Ryan Murphy and Sarah Paulson are heading to Netflix next month with their Ratched, an original series that tells the origin story of Nurse Ratched from Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. The first trailer, below, promises a series that looks and feels a lot like other Murphy productions. The color scheme alone screams his name. But does it feel like Nurse Ratched?
Ratched will have a decidedly different tone from the book and movie it’s spun-off from and, honestly, it leaves me scratching my head. Why adapt a well-known, classic character if you are going to take such a radically altered approach to her? The Nurse Ratched we see above is definitely a fascinating character, burned by the war and lack of affection and other inner demons. But she feels so unlike the Nurse Ratched we know from the book and Milos Forman’s film. The Nurse Ratched we grew up with was symbolism for an authoritarian system gone mad, she was the soullessness of bureaucracy and the cruelty of unchecked power. The Nurse Ratched that Paulson and Murphy are giving us seems pissed at those same structures and even slightly justified. I may be wrong but she certainly does not look like a villain to me. And make no mistake: Nurse Ratched is a villain.
But who knows, perhaps this origin story series will tell a believable and relatable tale of a person beaten down by the very institutions she hoped to change. Maybe she will become the character we know so well. Maybe the campiness and the lush colors and characters and sounds will feel at home in the universe created by Kesey. Maybe this will all mesh and work out. Maybe, maybe, maybe. However, the trailer makes me feel that Murphy, Paulson and usual Murphy collaborator Ian Brennan are taking the character in a direction that just doesn’t jive with what we have previously known. But, hell, what do I know?
Ratched hits Netflix on September 18.