The Queen’s Gambit: Exchanges
My first draft was over ten pages again and I cannot believe that I originally thought I could cover The Queen’s Gambit in one post.
Opening Scenes
The opening scene of episode two starts with Jolene telling Beth how she looked after getting high as a kite in the previous episode. Beth tells Jolene that she’ll study the Sicilian Defense and memorize all of the moves at night now that she won’t have the pills. In the book, we learn from the narrator that Beth plans to study the Sicilian, but adding it to the scene with Jolene is an easy way to adapt it for Netflix. In the book, we also learn that Beth found 23 pills in her pockets that she keeps. Despite some other minor differences, this scene is pretty consistent with the one from the book.
But in the book, before this scene, we see Fergusson take Beth to the hospital to get her stomach pumped and then take her back to Methuen. The interaction with Fergusson is minor, but for the first time, Beth sees him as an actual person and realizes that he’s actually all right. I liked this scene in the book, and it helps set up some of the other little interactions Fergusson and Beth have later on, but I get why it was cut. Fergusson is a minor character and doesn’t really do anything for the plot. However, I do wish the show had at least alluded to Beth’s trip to the hospital. The first time I watched the show, I wondered what had happened to Beth after she passed out. I hoped that she had been taken to the hospital, but there was no mention of it.
The show also skips the scene where Beth gets informed of her punishments. In a way, I felt kind of cheated in the show, because we just had this big scene and huge cliffhanger at the end of episode one, and then we just cut to a scene where everything is suddenly resolved. I wanted to see the immediate fallout and consequences and other than her ban from playing chess, there weren’t any in the show.
One thing I liked about this in this scene in the book was how Beth knew she had done something wrong, but also knew that the orphanage shared at least some of the blame.
“Somehow she sensed that what she had been caught doing was of a magnitude beyond usual punishment. And, deeper than that, she was aware of the complicity of the orphanage that had fed her and all the others on pills that would make them less restless, easier to deal with.”
Despite explaining that she can’t sleep without the pills and that the orphanage should have never given her the pills to begin with, Beth still gets punished. Beth’s library and playground privileges are revoked, she has to arrive early to chapel to help set up, and to make sure that she’s not sneaking away during chapel like she used to, she has to write a report. If she gets caught talking during chapel she automatically gets ten demerits which we know from earlier would result in a whipping. And of course, there is the only punishment the show included.
“Mrs. Deardorff smiled grimly. ‘No more chess.’”
The Adoption
In the show, after the scene with Jolene, we time jump to a “teenage Beth” played by a 24-year-old actress.
I know in the show when Beth meets Mr. and Mrs. Wheatley for the adoption interview, Mrs. Deardorff lies about Beth’s age. Beth is about to say that she’s fifteen but after a look from Mrs. Deardorff says that she’s thirteen. So even if we’re supposed to believe that 24-year-old Anya is playing a 15-year-old pretending to be a 13-year-old, that’s still an almost ten-year difference. The horrendous haircut and wardrobe help a little bit, but it’s still obvious that Anya is an adult. I get that they likely wanted an actress who was of-age for some of the later sex scenes, but I really hate this pattern of fully-grown women playing teenagers. I know when I was a teenager it really fucked up my self-image because I would look at these characters in movies and shows who were supposedly my age, and I would look nothing like them. The show had no problem getting a younger actress to play 9-year-old Beth so it would have been nice if teenage Beth was given the same treatment.
The interview scene with the Wheatleys is just as awkward in the show as it is in the book and Mr. Wheatley is portrayed as the same unlovable asshole. I don’t really have any comments about this scene, so good job Netflix!
Beth’s parting scene with Jolene is also pretty spot-on in the show. Beth kind of accuses Jolene of stealing her book and Jolene gets testy. We often see Beth react impulsively when it comes to people and she’s not the best at taking the time to understand someone else’s point of view, but Beth understands Jolene the same way Jolene understands her. We also know that chess is the most important thing to Beth and that Modern Chess Openings is more than just a chess book to her. And yet, she chooses Jolene over the book. She understands Jolene’s motivations for taking the book – she’s angry that she didn’t get adopted but too proud to admit it – and doesn’t blame Jolene.
Life with the Wheatleys
The Netflix show changes a few things in the scenes with the Wheatleys, but a lot of these changes are minor and don’t have any real impact. In the book, Mr. Wheatley is pretty much just always gone but, in the show, we see the contempt he has for Mrs. Wheatley and how hard Mrs. Wheatley tries to pretend that everything is fine until it’s not.
I do miss the scene in the book where a few people from the orphanage come to check on Beth. Fergusson invites himself along and Mrs. Wheatley does an amazing job lying about how much Mr. Wheatley loves Beth and how well Beth has adjusted to school. When they leave Beth doesn’t want Fergusson to go, but she doesn’t say anything. She’s clearly lonely and despite the perks of her new life, she misses the people from the orphanage. I think it would have been pretty easy for them to include this scene or even just allude to it.
Beth’s introduction to the world of professional chess is the same in the book and show – she steals a copy of Chess Review. In the book, as she’s reading through some of the matches in the magazine, she sees a move that Murphy missed that would have ended the game earlier. Beth gets a wonderful thrill at having found this mistake and it’s a really nice moment that shows how talented Beth is at chess even though she hasn’t played a game against anyone in years.
“Her mind was as lucid as a perfect, stunning diamond.”
By reading the magazine, Beth learns about an upcoming chess tournament. In the show, all Beth needs is $5 to enter and she writes to Mr. Shaibel asking for the money. In the book, Beth needs $6 to join the chess league, which is a requirement to join the tournament, and then $5 to enter the tournament. Now I’m not sure if the show was trying to hint at the fact that Beth stole money from Mrs. Wheatley in the scene where Mrs. Wheatley complains about only having $7 when she should have $20, but in the book it’s explicit. Beth stole $6 from Mrs. Wheatley to join the chess league and then later another $1 for a copy of Chess Review. If the show did mean to hint at it, I don’t think they were explicit enough because I didn’t suspect anything the first time I watched it. It was only after reading the book and then re-watching the episode that the possibility occurred to me.
In the book, Beth’s life of petty theft continues. When she doesn’t hear back from Mr. Shaibel, Beth decides to steal money from one of the girls in her school, Margaret. Margaret is pretty, and popular, and clearly rich. She’s antagonized Beth in the book in a similar way we see in the show. She makes fun of Beth’s clothes and shoes and calls her what I can only imagine was a terrible insult in the 60’s – brain.
Knowing “Brain” was an insult makes me feel so bad for this character in Arthur. Imagine being so smart that instead of calling you by your name, everyone just called you The Nerd or something. #CancelArthur
Beth steals $10 from Margaret, which by today’s standards is about $85. Right after Beth steals the money from Margaret, a letter from Mr. Shaibel comes with $5.
Just around this time is when Beth discovers that Mrs. Wheatley is prescribed the same tranquilizers Beth was addicted to at the orphanage. When she picks up the prescription, Beth steals about half the bottle and hides them in her toothbrush holder, just like she did at the orphanage. Once Beth is flushed with cash from Margaret and Mr. Shaibel, she uses the $5 from Mr. Shaibel to buy another refill of the tranquilizers for herself. In the show, we see Beth sneaking into the house with the refill, but I don’t think we have any sense of where the extra money came from.
Once again, I really like how the book ties chess and the tranquilizers together. Chess and pills were the only things that got Beth through the nights at the orphanage and now they are shown as the only things Beth is willing to steal for. Beth could easily have stolen some money and used it to buy a nicer pair of shoes or a dress. But her life revolves around the pills and chess. And speaking of chess…
The Chess Tournament
We finally get our first glimpse into the exciting world of professional chess! If it’s anything like the opening scene of episode one I bet it’s going to be so glamorous – oh wait, nope. It’s in a dingy high school gym. I feel like the scene from Paris really set all of our expectations way too high. The letdown was inevitable.
Anyway, Beth hands over her $5 and insists on being put in the open rather than in the beginner’s section, just like in the book. Beth and the audience get a lot of information about professional chess in this and the following scene and it’s done in a way that seems entirely organic. We learn about ratings, hear some names of impressive chess players, and learn about chess clocks. We also get to briefly meet beautiful, beautiful Townes as he explains that winners play winners and losers play losers. I wish we got to see more of him because, again, he’s absolutely beautiful, but we do have to see Beth actually play some chess.
I don’t have a joke or anything here, I just wanted to post his picture.
Unsurprisingly, Beth wins her first game. We see Beth wander around a bit and then go into the back section where the real chess is played. And most importantly, we get to see Townes again! This scene is pretty similar in the book, the only difference is that in the novel, we see Beth analyze the other games as she passes them. She makes note of where a player could move to make a capture or win and it really shows how amazing she is at chess. To be fair to the show, I have no idea how you would adapt this part for T.V. The only idea that comes to mind is a BBC Sherlock style thing where lines and patterns show up on the screen to show what the character is thinking. But I don’t think that would work as well for this show, so I can’t be too mad that they didn’t include it.
The rest of Beth’s games are pretty consistent with the book. I miss some of the insight we get from the book, but that’s going to be a recurring complaint when I talk about the chess games in the show. Tevis did such an amazing job in the book explaining the tension on the chess board in a way that even someone who knows nothing about chess could still appreciate. We don’t get that in the show. We can see when Beth is annoyed or worried or smug, but for most of the people watching, the chess board is a mystery.
“She liked that arrangement; it looked to her imagination like two cannons, lined up and ready to fire”
I miss these kinds of insights from the show, but again, I have no suggestion as to how they could have fit them in. Something else that’s missing from the show is how Beth feels transformed after the first day of the tournament.
“She looked at herself in the mirror, under the harsh lights, and saw what she had always seen: the round uninteresting face and the colorless hair. But there was something different. The cheeks were flushed with color now, and her eyes looked more alive than she had ever seen them. For once in her life she liked what she saw in the mirror.”
I think this is a really important and transformative moment for Beth, and I wish that the show had given us a sense of this transformation. Just like in the book, Beth gets her period during the tournament, and while this does show some level of transformation, it’s from girlhood to womanhood, which is different from liking what you see in the mirror. (Also, I hate the idea that starting your period means that you’re “becoming a woman.” 13-year-olds should not be told that their childhood is somehow over just because they started menstruating. And the idea that menstruating = womanhood which basically boils down to owning a uterus means you’re a woman, is transphobic and icky.)
But back to Beth getting her period. Beth gets her period right after her match with Townes. In the show, Beth has some blood leaking down her leg and is kind of at a loss for what to do. The girl from her first match comes in and gives her a pad but Beth doesn’t know how to use it. In the book, there’s no one else in the bathroom with her but she’s fine.
“She thought abruptly of Jolene. If it hadn’t been for Jolene, she would have had no idea what was happening. No one else had said a word about this—certainly not Mrs. Wheatley. She felt a sudden warmth for Jolene, remembering that Jolene had also told her what to do “in an emergency.” Beth began pulling a long sheet from the roll of toilet paper and folding it into a tightly packed rectangle.”
In the book, the scene with the girl from her first game telling her to “beat his ass” happens before Beth realizes she’s started her period in a different bathroom scene. The show combines the two bathroom scenes. I miss the longing for Jolene in the show, but understand why they combined the two scenes.
Goodbye Alston, Hello Beltik
In the book, when Beth comes home from the second day of the tournament, Mrs. Wheatley isn’t playing sad piano like in the show, she’s just sitting in a chair and holding a postcard. The show uses Mrs. Wheatley’s piano playing as an indication of her mood throughout the series and I really like this change! It’s something that works so beautifully on screen that would not translate nearly as well to the written word. Mrs. Wheatley tells Beth that Mr. Wheatley has been “indefinitely” detained and they both agree to lie to everyone about it so that Beth doesn’t get sent back to the orphanage. Beth admits that she doesn’t know how to use a pad and Alma’s (I’m calling her Alma now because fuck Mr. Wheatley) quote about only being a wife through legal fiction, but learning how to be a mother is the same in the show and book. It’s a touching moment that I’m really glad they kept in the show.
In the book, Beth can’t sleep the night before her match with Beltik and contemplates taking a pill but decides against it. She regrets that decision in the morning. Beltik shows up late with a cup of coffee and seems completely nonplussed that his clock has been running.
Beltik showing up 15 minutes late with Starbucks.
Also, can we talk about how the actor is Dudley Dursley? I feel like he disappeared for a few years and then suddenly he was in everything! Anyway, in the book, after Beltik makes his first move, we learn that it’s an opening Beth has read about but never played before and she immediately feels uncomfortable. This discomfort continues throughout the scene and Beth isn’t able to see the board with her usual clarity. It all seems muddled and confusing. In the show, we can tell that Beth is distressed and based on her body language we know the game isn’t going well for her, but again we don’t know why. In the show, Beth gets up from the board, goes to the bathroom, and takes a pill. She is able to imagine the game on the ceiling and as the music swells you can tell that she’s figured out what to do. In the book, Beth doesn’t take a tranquilizer. She just sits in silence and imagines the board on the ceiling. The show keeps on trying to make the case that Beth thinks she needs the pills to be good at chess and to see the imaginary chess board, but that’s not the case in the book. Yes, the pills and chess are linked, but because they are the two things that give her peace, not because she needs the one in order to be good at the other. Beth wins the game against Beltik but in the book there’s no “I can get out of it” “Maybe if you had gotten here on time” banter. In the book, Beth is able to win not because of the pill and not just because Beltik was late, but on her own talent and merit. There are some minor differences in the end scene with Alma, but nothing that’s noteworthy and this post is already getting too long.
Join us next time where we get to meet the infamous Benny Watts, played by the only actor who could convincingly play a teenage when he was in his 20s, the lovely Thomas Brodie-Sangster.