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.
She's a hedonist who enjoys being around Beth, sharing her hedonism with her, and has no concern at all for the consequences. She is not deliberate or directed enough to be a saboteur.
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.
While The Queen's Gambit never comes out and explicitly reveals that Cleo was sent by the Russians, there are a number of hints that she was acting on their behalf — either as a "honeypot" agent of sorts, or simply as a convenient tool that they used to their advantage.
Grandma Gayle takes Ernie and K.C. back to the '70s to show them how Cleo Brown became the first black woman to spy for The Organization.
Chloe admits to being jealous of Beth, and doesn't stop her after one drink, as a good friend would.
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.
Some commentators have suggested that Cleo may have been employed by the Soviets to distract Beth before the vital game, also later on the soviets allow Townes to visit Moscow during the games to interfere with Beth's game - after Beth told Cleo (During her visit to Paris ) that she was in love with Townes, but this ...
Throughout Netflix'sThe Queen's Gambit, Townes' toxic impulse to sleep with Beth could be because of his attraction to a fantasy version of her, and his subsequent rejection of that impulse is what finally affords them a healthy relationship.
After this loss, Borgov smiles warmly at her and hugs her, illustrating how Beth's doubts about him and fear of him are primarily internal and borne of her own sense that she doesn't belong in the chess world.
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.
Beth was 15 years old when she got pregnant with Rip's child. Scared to tell her father or Rip about her pregnancy, Beth asked her brother instead. Jamie takes her to an abortion clinic. There, Jamie gets informed that the only way to perform the abortion is for Beth to undergo sterilization.
As a teenager, Beth fell pregnant and asked her older brother, Jamie to accompany her to a clinic for a termination. Instead, Jamie and the doctor agreed to give Beth a hysterectomy without her consent, leaving her infertile for the rest of her life.
WORST: Perfectionism
Without a doubt, Beth's biggest weakness is her perfectionism. She simply cannot accept defeat, and while her persistence may be an admirable quality, stubbornness is not. When she loses, she goes on a severe downward spiral. Throughout the series, dealing with defeat is her biggest struggle.
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.
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.
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.”
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 Beth joins her, one drink turns into many and Beth oversleeps and wakes up in the bathtub - whether purely because of the alcohol, or perhaps because of something extra that Cleo slipped into her drink. It may be circumstantial, but a lot of the evidence points to Beth being the victim of a honey trap.
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.)
So besides the fact that Cleo has slept in Beth's bed (without Beth sleeping next to her), there are no other proofs that would say that they had sex. Most likely, they got drunk, went to Beth's room, got drunk more and eventually passed out.
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.
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.