SPOILER
Was why both her biological and adoptive father treated Beth like she was poison. It was odd.
Even her lawyer looked at her like she was the peculiar one after her "showdown" with her adoptive father when he was trying to renege on the financial deal he made with her over the house. He was the arsehole in that situation not her.
I didn't take it like the lawyer was looking at her as peculiar, to me it seemed like he was looking at her with respect and in a new light. She stood up for herself and told her pos adoptive father off and offered to buy him out, I think the lawyer was looking at her like she was a badass.
shareThe way I understood it, her biological father already had a family. I think Beth was an illegitimate child. He was very upset when her mother showed up at his place to talk to him.
Her lawyer was just an uptight business man from his time who seemed intimidated by her drive. And her adoptive father was just being a selfish asshole. He seemed like some taciturn war vet from WW2.
Good answer. I hadn't thought of Beth being illegitimate, although that doesn't quite square with the way her father left them. Or maybe it does. I'll have to have another look at it.
Me too, to be honest. It's just the way it came to my mind when I saw your question but I'm not 100% sure either.
shareMaybe not illegitimate, I read it more like a rejected man that moved on and had a family by the time her mother decided to ask for help.
There have been some years between the moments.
Beth’s Mom had a PhD in mathematics. We briefly see Beth reading the cover of what looks like her Mom’s dissertation while her Mom is burning all of their books after she told the Dad to stop tracking her down. This scene made me wonder if the Dad was her doctoral advisor. He seemed a lot older than her. Also having two math PhDs as parents might explain Beth’s math/chess genius.
shareIn that same scene, isn't there a shot of a broken pill bottle? I thought the pills looked very similar to the green ones Beth takes in the orphanage.
shareYes, I saw that too. They were green capsules so I guess the implication is her Mom was on them too.
Here is an interesting article about the fictional drug and the real drug they were based on..
https://www.marieclaire.com/culture/a34496439/the-queens-gambit-green-pills/
I think in the last episode she says that her mother came from money and married into money, so I interpreted that to mean that her parents got divorced when she was little, her father remarried, and then years later her mother went back to him for help and he sent them away.
shareAnd yet Beth's mother sounded like a hillbilly so that doesn't normally indicate coming from money but just the opposite.
Beth's mom was as crazy as a shit house rat. So I chocked up Beth dad's feeling towards Beth being that there was no way he could be with Beth and not deal with the mom's insanity. He was clearly a dead beat dad.
The adoptive father didn't give a shit about Beth. He got Beth to give his alcoholic wife something to do. After the wife died he changed his mind and wanted some money out of the property.
Short answer: both of them were pieces of shit.
Lawyer was in shock that a twenty-something, single girl with no family or advanced education had $7,000 to pay so casually. Keep in mind that is like $60K today. Back then most women were not independent. A husband and some babies, was mostly all they could aim for, hence the self medicating with booze her "friend" and adoptive mom were doing.
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