Ratchedtells the same origin story three times.
The new Netflix drama’s eight-episode first season (streaming Sept. 18) doesn’t just reveal her past.
It reveals, and re-reveals, and then reveals the same thing all over again.
Credit: SAEED ADYANI/NETFLIX
Repetitive cycles of mawkish drama and lavish camp undercut whatever the actors are trying to do.
The series knows how to wave its price tag in your face.
Mildred drives into postwar Lucia, Calif., and finds a town full of coastal color and Crayola fashion.
The location shooting is fun, and the sets are big for horizons.
The nurses wear bright turquoise.
The most dangerous inmate gets stashed in a converted wine cellar.Bad writing murders great production design, though.
Meanwhile, certain high-tension musical cues nudge Hitchcockian.
It’s a cheeky conceit for a prequel.
Could she be the tragic hero of an earlier Hollywood era?
That’s a sins-of-masculine-privilege hat trick: violent monstrosity, horny disinterest, noble impotence.
Dr. Hanover is an ex-pat Filipino researching the fatal forefront of the psycho-sciences.
Any story about an asylum is, eventually, about how those in charge are crazier than the patients.
Don’t forget about the mystery man at Mildred’s motel, played by a bemusedCorey Stoll.
Still, the first couple episodes sizzle with romance and danger.
The two women go to a restaurant full of windows overlooking the foggy coast.
The scene lasts long enough for meaningful glances to become long stares.
And they eat oysters.
when she’s not cursing an invisible Hitler.
By midseason, everyone either loves a murderer or is a murderer.
Something has happened to Murphy and his collaborators in their Netflix victory lap, though.
The old luridness keeps edging into feverish moralizing, as if everyone is worried about beingtoooffensive.
There has to be a difference between campy hyperbole and grasping pretension.
You want Countess Luann to sing, not explain what her songs mean.
Everything is just so terribly obvious, and too many creative decisions are outright embarrassing.
Consider what happens every time Okonedo’s character shifts between her many personalities.
The performer’s face alters ever-so-subtly because that’s what great actors can do.
For some reason, a dunce in the editing room added an explanatory whirring noise on the soundtrack.
And we surely can accept a lot of ludicrous story points from our luscious trash.
But really: Why would someone record themselves conducting an illegal lobotomy?
Why would theykeepthat recording?
Paulson’s a problem, unfortunately.
She lies about everything and is also great at everything, as if Tom Ripley was also Harry Potter.
Davis lets you see the contrast between Bucket’s public and private face.
Worth pointing out that one key point ofOne Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nestis that Nurse Ratchedisn’tan obvious horrorshow.
At times, its rudeness is just crude.
One character has a habit of stabbing the various non-white domestic workers in his mansion.
bad behavior, which is a special blight given Kesey’s extracurricular activities.
The clothes are nice, but they’re dressing a corpse.
Grade: C-
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