Netflix's The Queen's Gambit's incredible popularity is largely due to the incredible Beth Harmon - the kind of complex and layered protagonist that can make a series. At times, Beth is someone that every viewer is rooting for, and her early life and trauma make her extremely sympathetic. However, she is far from a perfect character.
Beth is a deeply layered character, and while the one constant in her life seems to be chess, she spends much of the series dealing with childhood trauma and an addiction to tranquilizers. She's kind, but she also makes some awful decisions and pushes away the people who care about her.
Best: Flushing The Pills
In her days at the Methuen Home, Beth quickly becomes addicted to the tranquilizers that she's given at the orphanage. She spends most of her teenage years finding ways to get them and starts to use them a lot after her mother dies. However, once she's in Moscow she throws away the last ones she has, and it's probably a moment where viewers were most proud of her.
Worst: When She Went Home Instead Of Staying With Benny
When Beth completely loses her match against Borgov in Paris, she leaves and decides to go back to Kentucky. Benny tries his best to convince her to come back to New York but she decides against it even though they both know that sooner or later she'll fall into old habits and start drinking. It's one of the worst decisions she ever made because if she had gone to New York then maybe she wouldn't have ended up in such a bad way.
Best: Late Payment For The Chess Magazine
Once Beth is adopted and leaves Methuen, she doesn't have any way to play chess because she has no money to buy herself a new chessboard. She decides to steal a chess magazine when she goes to buy her mother's cigarettes and it's a predictable but funny moment. The best part, though, is when she returns much later and it is revealed that the cashier knew she stole it - and she finally pays for it!
Worst: How She Acted When She Saw The Girl She Won Her First Game Against
After Beth spends most of her day drinking, she has to go to a chess event, where she encounters the girl she beat in her first-ever tournament. Annette is super nice to Beth and only wants to support her, but Beth is pretty awful to her.
Bearing in mind that she's not doing well at all mentally, it's fair that she doesn't want to be confronted by any more people from her past, but it was also sad to see Beth react the way she did.
Best: Wearing Alma's Dressing Gown In Front Of Mr. Wheatley
When Beth's mother Alma dies, Beth is left with a lot to take care of. Since Mr. Wheatley made himself scarce, Beth had to bury her mother and figure out what to do with the house. When Mr. Wheatley decides she can't have the house, she decides to buy it off of him. When they have the meeting, she wears her mother's dressing gown, and it's a very symbolic moment for both of them, and you can tell it really annoys Mr. Wheatley.
Worst: Going Out With Cleo In Paris
Beth deciding to drink with Cleo was probably one of her worst decisions. She knew that she was playing against Borgov in the final the next day, and she probably knew that she would go overboard too. It's tense to watch as an audience member because you already get the feeling that things are about to go horribly wrong.
Best: Beating Borgov
The whole show leads up to Beth going to Russia to play against Borgov, her formidable opponent. She loses against him once when she gets drunk the night before her match, and it completely throws her off. However, their final match is one of the best moments of the whole season. Beth's reaction is so genuine and it's so good to see her genuinely happy after everything she went through to get to that point.
Worst: Stealing All Those Pills
From an early age, Beth developed an addiction to the tranquilizer pills she was given at the orphanage. She claims throughout the show that she needs them to be able to see the chess pieces on the ceiling and review her games, although while she's still at the orphanage she becomes so obsessed with the pills that she breaks into the medical cabinet and steals the whole jar of them.
Despite how horrifying it is, it's also a funny scene to watch and Beth is the only one who would have the nerve to do something like that.
Best: Playing Chess At The End
The very last scene of the show has Beth walking through Moscow, where she approaches a park full of chess players. They all greet her and ask her to play a game with them. It's one of her best moments because it really shows how far she's come and it's quite symbolic. It's the most relaxed she's looked playing chess and it's because she achieved everything she set out to in the beginning.
Worst: Insulting Mr. Shaibel
Young Beth is quite short-tempered, and she yells a really harsh insult at Mr. Shaibel which prompts him to stop playing chess with her for a while. It's one of the worst things she's done, but it was also stupid because she didn't really know what she was saying and she was just angry. Mr. Shiabel didn't deserve that, considering all that he was doing to help her become a better chess player.