Ratched

WARNING: Scenes of explicit violence, drug use, suicide, sex, and/or abuse occur regularly. Not intended for children or sensitive viewers.

Ways to Watch: Netflix

Overview

Ratched is an American psychological thriller drama about the character of the same name from Ken Kesey’s 1962 novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

It tells the origin story of Mildred Ratched (played by Sarah Paulson) becoming an asylum nurse 15 years before she worked at the Oregon psychiatric hospital we are familiar with from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. In 1947, Mildred arrives in Northern California to seek employment at Lucia State Hospital where the head doctor uses new and unsettling experiments to treat mental illnesses. Mildred presents herself as the perfect image of a dedicated nurse, but in reality, she is there to infiltrate the hospital system for reasons slowly revealed throughout the first season.

Cynthia Nixon plays Gwendolyn Briggs, the campaign manager for the Governor of California. Gwendolyn is in a marriage of convenience with a gay man and finds herself drawn to Mildred.

While Ratched was renewed for season 2, Paulson does not know if it’s ever happening.