The pair have sex that night. Afterwards, Beltik asks Beth if she wants him to stay in her room, and she responds that she doesn't care.
And, there is another problematic aspect in the relationship that Beth shares with Beltik and Benny. Both the men end up sleeping with Beth either during or after the chess training.
Rather, Beth's affair was because she has finally started to hit rock bottom; she's distracted, and leaving her chess dreams in her dust. By hooking up with Cleo, Beth has found another fix to soothe her like her alcoholism and drug problem.
She wasn't deliberately trying to sabotage Beth, again she is bored. I would say Beth giving into her impulses to find an excuse to drink and Chloe unknowingly enabling her is all takes for Beth to slip. So, no, there was no bad intent in Chloe asking her for a drink.
Cleo is a French fashion model who meets Beth Harmon for the first time during a party at Benny Watts' apartment in New York, then at the Paris, during the Remi-Vallon tournament in 1967. In that occasion the model tempts Beth into an alcoholic binge on the night before her vital game against Borgov.
On the show, Beth's relationship with Benny is the most romantic one she has, but in the novel, Beth doesn't sigh and say “So that's what that's supposed to be like!” after having sex with Benny.
After they have sex, Beltik is once again uncomfortable in his own skin, not sure what to do with himself or whether he should fall asleep in Beth's bed with her or leave. Beth assures him he may do whatever he wishes, but he cannot stand the pressure of not knowing what to do with himself, so he leaves for his room.
Beth Harmon (Anya Taylor-Joy), whilst not declared autistic, was heavily coded as such. And rather than playing into stereotypes (one can just imagine how a lazy interpretation of an autistic chess prodigy would come across), Taylor-Joy gives the role complex and dynamic layers.
Her quirky sense of confidence was observed in a highly-competitive field and this was conveyed among her male counterparts. I love her determination and dedication. For those that are familiar with the subtle ways in which autism spectrum disorder presents in women, it could be argued that Beth was not neurotypical.
Beltik is a strong player, but he is somewhat arrogant and underestimates 13-year-old Beth. He shows up late to the championship match at the tournament before she beats him handily.
One key relationship is her brief romance with Harry Beltik (Harry Melling), a former chess rival turned teacher. The fling doesn't last long, and they do remain in touch - Harry even calls her alongside Benny Watts (Thomas Brodie-Sangster) to give her advice in her match against Vasily Borgov (Marcin Dorociński).
The sexual tension is palpable between Beth and Townes in earlier scenes, but Townes is not bisexual, just (ugh) “a little confused.” His interest in her is platonic, yet he flies to the USSR to see and support and celebrate her — and she “kind of broke his heart.”
Throughout the show Beth struggles with a prescription pill addiction, eventually realizing the harm her habit is doing.
Alice struggled greatly with mental illness, and although her husband made efforts to help her, they proved futile. Sometime after the year 1948, Alice took their daughter and fled from her marriage, isolating her and her daughter by moving into a trailer in Kentucky.
Is The Queen's Gambit Based On a True Story? No… but kind of. The character of Beth Harmon and her story is fictional. It came from the mind of writer Walter Tevis (1928 – 1984) way back in 1983 when the novel 'The Queen's Gambit' was first published.
From her early youth growing up with a mentally unstable mother, up until adulthood, Beth struggles with issues of abandonment, self-criticism, mistrust and loneliness, which all lead her down the dark tunnel of drug and alcohol dependence.
One of Beth's biggest weaknesses is her extreme desire for perfectionism. When she loses a chess match, Beth falls into a downward spiral of self-destruction.
Beth is either 19 or 20 at the end of The Queen's Gambit, as the tournament in Russia takes place in 1968, but the time of year is not clear. Based on the fact that she's described as being 20, the event likely takes place late in 1968, after her birthday in November.
Abandoned by her biological father, Beth went to an orphanage after her mother had died in a car accident. While living there, the orphanage's janitor taught her how to play chess, and she quickly became obsessed with the game and embarked on a trip to take on the World Champion Vasily Borgov.
Jolene is African American and is 12 when the novel begins. She is protective of eight-year-old Beth, helping Beth with her addiction to the tranquilizers at the school and helping her improve in gym so that she's not afraid of sports like volleyball.
Harry's physical change is a bit less obvious
In his interview with Vulture, Melling responded to a question about whether he had changed his teeth before the big return and confirmed that he was indeed wearing fake teeth over his own chompers for the later scenes of the show.
At the time he was 23 and visiting the U.S. opening in Cincinnati where he met Beth. She was 15 when they met and had just won the Kentucky State championship.
After meeting The Queen's Gambit's Townes at her first chess tournament, Beth develops a crush on him, and the two navigate a complex friendship that follows them for the rest of their lives.
Beth Harmon is a fictional character.
The Hungarian chess champion Judit Polgár could have done the trick, but she didn't become a Grandmaster until 1991. (Her sister, the Susan Polgar, received the title the same year.)
In 1967, Harmon identifies further weaknesses in her play during the US Championship in Ohio. She wins against Benny, and they decide to prepare for her international career together in New York.