As Hollywood’s obsession with prequels continues, the small-screen continues to be a great platform for these stories to blossom. Shows like Bates Motel, Hannibal, even Gotham take the events of well-established properties and set their narratives in the stages leading to their successors. Perhaps the most unlikely candidate for a prequel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’s pre-cursor comes in the form of horror-series Ratched.
Anyone familiar with either Milo Forman’s acclaimed film or Ken Kesey’s original novel will know Mildred Ratched. Louise Fletcher won an Oscar bringing the iconic villain to life in 1975, a character so infamous that she is notorious as one of ‘pop culture’s most iconic antagonists’. For his latest, Ryan Murphy tells the story of Nurse Ratched (with his regular collaborator Sarah Paulson stepping into the legendary shoes here) before she became the tyrant the world knows her as – looking at her life in 1940s California.
Ratched is desperate to be a nurse, going to extreme lengths to get recognised, and employed, by Dr Hanover (Jon Jon Briones) in his facility made to ‘fix the mentally insane’. The patients there range from lesbians to intense daydreamers, nymphomaniacs, and the severely unhinged. But the magnum opus of the facility – certainly the reason that the hospital receives the endorsement of Governor Wilburn (Vincent D’Onofrio) – is Edmund Tolleson (Finn Wittrock). After savagely murdering four priests in the miniseries’ opening sequence, Tolleson finds himself locked away in Dr Hanover’s facility. His instability quickly poses a threat to the other patients, especially as Nurse Ratched becomes more desperate to reach the top.
There are very few prequels that justify their existence. Did we need to know how A led to B? In most cases, the answer is no. I certainly don’t know many people that sat and wondered how Mildred Ratched became the head nurse at Salem State Hospital. I didn’t. In that regard, Ratched doesn’t justify its existence either. It somewhat goes against the whole point of her character in both Kesey and Forman’s Cuckoo’s Nest. That being said, it doesn’t mean that Ratched is a bad piece of work. Far from it. Ryan Murphy and Evan Romansky’s take on this iconic character is by far one of the more interesting things to come out of 2020 – a candy-coloured nightmare that puts pop-culture’s headmistress in a chilling and different new light.
It’s a tonal departure from Cuckoo’s Nest, taking a more horror-driven approach to the storytelling – Murphy using his previous success, American Horror Story, as the blueprint here – but the body-horror and gore work well within this world that he creates for Paulson’s Ratched. She’s just as cold and calculated as ever; the actress does a superb job in the leading role, turning in a very poised and surgical performance that echoes Fletcher’s work in the original well while also feeling like its own thing. The key to unlocking Ratched is embracing the fact that it’s very much its own thing. Cuckoo’s Nest, this is not. Beyond a few similarities and the overarching character, Murphy tries to make Mildred his own and mostly succeeds. It’s a devilishly fun reinvention of the source material that is constantly engaging thanks to the intrigue it sets up and the creative, dark set-pieces it creates within the hospital.
The show is also full of visual splendour, from great practical effects to mesmeric production and costume design. But it’s the vibrant palette of pastel colours that is hard to turn away from – even when the gore gets queasy to watch. It’s easily one of the most visually arresting pieces of work all year – across all entertainment mediums. And the colour does a lot in conveying story and character, taking on a whole dimension of its own. While some of the supporting players can lack characterisation and the plot can become a bit too ludicrous for its own good by the end, Ratched is a chilling departure from Cuckoo’s Nest that reinvents the infamous Mildred Ratched and pulls the audience into its cold, enthralling atmosphere. The whole thing is deftly written and executed with such surgical precision from Murphy and Romansky that it’s hard to not be impressed by what’s on show. It’s sprawling but undeniably entertaining.
Ratched
Summary
Deftly written and executed with such surgical precision from Murphy and Romansky that it’s hard to not be impressed by what’s on show. It’s sprawling but undeniably entertaining.
