Everyone has been telling you the truth: The Queen’s Gambit is a fabulous time. As you’ve likely heard by now, the show is brilliantly acted, gorgeously shot binge-worthy television. The writing is fluid, the production and costume design impeccable, and the chess depicted in a way that is accessible, suspenseful, and cinematic. And every intelligent woman I know who has watched the show has had a variation on the same response: what a thrill, to watch a smart, ruthless, messy, extravagant woman take on the world—and win. The show is a pleasure. But at risk of holding an unpopular opinion: it isn’t an unadulterated one. The Queen’s Gambit may feel empowering, and in certain ways it is. But the show tells the same, old, cis-male story of exceptionalism that Hollywood has been stuffing down our throats for years. Here it feels empowering; but only because that story has so rarely been told via the body of a woman.