Queen’s Gambit Season 2: All About Netflix’s Plan For More
Few predicted in advance that The Queen’s Gambit, a story about an orphaned female chess prodigy rising to the top of the chess world would draw so much attention.
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Few predicted in advance that The Queen’s Gambit, a story about an orphaned female chess prodigy rising to the top of the chess world would draw so much attention. Not even show’s creators knew how big it would be. Against the odds, the series has become a phenomenon and now after watching all seven episodes everyone wants to know: Will there be a Queen’s Gambit season 2?
Currently there are no officially announced plans for Queen’s Gambit season 2. However, series star Taylor-Joy gave Town & Country Magazine some hope, “If I’ve learned anything from being in this industry, it’s never say never.” But she also added some hesitation. “I adore the character, and I would certainly come back if I was asked to, but I do think we leave Beth in a good place. I think the rest of her life will surely be an adventure as well, but in the quest that she goes on in this to find some form of peace, just some form of being able to be happy with who she is. I think it ends in a nice place.”
The series also stars Harry Melling, who plays arrogant chess prodigy and former Kentucky state champion Harry Beltik, who added in his thoughts via Radio Times on a possible Queen’s Gambit season 2: “It’d be good, right, a Queen’s Gambit part two? The place we end in the limited series is the place we end in the book. I don’t know if there can be another one, but stranger things have happened.”
What Queen’s Gambit Season 2 Could Be About
The story, based on the Walter Tevis 1983 novel of the same name, seems to have a definite ending point which doesn’t obviously lend itself to Queen’s Gambit season 2. The tale told in full so if there were to be a second season, there is no source material to base it on.
Queen’s Gambit season 2, if it happens, wouldn’t be the first continuation of a story based on source material that goes off the map and does its own thing. However, the series was originally intended as a mini-series, hence the seven episodes. It was created by Scott Frank and Allan Scott with Frank writing and directing each episode.
So where Queen’s Gambit season 2 take Beth, if the series seemed to wrap things up nicely and there is no other source material? Executive producer of The Queen’s Gambit, William Horberg, also spoke to Town & Country Magazine saying, “We’ve had a lot of fun talking about what happens tomorrow. The last scene feels like a beautiful note to end the show on, so I’m not sure if we want to go on and answer that question. Maybe we can just let the audience imagine what comes next.” Not exactly a big endorsement for making Queen’s Gambit season 2.
Money talks though and if there is a Queen’s Gambit season 2 where could we see Beth? With Beth taking down the greatest chess player in the world, would she stay at the top? Beth’s demons could easily come back to haunt her. She could be challenged by a younger prodigy.
In fact, during the mini-series, Beth had a close match with a young upstart. To fill in the story of Queen’s Gambit season 2, Frank (if involved) could take viewers back to Beth’s troubled childhood to give a deeper look at her family. There are also a few supporting characters who deserve a longer look. It’s not impossible to think Netflix could get at least one more season from the story. Tevis himself had said he was considering writing a sequel to his novel before he sadly passed away in 1984 at the young age of 56.
To be sure, Netflix will take a long hard look at the numbers The Queen’s Gambit is pulling in and make a decision that is surely a financial one. And as Taylor-Joy mentioned, never say never. This is Hollywood, after all. Queen’s Gambit season 2 happening may be unlikely, but it’s not impossible.
The First Queen’s Gambit
Netflix’s wonderfully written surprise hit is a totally fictional story set in the 1950s and early ’60s. It stars Anya Taylor-Joy (The New Mutants, Split, The Witch) as Beth Harmon, who as a nine-year-old, lost her mother to a car accident. Beth is taken to an orphanage, where she is taught to play chess by the building custodian.
The orphanage doles out tranquilizer pills daily to the girls. Beth catches on quickly to the game of chess, but her abilities are enhanced by the drug. The daily dose is the start of Beth’s addiction. As Beth enters her teen years, she is adopted by a woman and her husband, whose biological child died a few years before they adopted Beth. Beth’s chess prowess continues to develop at such a high rate that Beth eventually enters a chess tournament, which she wins.
Other cast members include Bill Camp as Mr. Shaibel, the custodian who teaches Beth how to play chess, Marielle Heller as Beth’s adoptive mother Alma, Patrick Kennedy as Beth’s adoptive father, Moses Ingram, Christiane Seidel, and Marcin Dorociński as Vasily Borgov the Soviet chess champion who is Beth’s toughest competitor.
The series goes on to follow Beth and her rise to chess glory while she deals with her every growing dependency on alcohol and drugs. But does it require Queen’s Gambit season 2?
