At a glance:
Length: 8 episodes (50 – 62 mins each)
Creators: Ryan Murphy, Evan Romansky
Stars: Sarah Paulson, Finn Wittrock, Cynthia Nixon
Genre: Crime, Drama, Horror
Rating: 2.5/5
For a self-proclaimed film buff, I have an embarrassing confession. I only got around to watching One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest last weekend.
The reasons why I did not are infinite - from the book being prescribed as required reading in high school to the subject holding no attraction for me in adolescence.
The reason I DID watch it last weekend, was Ratched, Ryan Murphy’s gap year creation on Netflix.
In order to prepare myself for the not-American Horror Story (AHS) TV show, I decided to dive into yet another of Jack Nicholson’s psychosis movies. However, as I realised five minutes into the show, I really did not need to watch the movie, but it did add some colour to a brightly coloured yet disturbingly dark show.
For the American Horror Story fans, the eight-episode season of Ratched feels like a call back to the earlier seasons of AHS.
It dives into the backstory of Mildred Ratched, keeping the focus on show-stalling performer Sarah Paulson for almost the entire series.
Set in 1947, the show starts with Mildred Ratched, later to be known simply as Nurse Ratched, getting a job at Lucia State asylum, er, Hospital. She works with Dr Hanover (Jon Jon Briones) as he dog-whistles mental health treatment techniques that take on increasingly darker tones.
Without giving away too much of the show, we get a glimpse at the sociopath that Nurse Ratched becomes in the 1975 film. We also get a perspective into her family and what might have fuelled her psychosis.
The sets are stunning, par for Ryan Murphy’s course. The gory moments are ‘effect’ive with a heavy emphasis on the FX. The acting is phenomenal, as to be expected from a cast that has become quite familiar with each other in the Murphy-verse.
That’s about where the pros start to run thin. The plot is laughably convoluted, and relies on over-explanation than creativity. Unsurprisingly, shining too much light dulls the darkness.
Yes, we would like to know more about Nurse Ratched, but excessive detail actually ends up taking away the eerie aura of a character who didn’t even need to have a first name in her creator’s novel. In the 1975 movie, a mere glance from Louise Fletcher revealed more than entire episodes of this series.
The creators here rely instead, on humour suspended amidst the horrid and reframing childhood indulgences as psychotic micro-aggressions. Carnage replaces cerebral creepiness.
Momentary horror and the usual parade of ‘Murphy’-isms litter the scene, trying to achieve a modicum of the effect that eerie music and silence had in 1975.
- Women fighting for rank amongst themselves only to band together at the end? Check.
- The big baddie revealed to be a softie, with a side of petting zoo, just to drive home the point? Check.
- Sensually charged dining scenes filled with double entendre galore? Checkered.
And just for extra flourish, there are two shoe-horned in romances for everyone (especially Sarah) on the LGBTQ spectrum. This perhaps is the most irritating aspect of this series, just because of how unnecessary and crude it is.
Overall, Ratched is worth a watch, if just for the amusement of seeing fantastic actors performing absurd lines like, “I want to give his head to my son as a gift for his 21st birthday.”
But don’t go in expecting the awe of Jack Nicholson and Louise Fletcher glaring at each other in silence. Enjoy it for its comical horrors, tired typecasts and of course, the absence of a good season of AHS.
At the end of the day, Ratched is kinda ratchet.
