The trip to Cincinnati launches Beth and her mother into a whirlwind of travel and press coverage. Beth sets her sights on the U.S. open in Las Vegas.The trip to Cincinnati launches Beth and her mother into a whirlwind of travel and press coverage. Beth sets her sights on the U.S. open in Las Vegas.The trip to Cincinnati launches Beth and her mother into a whirlwind of travel and press coverage. Beth sets her sights on the U.S. open in Las Vegas.
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaWhen Beth played against Benny Watts, you get to see the first ten moves. The first seven moves are a transposition of Scheveningen Sicilian Defense, Sozin Variation with early ....b5 (ECO B87). The first six and a half moves are also the Najdorf Variation (B90), which was mentioned in Ep 1.1 and is named after Polish-Argentine grandmaster Miguel Najdorf, who was mentioned in this episode.
- GoofsOn a number of occasions in the series, high-ranked payers are checkmated. This almost never occurs in competitive matches, as players usually resign well before they can be checkmated.
- Quotes
Miss Jean Blake: Do you imagine that you saw the king as a father, and the queen as a mother? I mean, one to attack, one to protect?
Beth Harmon: They're just pieces. And anyway it was the board I noticed first.
Miss Jean Blake: The board?
Beth Harmon: Yes. It's an entire world of just 64 squares. I feel safe in it. I can control it, I can dominate it. And it's predictable. So if I get hurt, I only have myself to blame.
- Soundtracks25th of the 12th
(uncredited)
Performed by Bill Compton
I think Anya Taylor-Joy is starting to feel a lot more comfortable in the role, and the character is certainly less awkward and confusing now, but what was the point of the party scene? What was the point of the flashback at the start?
I like that she is finally shown to have flaws in her strategies, but whose bloody idea was it to have the US chess champion dress like a post-apocalyptic cowboy straight out of the Fallout universe?
And yeah, the mother's dialogue is still weirdly off-putting.
And I still think it's fairly well directed and shot, but I really can't stress enough just how rampantly predictable and cliche I find this whole show up until now. Nothing happens that I didn't expect just from reading the premise, and it sucks because for as great as the acting and production design is, and as...competently directed as it is, I really can't get past how much I don't care about anything going on.
If anyone hasn't assumed this already, I do plan on finishing this, because it's only 7 episodes, so I might as well, but at this point I'd be surprised if it does manage to turn it around.
- TheCorniestLemur
- Feb 13, 2021
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