can even move.
Listen up, Hollywood: You have a responsibility to your viewers. We crave knowledge and information like never before, and each second of our time is courted and competed for by other mediums. If you want my eyes on your program, I suggest you make it entertaining, but also educational. Not peppered with drugs, poor instruction, janitors, and knife-wielding young men from America’s most treasured holiday film. I’ll never be able to watch that wonderful film and see him sitting behind those drums without picturing his disturbing mustache and wondering if he’s going to stab his love interest after he smashes the drum really hard when she points at people in the audience other than him. Four and a half stars. Really enjoyed it.
The Soggy Blanket 