This origin story for "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"'s Nurse Ratched looks great, as Ratched puts on a vintage dress and wreaks subtle havoc in an asylum. But the first episode was such a mess that I have zero interest in watching more.
Sarah Paulson is terrific as the chilly Ratched, and scenes like her bizarre foreplay with a random guy are pretty cool. But there are serious issues with the story and premise.
First off, her elaborate plan requires that nothing go wrong. Repeatedly in the first episode she sets something up in a way that could fail dismally but it never does. She needs no plan B, because even the stupidest plan A goes off like clockwork. It's so easy for her that she even takes risky, unnecessary steps to get herself exactly where she wants.
And if you've read the book or scene the movie then you have to question why this weird story is tied to that character. Ratched was a controlling psychopath, but ultimately she represented the cruel, cold nature of authority, which will crush anything creative or rebellious not out of mean-spiritedness as much as just because of an intolerance for chaos.
But this Ratched is actually a chaos agent, and a very different kind of psychopath. She is not a character who would become the character in Cuckoo's Nest. And this makes the tie-in nonsensical. It seems like a shoddy attempt to increase its visibility with a tie to a famous movie, but it has no respect for the character that movie created. And it's unnecessary, because there is zero reason for this tie-in. It could have been made with a nurse of any name.
In summary, Paulson is good but the series is not that interesting or believable and untrue to its presumed inspiration. Not recommended.
