Okkkkkaaaayyy.
So you know what's hotter than Zac Efron wandering shirtless around Byron Bay?
Benny Watts using his beautiful slender hand to move his bishop to H4. But also speed chess. And helping Beth to beat Borgov in Moscow, obviously.
In case you haven't binged all seven episodes of The Queen's Gambit on Netflix , let us introduce you to Benny Watts.
Chess pirate.
"You wanna sleep on my blow up mattress, chess lady?"
Beth's harem of sexy men.
And if one more person tells us he was the kid in Love Actually... WE KNOW. AND THAT MAKES HIM THIRTY YEARS OLD. DO YOU UNDERSTAND. He was also in The Maze Runner and Nanny McPhee but none of that matters because now he is a man with a tiny moustache.
In The Queen's Gambit he's one of the only characters to beat Beth Harmon, an orphaned chess prodigy whose talent takes her all over the world.
But when (spoiler alert etc. etc.) Beth beats Benny, he offers to be her trainer and no one ever told us there was this much sexual tension in chess.
They move pieces with their beautiful hands. And stare deep into each other's eyes while thinking of moves we don't understand. They smile and wink and say things like "a Spanish opening" which sounds fckn dirty if you ask us.
We thought it was universally accepted that Benny was a very sexy boy, but then we saw a... remark.
A woman in our Mamamia Outlouders Facebook group named Petra wrote, and I quote: "The Queen's Gambit. I'm enjoying it, but I have one question: are we supposed to find the Love Actually kid in cosplay as Indiana Jones sexy? He looks like two children stacked on top of each other wearing a trenchcoat. He looks like a shrunken David Spade dressed as Crocodile Dundee. But maybe this reads as 'hot' to generation Z...?"
Um wot.
Um, firstly... yes. To the question about sexiness but also the incredibly perceptive observation of him as two children stacked on top of each other wearing a trench coat. They are not mutually exclusive.
You see, us millennials are no longer attracted to the macho Brad Pitts with their muscles and their emotional constipation. We're not about a defined jawline and big hands and six-foot-somethings. We need more from our fantasy men. And yes we're talking about special skills, such as chess. Emotional intelligence. Support but also encouragement. A phone call when we're stuck on a particular move. Also, multiple necklaces. And bracelets. And rings.
Benny also has an air of mystery. It feels like he's hiding something inside his coat/under his hat. Which is sexy. He is also gentle even though he carries a knife with him at all times - again adding to the mystery.
"I can be trusted with a knife because I'm a kind man."
But by far the peak of Benny's hotness comes when he's there to help Beth before she even KNOWS she needs him.
She wakes up in Moscow ahead of her final match against Borgov and Benny has gathered a harem of hot chess men, including but not limited to Dudley from Harry Potter all grown up, to analyse the game and provide a strategy for Beth to win. It would've taken a really long time and we're pretty sure it's also quite late in New York.
As women who have often felt like we're having conversations with men who fundamentally do not find us interesting, this is the stuff of our fantasies. Benny sees Beth first as a chess-playing human, and second as a lady, which is a novelty on screen.
May we all find a man like Benny, with a pathetic moustache and a cowboy hat in winter, who loves us because we are so shockingly good at a little game called chess*.
** Note: We don't give a single f**k about chess.
*** Note: We guess the broader point is, may we all find a person who understands us on a level no one else can. Or something.
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