infiltrates

Netflix’s period piece miniseries The Queen’s Gambit spans a decade in the life of fictional chess prodigy Beth Harmon (Anya Taylor-Joy), a wunderkind whose natural aptitude for anticipating her opponents’ moves is blunted by her addiction to the tranquilizer pills with which she credits her wins. Following gawky teenage Beth through her early tournaments in the 1950s to the aloof redheaded beauty wowing spectators in Europe in the ’60s—and leaving a trail of defeated men in her wake—the seven-hour series was faced with the challenge of making every chess scene equally thrilling to enthusiasts and non-fans alike. The key, Taylor-Joy…