Review: THE QUEEN'S GAMBIT Is Close To Being Royalty

Chess is a pretty interesting game to play and can be somewhat interesting to watch if you’re well invested in the people playing or it’s a really good game. However, watching people play chess for hours on a TV with lots of melodrama and other things can be a lot less entertaining. However, The Queen’s Gambit is surprisingly gripping and well-paced. The story is good, even though some circumstances can be extremely far-fetched. It’s not one of Netflix’s is best shows, but it’s a good, short binge that can keep people well engaged and entertained from beginning to end.

Seeing a full origin story of a superhuman kind of character that isn’t a superhero is actually refreshing. It’s good to see the drama, negative, and positive things in her life really shape her into the character she ends up being by the last game. A few of the events seemed way too convenient or excessively unlucky, but overall the story had a great beginning, middle, and end for her art as a chess prodigy. There was a massive loose end about her family history that could have played a bigger role, making her a more relatable and deep character. It doesn’t ruin things, but it was strung along for a while and didn’t resolve well enough in the end. 

As I mentioned above, the pacing in this show is really great. Seven episodes that don’t linger or dabble in lame subplots or pointless ruses make the show feel well paced and never wasteful. This is a pretty serious show, and sometimes it’s seriousness gets derailed by some really cheesy moments or hyper coincidental moments. These kinds of moments take the viewer out of their experience, but not for very long.

Anya Taylor Joy is excellent through and through. Her ability to project a lot of different emotions and complex feelings with and without words is fantastic. Everyone else in the show plays their part pretty well, but it’s hard to see Thomas Sangster as an adult with a beard and mustache, he looks like he’s still 13 years old and isn’t super convincing as this lone wolf almost hipster kind of character.

The Queen’s Gambit is overall pretty good, but the unbelievable circumstances, both positive and negative can you really throw off the atmosphere and emotional gravity of the episode. It’s fine and fun and a great thing to binge over a lazy weekend.