This is a trauma infused seven part mini-series that is well acted, well scripted, and does not end up in the disasterous place that it often seems to be headed. The opening episode shows eight-year-old Beth left impossibly unharmed by the car crash that kills her mother. As the series unfolds, we quickly learn that the crash was a suicide attempt that Beth was not meant to survive, and that Beth figures this out and flashes back to it often. Her father’s not in the picture, so Beth ends up at a Christian school for orphans. While there, she develops three things: a friendship with Jolene (played by Moses Ingram, who is excellent), a passion for chess, and a physical and emotional dependence on the little green tranquilizers fed to the children until they are later outlawed by the state. Drugging the kids was probably done in many an institutional setting but it is still pretty shocking, none-the-less. It is what substitutes for psychological support for children who have lost their families. When she finally leaves the school, she’s got those last two things packed in her suitcase alongside a bunch of chess books, a sizable ego, some unexplored trauma, and no small amount of self-loathing underneath her socially awkward and cool exterior. But it’s chess that drives her, sending her both to the heights of the competitive chess world and, increasingly, to pills and alcohol to keep demons at bay. It is a great story well told and well worth seeking out.
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