Speaking of TV shows I also want to give a shout out of “Ratched” on Netflix. I binge watched it over the weekend it was released but forgot to post about it. It’s another beautifully taken show with a lot of period pieces and was a pleasure to watch.
The show is about Nurse Ratched, the nurse in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” (the book aka subsequent movie adaptation). Apparently she is amongst the top 5 villains according to her Wikipedia page. The TV show has nothing to do with the book, it is like an origin story of Nurse Ratched from way before when we meet her in the book. Nurse Ratched is played by Sarah Paulson, an actress whose much works I haven’t seen but now that I am a fan of hers after this show I will definitely try and catch up on some older stuff. The show is created by Ryan Murphy and he and Sarah Paulson previously worked on “American Horror Story” so that’s where I got to start for sure.
After watching the show I came across an interview with Sarah Paulson regarding this show. It’s available online to listen and one of the things she said in it is that in the movie Jack Nicholson plays Randal McMurphy, the patient with whom Nurse Ratched clashes, and Jack Nicholson has such a charming personality that it is so easy to side with him and think of Nurse Ratched as this two dimensional bad character; while what Sarah Paulson wants to do in this TV series is show Nurse Ratched’s backstory so we feel for her and empathise with her, perhaps by Season 4 or 5 we’ll see her become the Nurse Ratched of the book/ movie.
I hope Season 2 comes out and the show doesn’t get cancelled or anything. And I hope it keeps up with Season 1. Too many shows falter in Season 2 and later.