The Queen’s Gambit is a show about chess and the obsession that is required to master it. It is a show about women in a man’s world, about sexuality, addiction and the late sixties. But above all, it is a show about the pharmakon. Luckily for me, you probably do not know what a pharmakon is, which puts me in the fortunate position of my philosophy degree coming in handy. So, what is a pharmakon?
The pharmakon is a term used by Plato in one of the socratic dialogues, yet it was highlighted and elaborated by the kingpin of impenetrable french philosophy: Jacques Derrida. He noticed that pharmakon, a Greek word, had often been translated in a wide variety of ways, even with definitions that are opposite to each other: ‘poison’ and ‘medicine’. So when we use the word pharmakon, we don’t know whether we are talking about the venom, the cure, or both.
The first pharmakon that the show presents us with are white-green capsules that Beth and the other orphans are forced to take in the orphanage. First they are called vitamins, but once their distribution is cancelled, they are referred to as tranquilizers. It is heavily hinted that they are a form of benzodiazepine, though the actual name of the drug (Xanzolam) refers to a fictitious substance. They are used to sedate the orphans, but are also shown to produce hallucinatory effects. It only takes the first episode for Beth to become addicted to the drug. She suffers from withdrawal symptoms and at the end of the first episode, nearly dies from an overdose. Xanzolam is a sweet poison, seducing its consumer to take more until it can have its ultimate, fatal effect. It is not unlike any other drug in that way, even alcohol. Alma Wheatley, Beth’s adoptive mother, is seen in more scenes with a glass of alcohol then without. It no doubt numbs the pain of her lonely, listless life. Alma’s life is already in a state of paralysis when Beth enters it, sulking in her house, unable to capitalize on her talents. She eventually dies of hepatitis, probably not by accident that it is a disease of the liver.
Yet in a strange manner, the Xanzolam also functions like a cure. When Beth takes it, she withdraws into the world of chess, allowing her to focus on the game itself, and not the games beside it. When she is for the first time challenged in a match, she uses the drug to restore her focus, landing a decisive victory. We are left to wonder whether it was despite or in spite of these pills that she could come this far: are they a poison or are they a cure?
Ultimately, chess is the more potent pharmakon. Beth is transfixed by the chessboard at the very moment she lays her eyes on it. She dreams of the board even before she knows what it is, which should indicate what kind of constricting grip it will come to hold on her life. Chess saves Beth. Being good at chess is what makes her. It is the source of her income, the foundation of the respect she gets from others and the first and final lifeline she has with the world of others. Chess is her passion. It is what gets her out of bed in the morning. It captures her imagination, sparks joy and animates her. But even above that, chess is a place of security for her.
“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.”
The world of sixty-four squares is the zone in which Beth feels secure in approaching the world and connecting with others.
But with great value come great stakes. Throughout the show, we see player after player fall out of the sport when they cannot keep up. It is a game where thirty years of hard work can collapse before a ten-year old prodigy, where the wave can break at any moment and roll over into stagnation and decline. The only ones who can last are the people for whom it means everything. And it does mean everything for Beth, it is as if death is at her doorstep with every loss: “Now, you must resign”. Could the passion for chess be a poison as well?
We can see its eroding traces elsewhere. As much as chess connects Beth with people, it also separates her from them. As a niche hobby, she cannot talk about it with her classmates or her mother. Her relationship with Harry Beltik breaks off because he cannot match her on the board. Being at the top starts to isolate her. Her obsessive attitude towards the game is often pointed out to her. It sparks as much enjoyment as it does fear, sorrow and rage. Is it a passion or an obsession? Is it a link with others or a refuge from them? Is it her poison or her cure?
Let us shift gears a little and look at the final two episodes of the show. The moments that led up to the suicide of Beth’s mother are revealed to us here, as she insists to Beth on the fundamental mistrust that she should have of others. The other, after all, embodies the uncertainty of the pharmakon. This was proven to Beth’s mother in her relationship with her ex-husband, who came to take Beth away when she did not want to give her up, and ironically did not take her in when she finally came around. Similar confirmations are scattered throughout the show. Alma took Beth in as a cure for her loneliness, but Beth turned out to be poor company, just like Alma’s first husband. A final breach of trust by her pen pal lover turned out to be the fatal blow. Alma probably did not realise that her very own passing represented yet another confirmation of the untrustworthiness of others to Beth, as this event marked the beginning of her downward spiral. Beth had lived with these words her entire life up until that point. It allowed her to see through the lies of the orphanage as a haven for improvement whilst it was in fact no more than a human storage facility. She internalizes the notion with the death of Alma, and it seems that no one is able to correct her course. Harry and Benny both fail in their endeavours to reach her. Their attempts to break through her shell have an adverse effect, because they reveal that they are hiding their judgement about her. Her lowest point is marked by a fling with the character Cleo, where the fickle and volatile nature of their engagement is an open secret.
But although the other is untrustworthy and unknowable, a fundamental rounding error, this does not make them a poison. Because this indeterminacy also has a flipside. The other can surprise as well. The very thing that Beth’s mother warned her about was the thing that saved her. At the end of the sixth episode, Jolene, Beth´s only friend from the orphanage, shows up at her door. The girl who had disappeared from her life in the beginning of the series makes an unexpected return. Jolene does not necessarily understand Beth better than the others that had attempted to help her before. What she represents, I believe, is the unintentional effect that Beth´s life has had on others. And slowly but surely, it is revealed that this impact is far greater than Beth was aware of. Later, it is revealed how mr. Schaibel had admired her all this time, and this marks the beginning of Beth´s recovery.
By accepting the unknowable, the indeterminate and uncertain, Beth is able to emerge victorious. We can see this when the Russian commentator on the game cites a parable about chess that answers to the one that Beth gave us before:
“The Chessboard is the world, the pieces are the phenomena of the Universe, the rules of the game are what we call the law of Nature, and the player on the other side of the board is hidden from us.”
Of course chess is not just a world of sixty-four squares. That is just what she wished the real world was like, that’s what her mother wanted the world to be like. In confrontation with the uncertain, Beth tried to hide in drugs and the game, which were ultimately her shell. But chess could never be a shell, because it is always a bridge towards someone else. It is fitting that someone like Borgov would be her final opponent. We learn remarkably little about him, but one thing that we know is that his playstyle is supposedly very bureaucratic and dull. Borgov wins his games because he is detached from them. He is good because his judgement is not clouded by emotion. In a sense, he represents what Beth strived for, but accepting his way would have closed her off from the bridge that chess can be.
This is what the final scene of the show represents, when Beth sits down with a stranger in a strange land to play a game of chess. Because her victory could never be a victory for America or Christianity. Chess, above all, is a bridge.
Anyway, The Queen’s Gambit is a 6/10.
Sleeptalking 
Mooi werk Cas!👌🏻
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