Sarah Paulson is everywhere you look. My first encounter with her work was her role on the godawful Aaron Sorkin show Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip as Harriet Hayes, the annoyingly religious sketch comedian on who was supposed to be funny but wasn’t funny because she had a shitty Sorkin script to work with. Of the whole ensemble cast, her performance was easily the most memorable.

I’ve never seen or read One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and I had a nagging feeling during the early episodes that I was missing out on some key information. But I wasn’t. No prior information necessary. This stands on its own. It’s a prequel, too, so perhaps you should actually watch this first! I turned the tables on that one, didn’t I?!

The Premise

It’s 1947, 16 years before the events of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest take place. A man named Edmund Tolleson (Finn Wittrock) murders four priests in cold blood and is sentenced to 120 days at Lucia State Hospital, a leading psychiatric facility in Northern California. And by “leading” that means stuff like, you know, advancements in trepanning and boiling you alive to get the gay out of you.

Why prescribe gentle selective serotonin reuptake inhibiters when you can just hammer sharp objects through patients’ eyeballs?

Mildred Ratched (Sarah Paulson) manipulates her way into landing a job at Lucia State Hospital with the sole intention to break Edmund Tolleson out before he is sentenced to prison or death. The two are foster siblings who were physically and psychologically tortured by one foster family after another for years. Tolleson believed one of the priests he killed was his father. It’s all sorts of sociopathic and fucked up.

Dr. Richard Hanover (Jon Jon Briones), the director of the hospital, tries to secure funding from Governor Willburn (Vincent D’Onofrio). His press secretary Gwendolyn (Cynthia Nixon) and Ratched fall in love with each other. Lenore (Glenn Close) hires an hit man to take Hanover out for not fixing his self-mutilating mental problems. Drama ensues. It’s a wild ride!

Dr. Hanover, sir, why do we have to wear these dreadful outfits? I have a Misfits shirt that better shows off my personality.

My Half-Baked Thoughts

Sarah Paulson is great as Mildred Ratched. I do know that by the time the character ages up to One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest she’s a unsympathetic, cruel, and intimidating person. With all the manipulation, blackmails, and sadism early on (for example, she lobotomizes a surviving priest so that he can’t testify against Edmund), you expect much of the same throughout the season. BUT AU CONTRAIRE, SHITHEAD, because Ratched betrays a lot of actual feelings and emotions!

When Cynthia Nixon’s character starts making moves on Ratched, the reaction is very negative once realization sets in. However, eventually, Ratched begins to embrace her homosexuality, and she genuinely begins to fall in love. A tumultuous and competitive relationship with Head Nurse Betsy Bucket (Judy Davis) softens into a friendship after a confrontation about Edmund turns into a mutual sympathy for the man’s situation. She turns into an ally to help bust the fucker out of the looney bin. Then there’s Edmund, the person she has loved her whole life and will do all sorts of nasty criminal shit to help him out. No scruples, but she cares about her people.

Basement jail is fun once you get used to the mentally-crippling solitary confinement.

While I enjoyed Ratched, especially the second half of the season, this is one of those enjoy-in-the-moment type shows. I didn’t miss it when I wasn’t watching it, and it took me about a month to get through from start to finish. I may have two young kids, but that’s a sucky pace. Two episodes a week? Boo to that.

Enjoy-in-the-moment shows are barely a step above not-enjoying-at-all shows. It’s like the Umbrella Academy. What exactly was my problem with Ratched, one wonders? And the one who wonders is me! I wonder! So I thought about it for a little bit and came to the conclusion that I wasn’t particularly invested in any of the characters, save for Mildred Ratched herself. And even then, it was only a tad.

Edmund Tolleson? You’re supposed to dislike him initially, pity him later, moderately endear yourself to him when he shows his occasional love of animals, and dislike him all over again when he tries to go after Mildred. Ultimately, though, I didn’t give a shit if he didn’t make it out of the season alive!

Dr. Hanover? Of course you’re supposed to hate this guy and his bullshit 1947 psychiatric practices. Ice picks through the eyeball? The constant sweaty anxiety? The dude is shifty and loathsome. He dies and that’s fine with me!

Gwendolyn? Maybe. But she’s pretty boring and doesn’t have much of a personality beyond being the main character’s love interest. Perhaps if she had some substance she could be elevated to I MAY SOMEWHAT CARE IF SHE DIED status. She’s in critical condition for about an episode after she gets shot during the party, but you feel worse for Mildred than you do for Gwendolyn.

You’re being such a Miranda right now.

Betsy Bucket? She’s in second place. She shows the most character development, and my opinion of her slowly transformed from overwhelmingly negative to comfortably positive by the end of the season. Also, she proved to be kind of a badass by deciding to help Mildred bust her foster brother out of looney bin prison and/or kill him humanely with a needle to the neck before he got the electric chair.

And then Mildred herself? Suspend your disbelief and you’ve got a anti-hero you can root for. Unrealistically, for a woman in the ’40s, she has an ability to seamlessly manipulate her way into getting what she wants. Landing a job at the hospital was a cake walk. Successfully preventing Silas from Weeds from incriminating Edmund by lobotomizing him. Helping abused patients escape from the hospital. Blackmailing Hanover to become Head Nurse. Blackmailing Hanover to find Edmund unfit for trial due to insanity. She has it her way, baby, and you’re all in for it.

Oh yeah, Lenore? Don’t care.

Ratched also contains roughly 70% more burn victims than your average Netflix original series!

Worth the Watch?

Yeah, there are only eight episodes so it doesn’t take too much investment. The ornate, decadent, colorful glossiness of the production and the colorful, classy outfits are a real FEAST FOR THE EYES. I could watch Sarah Paulson read a calculus textbook and be thoroughly engaged. Her acting is reason enough alone to give it a shot.

If you like ice picks through eyeballs, then this is the series for you! Netflix bought a second season, so if they ever get around to making it I would certainly watch it. How’s that for a winning endorsement?

This patient is going to need a few more leeches on his genitalia.