''Ratched'' is an American

psychological thriller Psychological thriller is a genre combining the thriller and psychological fiction genres. It is commonly used to describe literature or films that deal with psychological narratives in a thriller or thrilling setting. In terms of context and co ...

streaming television Streaming television is the digital distribution of television content, such as TV shows, as streaming media delivered over the Internet. Streaming television stands in contrast to dedicated terrestrial television delivered by over-the-air aer ...

series created by Evan Romansky, developed by Ryan Murphy and starring

Sarah Paulson Sarah Catharine Paulson (born December 17, 1974) is an American actress. She began her acting career in New York City stage productions before starring in the short-lived television series '' American Gothic'' (1995–1996) and '' Jack & Jill' ...

in the title role of Nurse Mildred Ratched. A

prequel A prequel is a literary, dramatic or cinematic work whose story precedes that of a previous work, by focusing on events that occur before the original narrative. A prequel is a work that forms part of a backstory to the preceding work. The term " ...

Miloš Forman Jan Tomáš "Miloš" Forman (; ; 18 February 1932 – 13 April 2018) was a Czech and American film director, screenwriter, actor, and professor who rose to fame in his native Czechoslovakia before emigrating to the United States in 1968. Forman ...

's 1975 film '' One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest'' (based on

Ken Kesey Ken Elton Kesey (September 17, 1935 – November 10, 2001) was an American novelist, essayist and countercultural figure. He considered himself a link between the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the hippies of the 1960s. Kesey was born in ...

's 1962 novel of the same title), it depicts the life of Mildred Ratched prior to the events portrayed in the film, albeit in a different state (

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

as opposed to

Oregon Oregon () is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of it ...

). ''Ratched'' received a two-season series order. The first season premiered on

Netflix Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a fil ...

on September 18, 2020.

Premise

Cast and characters

Main

as Nurse Mildred Ratched, a nurse who is hired by Dr. Hanover to work at Lucia State Hospital, but her motive to work there is to break her foster brother Edmund out of the hospital after he is admitted there for killing several priests. *

Finn Wittrock Peter L. Wittrock Jr. (born October 28, 1984), known as Finn Wittrock, is an US actor and screenwriter who began his career in guest roles on several television shows. He made his film debut in 2004, in ''Halloweentown High'' before returning to f ...

as Edmund Tolleson, the murderous and mentally unstable foster brother of Ratched, an inmate at Lucia State Hospital. *

Cynthia Nixon Cynthia Ellen Nixon (born April 9, 1966) is an American actress, activist, and theater director. For her portrayal of Miranda Hobbes in the HBO series ''Sex and the City'' (1998–2004), she won the 2004 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supp ...

as Gwendolyn Briggs, Governor Willburn's

press secretary A press secretary or press officer is a senior advisor who provides advice on how to deal with the news media and, using news management techniques, helps their employer to maintain a positive public image and avoid negative media coverage. Dut ...

and campaign manager, and Ratched's love interest. *

Jon Jon Briones Ernesto Cloma Briones Jr., known as Jon Jon Briones (born August 7, 1965), is a Filipino-American actor best known for his work in musical theatre. He was born in Quezon City, Philippines and became a United States citizen in 2010.Wolf, Matt ...

as Dr. Richard Hanover/Dr. Manuel Bañaga, the director of Lucia State Hospital who hires Ratched. (season 1) *

Charlie Carver Charles Carver Martensen (born July 31, 1988) is an American actor and screenwriter. His best known roles include Porter Scavo on the ABC television series '' Desperate Housewives'', Ethan on the MTV television series ''Teen Wolf'', Scott Fros ...

as Huck Finnigan, an

orderly In healthcare, an orderly (also known as a ward assistant, nurse assistant or healthcare assistant) is a hospital attendant whose job consists of assisting medical and nursing staff with various nursing and medical interventions. The highest ro ...

at Lucia State Hospital, his face badly disfigured from a war injury. He later gets promoted to head nurse after Betsy takes over the hospital from Dr. Hanover. (season 1) *

Judy Davis Judith Davis (born 23 April 1955) is an Australian actress in film, television, and on stage. With a career spanning over 40 years, she has been commended for her versatility and regarded as one of the finest actresses of her generation. Frequen ...

as Nurse Betsy Bucket, the head nurse at Lucia State Hospital and a rival of Ratched. She later takes over the hospital from Dr. Hanover after he goes on the run from the police for his past crimes. *

Sharon Stone Sharon Vonne Stone (born March 10, 1958) is an American actress. Known for primarily playing femme fatales and women of mystery on film and television, she became one of the most popular sex symbols of the 1990s. She is the recipient of various ...

as Lenore Osgood, a wealthy heiress who hires a

hit man Contract killing is a form of murder or assassination in which one party hires another party to kill a targeted person or persons. It involves an illegal agreement which includes some form of payment, monetary or otherwise. Either party may ...

to kill Dr. Hanover for disfiguring her son after she hired him to treat her son's mental illness. (season 1)

Recurring

Corey Stoll Corey Stoll (born March 14, 1976) is an American actor. He is best known for his roles as Congressman Peter Russo on the Netflix political thriller series ''House of Cards'' (2013–2016), for which he received a Golden Globe nomination in 2013 ...

as Charles Wainwright, a

private investigator A private investigator (often abbreviated to PI and informally called a private eye), a private detective, or inquiry agent is a person who can be hired by individuals or groups to undertake investigatory law services. Private investigators of ...

and hit man who accepts a contract on Dr. Hanover from Lenore Osgood *

Vincent D'Onofrio Vincent Philip D'Onofrio (; born June 30, 1959) is an American actor and filmmaker. He is known for his supporting and leading roles in both film and television. He has been nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award. His roles include Private Leonar ...

as Governor George Willburn, the governor of California *

Alice Englert Alice Allegra Englert (born 15 June 1994) is an Australian actress, director, writer, singer, and songwriter. She is best known for her roles as Rosa in the film ''Ginger & Rosa'' (2012) and Lena Duchannes in the film '' Beautiful Creatures'' ( ...

as Nurse Dolly, a nurse trainee with undiagnosed

nymphomania Hypersexuality is extremely frequent or suddenly increased libido. It is controversial whether it should be included as a clinical diagnosis used by mental healthcare professionals. Nymphomania and satyriasis were terms previously used for the c ...

at Lucia State, and Edmund's love interest *

Amanda Plummer Amanda Michael Plummer (born March 23, 1957) is an American actress. She is known for her work on stage and for her roles in such films as '' Joe Versus the Volcano'' (1990), ''The Fisher King'' (1991), ''Pulp Fiction'' (1994), and '' The Hunge ...

as Louise, the owner of the motel that Ratched and Wainwright stay at and longtime friend to Nurse Bucket *

Jermaine Williams Jermaine Charles Williams is an American actor, producer, and dancer. He dances for the Norwood Kids Foundation. He is from Rialto, California. He is best known for his role as Mush Mouth in ''Fat Albert'' and Noel in ''Stomp the Yard''. He a ...

as Harold, a security guard at Lucia State *

Annie Starke Annie Maude Starke Albu (born April 26, 1988) is an American actress who has appeared on film and Broadway theatre, Broadway. Early years The daughter of actress Glenn Close and businessman John Starke, she was raised in Bedford (town), New York, ...

as Lily Cartwright, a patient at Lucia State who is being treated for her

lesbianism A lesbian is a homosexual woman.Zimmerman, p. 453. The word is also used for women in relation to their sexual identity or sexual behavior, regardless of sexual orientation, or as an adjective to characterize or associate nouns with fema ...

Brandon Flynn Brandon Paul Flynn (born October 11, 1993) is an American actor, known for his role as Justin Foley in the Netflix series '' 13 Reasons Why'' (2017–2020), as well as appearing as himself in the short film ''Home Movies'', and Mike the Intern i ...

as Henry Osgood, Lenore's

psychopath Psychopathy, sometimes considered synonymous with sociopathy, is characterized by persistent Anti-social behaviour, antisocial behavior, impaired empathy and remorse, and Boldness, bold, Disinhibition, disinhibited, and Egotism, egotistical B ...

ic killer-turned-amputee son who was disfigured by Dr. Hanover when he was his patient * Michael Benjamin Washington as Trevor Briggs, Gwendolyn's husband with whom she is in a

lavender marriage A lavender marriage is a male–female mixed-orientation marriage, undertaken as a marriage of convenience to conceal the socially stigmatised sexual orientation of one or both partners. The term dates from the early 20th century and is used al ...

Sophie Okonedo Sophie Okonedo (born 11 August 1968) is a British actress and narrator. The recipient of a Tony Award, she has been nominated for an Academy Award, three BAFTA Television Awards, a Golden Globe Award, and a Primetime Emmy Award. She began her f ...

as Charlotte Wells, a patient at Lucia State with

dissociative identity disorder Dissociative identity disorder (DID), better known as multiple personality disorder or multiple personality syndrome, is a mental disorder characterized by the presence of at least two distinct and relatively enduring personality states. The di ...

Guest

Hunter Parrish Hunter Parrish Tharp (born May 13, 1987) is an American actor and singer. He is known for playing the role of Silas Botwin in the Showtime series '' Weeds'' and for his performances in the Broadway productions of ''Godspell'' in the role of Jesu ...

as Father Andrews *

Robert Curtis Brown Robert Curtis Brown (born Robert Nelson Brown, April 27, 1957) is an American television, film, and stage actor. Early life Brown was born in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and was raised in Yardley, a suburb of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The mi ...

as Monsignor Sullivan * David Wells as Father Murphy * Emily Mest as Nurse Amelia Emerson *

Daniel Di Tomasso Daniel di Tomasso (born 30 January 1983) is a Canadian actor. In 2013, he began starring as a series regular in the television drama series ''Witches of East End'', as Killian Gardiner. Di Tomasso also appeared on ''Beauty and the Beast'', ''Gr ...

as Dario Salvatore *

Harriet Sansom Harris Harriet Sansom Harris (born January 8, 1955) is an American actress known for her theater performances and for her portrayals of Bebe Glazer on ''Frasier'' and Felicia Tilman on ''Desperate Housewives''. Harris won a Tony Award in 2002 as a Fe ...

as Ingrid Blix, an opera singer who is

lobotomized A lobotomy, or leucotomy, is a form of neurosurgical treatment for psychiatric disorder or neurological disorder (e.g. epilepsy) that involves severing connections in the brain's prefrontal cortex. The surgery causes most of the connections t ...

* Liz Femi as Leona *

Joseph Marcell Joseph Marcell (born 18 August 1948) is a British actor and comedian. He is best known for his role as Geoffrey Butler, the butler on the NBC sitcom ''The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air'' from September 1990 until the show ended in May 1996. Born in S ...

as Len Bronley * Ben Crowley as Reggie Hampson *

Rosanna Arquette Rosanna Lisa Arquette (; born August 10, 1959) is an American actress. She was nominated for an Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie, Emmy Award for her performance in the TV film ''The Executioner's Song ( ...

as Anna, Ratched and Edmund's former case worker in the

foster care Foster care is a system in which a minor has been placed into a ward, group home (residential child care community, treatment center, etc.), or private home of a state-certified caregiver, referred to as a "foster parent" or with a family mem ...

system * Kerry Knuppe as Doris Mayfair *

Benjamin Rigby Benjamin Rigby is an Australian actor, writer and producer. Early years and training Rigby attended Scots PGC College where he excelled in drama, receiving the Drama Prize in his final year in 2005. He had previously attended Trinity Luthera ...

as Case Hitchen * Sascha Malkovich as Dunnbar * Teo Briones as Peter, a boy who is lobotomized by Dr. Hanover to cure

daydreaming Daydreaming is the stream of consciousness that detaches from current, external tasks when attention drifts to a more personal and internal direction. This phenomenon is common in people's daily life shown by a large-scale study in which partici ...

Episodes

Season 1 (2020)

Production

Development

On September 6, 2017, it was announced that

had given the production a series order for two seasons. Netflix reportedly won a bidding war over

Hulu Hulu () is an American subscription streaming service majority-owned by The Walt Disney Company, with Comcast's NBCUniversal holding a minority stake. It was launched on October 29, 2007 and it offers a library of films and television serie ...

and

Apple An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple fruit tree, trees are agriculture, cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, wh ...

who also were interested in developing the project. The series was created by Evan Romansky who also wrote the pilot. His script was eventually received by television producer Ryan Murphy, who then spent a year securing the rights to the Nurse Ratched character and the participation of the Saul Zaentz estate and Michael Douglas, who owned the screen rights to '' One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest''. Murphy directed the pilot and executive produced alongside Douglas, Aleen Keshishian, Margaret Riley and Jacob Epstein. Production companies involved in the series included

Fox 21 Television Studios The second incarnation of Touchstone Television (formerly known as Fox 21 Television Studios) was an American television production company that is a subsidiary of Disney Media Networks' Walt Disney Television owned by The Walt Disney Company. It ...

, The Saul Zaentz Company, and Ryan Murphy Productions.

Mac Quayle Mac Quayle is an American composer for film, television and video games, best known for his work on the USA Network's ''Mr. Robot'' and for FX's ''American Horror Story''. Quayle was born in Suffolk, Virginia, but moved around the state, living ...

, who has frequently collaborated with Murphy, composed the series' score which heavily borrows from

Bernard Herrmann Bernard Herrmann (born Maximillian Herman; June 29, 1911December 24, 1975) was an American composer and conductor best known for his work in composing for films. As a conductor, he championed the music of lesser-known composers. He is widely re ...

's classic score.

Casting

Alongside the initial series order announcement, it was confirmed that

had been cast in the lead role of Nurse Ratched. On December 11, 2018, it was reported that

and

had joined the cast of the series. On January 14, 2019, it was announced that

Harriet Harris Harriet Sansom Harris (born January 8, 1955) is an American actress known for her theater performances and for her portrayals of Bebe Glazer on ''Frasier'' and Felicia Tilman on '' Desperate Housewives''. Harris won a Tony Award in 2002 as a F ...

, and

had been cast in the series. In February 2019, it was reported that

Don Cheadle Donald Frank Cheadle Jr. (; born November 29, 1964) is an American actor. He is the recipient of multiple accolades, including two Grammy Awards, a Tony Award, two Golden Globe Awards and two Screen Actors Guild Awards. He has also earned ...

, and Stan Van Winkle had been cast in recurring roles. On July 29, 2020, it was reported that

, Liz Femi, and

were cast in recurring roles.

Filming

Filming for the first season took place in early 2019 in Los Angeles and 20th Century Fox Studios. One of the filming locations was the historic

Adamson House The Adamson House and its associated land, which was known as Vaquero Hill in the 19th century, is a historic house and gardens in Malibu, California. The residence and estate is on the coast, within Malibu Lagoon State Beach park. It has been ...

in Malibu.

Release

The series premiered on September 18, 2020.

Reception

Audience viewership

In its first week of release, ''Ratched'' was ranked number one in the

Nielsen ratings Nielsen Media Research (NMR) is an American firm that measures media audiences, including television, radio, theatre, films (via the AMC Theatres MAP program), and newspapers. Headquartered in New York City, it is best known for the Nielsen rat ...

, who announced that the show had been viewed for a total of 972 million minutes. According to Netflix, the series was viewed by 48 million people in its first four weeks.

Critical response

For the first season, review aggregator

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

collected 96 critic reviews and identified 61% of them as positive, with an average rating of 6.3/10. The website's critics consensus states, "''Ratched'' is undeniably stylish, but salacious plot holes and cartoonish characterizations undermine its gorgeous production and committed performances."

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

assigned the season a weighted average score of 50 out of 100 based on 32 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". In a 5/5 stars review, Nicholas Barber from ''

BBC Online BBC Online, formerly known as BBCi, is the BBC's online service. It is a large network of websites including such high-profile sites as BBC News and BBC Sport, Sport, the on-demand video and radio services branded BBC iPlayer and BBC Sounds, t ...

'' wrote, "''Ratched'' ratchets up everything, from the deeply colourful design to the

-like music to noir-ish soap-opera plotting that drips with sex and violence. But it isn't pure camp. Romansky's superb scripts keep tight control of the characters and their intertwining stories, and there are some chillingly accurate depictions of brutal 1940s psychiatric treatment. Ratched is also oddly big-hearted for such a gruesome series. The characters are a crowd of villains, with next to no one who could be classed as heroic, but they are all vulnerable, and most of them are motivated by love – even if that love inspires them to hire a hitman to decapitate an old enemy." ''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...

''s Alexandra Pollard, who rated it 4/5, found the origin story to be "thoughtful and beguiling". Darren Franich of ''

Entertainment Weekly ''Entertainment Weekly'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''EW'') is an American digital-only entertainment magazine based in New York City, published by Dotdash Meredith, that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books, and popular cul ...

'' gave the series a C− and described the series' clothes as "nice, but they're dressing a corpse." Reviewing the series for ''

The Hollywood Reporter ''The Hollywood Reporter'' (''THR'') is an American digital and print magazine which focuses on the Cinema of the United States, Hollywood film industry, film, television, and entertainment industries. It was founded in 1930 as a daily trade pap ...

'', Inkoo Kang wrote that, "The performances are across-the-board fantastic, but Nixon—playing Ratched's love interest—exhibits such frailty, sensuality and decency that her turn ultimately ends up feeling like it belongs in a much better production." ''

TVLine ''TVLine'' is a website devoted to information, news, and spoilers of television programs. History In late 2010, ''Entertainment Weekly''s Michael Ausiello announced that he would be leaving ''EW'' after nearly two years in their employ to est ...

'' wrote that the series "might be yan Murphy'semptiest effort yet", giving it a D.

Accolades

References

External links

* * {{Netflix original current series 2020 American television series debuts 2020s American drama television series American prequel television series 2020s American LGBT-related drama television series Dissociative identity disorder in television English-language Netflix original programming Lesbian-related television shows Psychological thriller television series Psychological thriller web series Television series by 20th Century Fox Television Television series by Touchstone Television Television series created by Ryan Murphy (writer) Television series set in 1947 Television shows based on American novels Television shows filmed in Los Angeles Television shows set in California Works about nursing Works set in psychiatric hospitals Television about mental health Mass murder in fiction Matricide in fiction Murder in television Suicide in television