With all due respect, Ratched may be the most pointless show that Ryan Murphy has ever done. This isn’t to say that it’s the worst. The prolific producer has been known to fill his shows with questionable taste, often in the name of the delicious camp, but rarely has a project felt so misguided that you’re left wondering not what’s going on but why. Why did we need an origin story series for Nurse Ratched from Ken Kesey’s beloved novel “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” On paper it sounds like it has potential, following in the line of Murphy’s penchant for feminist and mental health themes. Oh, if only that was the only thing he pulled from American Horror Story.
Ratched is a combination of every worst impulse that Murphy has had. While his other 2020 shows have had misfires, you can argue that The Politician got halfway to a point and Hollywood had its heart in the right place by raising the profile of forgotten actresses like Anna May Wong. But what does Ratched have to offer? How does it expand the story of a figure who’s been often labeled one of the biggest villains in the 70s cinema, symbolizing the haunting, towering force of the establishment? Is this some great attempt to sympathize with her, adding a layer or recontextualizing what we know? After all, Murphy has done it perfectly on shows like Feud and American Crime Story.
To put it simply, Better Call Saul this ain’t.
There is no real reason for this show to exist and Murphy feels like he knows it. For those expecting something more tonally resonant to even the Milos Forman film adaptation, you’ll be greatly disappointed. Outside of mental hospitals and external driving scenes, this may as well just be a random nurse story. There is little here that even resembles Kesey’s story, and it becomes distracting the further in that you go. This isn’t the Murphy who brought us Feud, who had this way of turning Bette Davis and Joan Crawford into a more tragic and beautiful story. This is one of adding layers to a fictional, ambiguous character who at best can be considered misunderstood. Even in the hands of talented actresses like Sarah Paulson, it’s a total waste.
The problems of Ratched become very clear from the opening credits alone. While the credits are lush, the use of a “Danse Macabre” cover more alludes to Alfred Hitchcock, a red string motif recalling film noir, as horrific images of people drowning line the credits. This is a story where Ratched’s brother is a deranged serial killer, where you’re more likely to find the nods to Silence of the Lambs (1991) than the actual source material. Even the surgical scenes may want to make you watch the superior Cinemax series The Knick, if by accident. It’s true that you don’t need to drop everything full tilt in the first season, but imagine having ANY satisfaction that this exists in the world of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” where something tonally is consistent from the film that’s currently waiting for you on Netflix.
Frankly, you may love this more IF you have no relationship to the source material. It will not infuriate you to see so many gross twists that play more into psychological horror, with these vulgar sequences that are themselves appalling and play into the campier side of American Horror Story. Even if this exists in the realm of fiction, it feels discouraging that Murphy can’t make this show into anything more than a horror spin-off, failing to find drama during key scenes, relying on constant plots put into motion by psychological and mental abuse. Sure it’s supposed to symbolize how the medical industry is a terrible place with no understanding of how to cure these people, but when it’s placated with so much sex (so much sex), it feels like all of the shocking twists don’t exist for more than theatrics.
With that said, I almost wish those that love this series not to watch the movie afterward. For starters, you may find the shift from a lush production that’s sure to get Murphy a best set design Emmy nomination to a drab Oregonian mental asylum to be displeasing. The Forman film doesn’t have as many wild twists, existing more in subtlety, asking the audience to look at how these characters symbolize the establishment and freedom at odds with each other. Even if you can argue that Ratched has more colorful characters, they’re not always the most interesting. If anything, they’re Murphy’s brand of nutso that you’ll only recognize if you liked them in his better works.
For me, Nurse Ratched as a character has always needed a resurgence in media, to be better understood as more than an evil villain. Whereas Kesey painted her as evil, it was in large part because of how the protagonists (men) felt uncomfortable by women having more power. Sure she made questionable decisions, but I could see where Murphy could’ve gone with this story. He could’ve given her more depth, of finding this emotional story of how she came to work at the mental asylum and how she is an equally unfortunate victim of circumstance.
Instead, she can’t help but be this figure full of incredible twists worthy of the highest camp. Among the least egregious is the choice to make her a lesbian, which… sure. The idea of exploring homosexuality through the lens of a mental hospital is par for the course. However, it becomes more complicated when you realize that the other twists are ones that Murphy can’t help but present in over the top fashion, making you both wonder “Did he really do that?” and why any of this matters in adding depth to Ratched as a character.
Many are likely to highlight the later sequence where Ratched hallucinates during a children’s marionette show and sees them acting out her childhood abuse. It’s as surreal as you think, and one of the biggest signs of where this show fails to understand its bigger universe. It’s a show where nurses have sex with serial killers, Ratched frees her brother after he performs a mass shooting at a dance, and there’s a woman running around yelling at other musicians because she’s played for the king and queen (okay, that last bit was fun, but only if it was in any other show).
Still, the part of the show that makes you understand that the public’s vision of Ratched and Murphy’s are so out of whack actually comes early. While at a motel where she befriends a gentleman caller, they perform a variety of kinky acts. Among the most noteworthy is where she mounts him while recalling her experience as a wartime nurse. As she becomes aroused, the audience is treated to footage of her treating a soldier who's lost his limbs. It’s grotesque in that M*A*S*H* (1970) way, making you wonder how messed up Ratched’s mind truly is. Suddenly her asking patients about their masturbation practices seem quaint. This is a show that has a literal bloodlust, and this is far from the only dismemberment you’ll get in these eight episodes.
Again, maybe if this show was just another weird nurse drama, it would seem less offensive. It would make more sense and not constantly distract you. It’s clear that Murphy is limited in how he can slap a tone on all of his projects. He can’t blend something new that would make you understand why this show was necessary. To him, Ratched isn’t a chance to celebrate Kesey’s work, but to pay tribute to all of these horror icons of the 1940s and 50s. There’s even some Dario Argento in there, and the score more than once sounds like it’s lifted from Bernard Herrmann. In any other show, this would just be distracting. In Ratched, it’s going to ask you why any of this matters.
Which is the problem. There is no bigger point to Ratched. Even in terms of Murphy shows, he’s explored mental illness better with American Horror Story’s excellent second season Asylum. Even in its anything goes atmosphere, it had this more sympathetic and beautiful message, finding ways to turn a story full of Nazis, Anne Frank, and a homicidal Santa into a bigger message about how we treat each other. In hindsight it was Murphy’s peak as a ribald auteur, making any follow-up message difficult. All he could do was go sincere, and he did with great results in American Crime Story, finding ways to explore racism and homophobia in these clever ways.
It becomes more disappointing to see Ratched fail because you are aware that he’s capable of making this story into something more than schlock that can’t even pay tribute to its source material correctly. It doesn’t even get close, and it creates something that is constantly at odds with itself. You want to believe that this is a series worth taking seriously, but it’s way too horny and violent to focus on its themes. They’re treated more for shock value, not really evolving Ratched as a character in any meaningful way. You can’t tell if she’s supposed to be seen as homicidal or misunderstood. If anything, it feels like Murphy’s bloodlust suggests that she’s setting herself up for something even bloodier in season two.
For comparison, look at Better Call Saul, which spun-off from Breaking Bad and has dominated Emmy nominations since its premiere. What is the big difference? For starters, it managed to have enough of a tonal shift while focusing on its themes clearly, suggesting that every man is capable of becoming evil. There is a gradual reveal that connects it to the other series. The same goes for Fargo, which goes even further off course and yet feels like it exists within the universe thanks to its quirky tone. Basically, these spin-offs have a consistency that makes you feel like when Netflix says “If you love x, you’ll like y” that they’re bestowing their entire reputation on this decision.
I can’t say the same for Ratched and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975). It feels offensive to even think of them in the same sentence. It’s more Douglas Sirk than Forman, more like a bloodier Hitchcock. Even if it does a decent job of establishing its themes, it turns the life of Ratched into a campy B-Movie where it feels like nothing matters. Want to have war flashbacks during sex? Sure. Want to murder your captor on top of a paraplegic? That happens. Whatever humanity is in here doesn’t make itself known until you try to find it. As a commentary on mental health, it’s straightforward but meandering and dull. Also, Murphy never makes it clear enough just what Ratched is doing in any of this.
This is the most pointless thing that Murphy has done in his decades of producing shows. While the sumptuous set design may fool you (those hallway lights are divine), one has to ask what the bigger point is. Even Scream Queens, his other low-bar achievement, at least can get a pass for being a pastiche of awful people surviving slasher movies. It knows what show it wants to be and the first season is the right level of awful trash. Once you get used to its tone, it’s actually kind of fun. Sure season two is a bigger mess, but at least its intentions are purer than this tripe.
To be honest, 2020 is shaping up to be Murphy’s worst year as a producer with three shows now that have disappointed on differing levels. Even then, it’s hard to argue that they’re necessarily as pointless as Ratched, which is entertaining for those that can overlook its staggering continuity errors, but even then you have to ask yourself if this really is the best that Murphy has done, or just that his creative bank is starting to go bankrupt. He’s running out of ideas, and it doesn’t even feel like he has enough love for this property to give it fair treatment. It’s business as usual, and that’s the big issue. This doesn’t make Nurse Ratched better, it just makes TV worse, giving in to the lazy prequel phenomenon that others have done better. Maybe one day this will look more like the story I think it can be. Hopefully, by then it will have redeemed itself in any significant way.
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