Mildred’s rescue mission leads her into acts of cruelty-such as manipulating a distraught man to take his own life in Dr. Though the quality and consistency of "Ratched'"s writing dramatically deteriorates around its midpoint, Paulson’s dedication to finding the pulse inside the brittleness of the ice queen archetype makes her compulsively watchable-and the first four episodes, at least, give her a main through-line that is worthy of that performance.
Richard Hanover (Jon Jon Briones) barely contained fury at a world that has shown her so much suffering and, most poignantly, a strained sense of hopefulness that she can save her family, and perhaps build a new one with Gwendolyn, the woman who has slowly begun to crack through the hard shell of her accumulated fear and self-loathing. This devotion compels into her great manipulation and violence of her own, allowing Paulson a symphonic range of emotion: Her Mildred vacillates between diamond sharp focus and Machiavellian cunning as she maneuvers to become the right hand woman of the hospital chief, Dr.
Mildred’s forays into the mental health system of the late 1940s are motivated by her desperate devotion to a man from her past, the only family she has, whose protective sweetness has curdled, through the grotesquely operatic trauma of his past, into an ooze of violence. But "Ratched" is surprisingly not interested in its heroine’s relationship with traditional forms of power-the series’ first half is devoted to how love, in all its forms, holds its own power to warp us and the promise to redeem us. Think of Jessica Lange’s Sister Jude, unsung administrator of Briarcliff, putting a smug doctor in his place with a tart “Let me give you fair warning: I’ll always win against the patriarchal male” before subjecting a woman to violent electroshock therapy to singe away the “sin” of lesbianism.
One might assume that "Ratched" would be consumed by this question, given its ad copy’s invitation to “meet the woman before the monster” and its thematic sisterhood with "American Horror Story: Asylum," which was preoccupied with the ways in which striving for institutional authority can make otherwise intelligent women, women who should know better, identify with their aggressors. However, time-and more nuanced depictions of gender-has rendered the movie’s vision of personal autonomy, and its avuncular avatar, the brash Randall Patrick McMurphy, through a shallow lens (more “boys just wanna have fun” than “freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose”), and begged the question of whether Nurse Ratched is a native-born ball-busting evil incarnate, or, perhaps, a competent woman whose soul was eroded by her time in a cruel, patriarchal institution.
The series' premise is initially intriguing: "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" remains an iconic film, and Louise Fletcher’s portrayal of the arctic-hearted authoritarian has made her one of cinema’s great villains. Unfortunately, "Ratched" lacks sustained faith in the power of its human drama. Watching two seasoned actresses pirouette through the minefields of their characters’ furtive hopes and palpable anxieties is riveting in ways that the gonzo, gore-flecked cheesiness of other Murphyverse fare so rarely is.
The scene is layered with narrative and character complexities-Gwendolyn is the aide to the boorish Governor of California, a man who can decide the fate of the psychiatric hospital where Mildred has just started working, and which houses someone from her past, someone she can’t bear to lose again the two women also share a sexual tension that is potent and frothing as the waves breaking on the shore beside them (and at a time when homosexuality was still in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders). Young Mildred ( Sarah Paulson) sits across from Gwendolyn Briggs ( Cynthia Nixon) at a cozy seaside café the two women sit and sip cocktails, and Briggs, the older, more assured woman, teases her tautly-drawn companion that she’ll enjoy sampling the oysters. It’s ironic that one of the most dramatically potent moments in "Ratched ," the Ryan Murphy-produced attempt at an origin story for Nurse Mildred Ratched from " One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," is one of its subtlest moments.