Ratched – Angel of Mercy Part II

By: Kelly Kearney

Giving us the first major character death of the season, this episode finds Mildred in charge of a lot more than bed pans and lobotomies. With $250,000 reasons to deliver Hanover’s head to Lenore Osgood, Nurse Ratched is working overtime to keep Charles and the good doctor occupied while she tries to save her brother Edmund’s life. What we are starting to learn about Mildred is that for a woman who protects herself by staying numb to her feelings, she isn’t completely empty inside. Quite the opposite, in fact. The loyalty she has for her brother is only out matched by the growing feelings she seems to have for Gwendolyn Briggs. Evil is not born, it’s made, and in Ratched’s case, there is still good lurking in the dark and twisted recesses of her heart. For now, anyway.

Love is Love and It’s Worth the Fight

As the story of Nurse Ratched (Sarah Paulson) unfolds, the complicated relationship she has with her brother Edmund (Finn Wittrock) starts to untangle into a clear and shocking revelation. When Mildred visits him in his basement cell she berates him for his sexual tryst with Nurse Dolly the nymphomaniac. A controlling sister preventing her brother from possible love seems to be a running theme in their lives and Edmund is sick of it. If Mildred will not let him have Dolly then maybe she can satisfy his desires. From the way he leers at her, it wouldn’t be the first time. Immediately, Mildred sidelines his advances, pushes his hands off of her hips and sternly promises that they will never do “that” again. She pleads with him to be patient because her plans are starting to come to fruition.

After her incestuous take down with her killer brother, Mildred corners Dolly (Alice Englert) and insults her sexual appetites as well as her brother’s disgusting behavior. While she finds their hook-ups distasteful, she promises to help the young lovers – this time without the bars separating them. A happy Eddie means less problems for her and more time to concentrate on her end game; saving her brother, keeping her job and steering clear of any emotional connections that could cloud her judgment. When Nurse Betsy Bucket (Judy Davis) steps out for lunch, Mildred points Dolly in Edmund’s direction, but this time sex isn’t what the Clergy Killer is after. Eddie craves normalcy and “to try and learn to love.” He hopes Dolly is the one to show him the way. Exhibiting a far more sensitive side to this psychopath, he rebuffs the blonde’s sexual advances for a shocking reveal. All he wants is a kiss from Dolly and maybe a little bit of romance. Who knew this serial killer could be so romantic?

Speaking of love, Gwendolyn (Cynthia Nixon) finalizes her decision to live her truth because, for her, it is more important than hiding in a loveless marriage. After her date with Mildred at the oyster bar the red headed woman cannot seem to shake the nurse from her mind or heart. She wants to live and love out in the open and for the first time in her life she thinks she found the person she wants to do that with. Feeling like this is her only shot, Gwendolyn decides to pack her things, leave her lavender marriage to Trevor (Michael Benjamin Washington) and rent a room at the only motel in town. A room adjacent to her heart’s desire.

Once she has settled into her room she heads to the Governor’s office to talk reelection strategies. Governor Wilburn (Vincent D’Onofrio) wants to run on the law and order ticket and the only way to nab that title is to send Edmund Tolleson to the gas chamber. The public is thirsty for the blood of the Clergy Killer and the Governor wants to be the one to satisfy their need for revenge. He orders Gwendolyn to convince Dr. Hanover (Jon Jon Briones) to declare Tolleson sane and competent to stand trial. His secretary promises she will get the doctor on board,. After all, her job depends on it.

Back at the hospital Nurse Bucket gets called away from her lunch hour to search for Mrs. Cartwright’s (Annie Starke) wedding ring. “Suddenly, she’s concerned about the symbols of matrimony,” Bucket asks because the patient with lesbian tendencies, in her bigoted mind, doesn’t seem the type. The missing ring winds up being a false alarm, but the search did give Dolly and Edmund plenty of time to dial in the romance without the head nurse’s watching their every move. With lunch over and the ring found, we head back to the lesbian conversion baths and find out Ingrid (Harriet Sansom Harris) is ready for her dip. She’s tired of repressing her truth and confesses to Mildred, “You don’t know what it’s like to be constantly running from who you really are.” Mildred knows better than anyone what it’s like to run from your truth and live a lie. She empathizes with the beaten down woman and starts to hatch a plan to help her escape her fate. As Nurse Bucket fires up the boiling hydrotherapy baths something goes wrong and the temperatures won’t reach their optimum settings. Apparently, a wire is loose and Nurse Bucket seems to think Huck (Charlie Carver) the orderly or Nurse Ratched are behind it. With no proof and no burning conversion baths, Ingrid gets a reprieve from her medically induced torture.

We Are the Same

With Ingrid’s words fresh in her mind, Mildred tries to extinguish her fiery truth with another awkward Charles (Corey Stoll) encounter.  By now the observant Mildred is aware of his task to kill Dr. Hanover and decides to use her feminine flirtations to get closer to the hired gun. Besides that, she’s also determined to change Charles’ mind about her skills in the bedroom. After he called her the “the worst lay of my life,” she wants another shot at proving him wrong. Basically, she plans to kill two birds with one very kinky stone. That Mildred, always a multi-tasker! After letting Charles know she is on to his plans to take out her boss, she offers to help him get closer to Hanover. Then, the two engage in more amputee foreplay, but this time there is a new cast member in the starring role of her fantasies. Charles morphs inro Gwendolyn and Mildred has her first lesbian awakening! No wonder she sympathizes with Ingrid! She is also struggling with her own lady loving feelings for the red-headed Briggs!

While Nurse Ratched is occupied with Charles, her other suitor Gwendolyn tries to pay her a visit. When she spots Mr. Wainwright heading inside her beloved’s room, she leaves them to their business but the pain on her face heartbreaking. After she cools off she returns to Mildred’s room, but this time it’s not for a friendly visit. Briggs is hurt and lashes out by pulling rank on Mildred with a reminder that her boss will defund the hospital if Dr. Hanover doesn’t hand Edmund over to the courts. Governor Wilburn wants his execution and his secretary wants to see Nurse Ratched squirm. After all, the funding is what is keeping her in that nurse’s uniform, without it, she would lose her job and her brother. This hits Mildred hard, which in turn softens Gwendolyn’s approach from anger to a simmering heat that finds both women in game of emotional tug of war. Briggs backs Mildred into a corner, both literally and figuratively, proving two things: she’s no push over and no matter how hurt she is she can’t get enough of Mildred. Out of all the people trapped in Ratched’s webs of lies, there is something about Gwendolyn that thoroughly unravels her and the feeling is mutual.

The next morning finds all the players in Mildred’s game converging onto the hospital scene. She sneaks Charles into Hanover’s office just as Huck arrives with bad news. The hydrotherapy baths are up and running and Ingrid is due for her treatments. Feeling sympathetic after recently having her own sexual awakening, Mildred and Huck strike up a plan to help the woman escape!

Boiling Rage

Meanwhile, Charles once again tries and fails to take Hanover out. The fact Mildred told the doctor he was coming doesn’t help him in the least. The manipulative nurse has managed to brilliantly play both sides from the middle and so far her plans are working. Dr. Hanover waits for Charles and then knocks him out before he can deliver the doctor’s head to Lenore Osgood (Sharon Stone). Then, Mildred and her boss carry Charles’ limp body to the hydrotherapy baths and that’s when the unconscious man realizes he should have never insulted Mildred’s bedroom behaviors. One hundred and fifty degree water should be a good reminder to never call her a bad lay! As Charles screams to be released Mildred leaves him to boil while escorting Ingrid out of the hospital and into Huck’s getaway car. Leaning in to say her goodbyes, Nurse Ratched explains why she is helping the desperate woman. She understands, maybe better than anyone, this woman’s sexual predicaments. Nobody should be tortured for living their truth. With that Huck drives off with Ingrid, but inside the Charles problem escalates. Being trapped in a boiling hot iron coffin can make anyone fight with everything they have to escape. Charles uses his last bit of strength to break open the locked doors of the hydrotherapy baths and drag his melted body out into the hallway.

At the same time Gwendolyn arrives at the hospital with orders from her boss. Before she can force Dr. Hanover to sign the papers diagnosing Edmund competent enough to stand trial, she spots a pool of blood on the carpet in his office. The sticky red clue is left over from the doctor’s fight with Charles. Before the observant secretary has time to get to the bottom of the blood stain, Charles in all his mangled sloughed skin glory makes himself known to the staff and patients. First, he crosses paths with Peter (Teo Briones) who assumes this man is some kind of monster. Then, he attacks Harold (Jermaine Williams), the guard, who shoots him and alerts the entire hospital to the drama unfolding. Mildred uses the chaos to spin her own story and convinces everyone in ear shot to keep their mouth’s shut. She goes on to offer her expertise in body disposal to Hanover, knowing he has no other choice but to trust her if he wants to keep his precious funding. He agrees since this isn’t their first rodeo with dead bodies and cover ups. Mildred Ratched has Dr. Hanover right where she wants him;, under her controlling thumb, and the doctor is sick of it. In fact, he rants about how sick he is of all the women in is life and orders Racthed to leave him alone – something she has no plans of doing, at least not until she gets what she wants.

Mildred Ratched. Angel of Light or Harbinger of Death?

After Nurse Ratched tosses Charles’ body into the furnace, she comes upon a shaken Gwendolyn who swears the man she saw was a monster. “He didn’t look human,” she says and Mildred, who still has a bitter taste in her mouth from Charles’ insults, responds with “he wasn’t.”

Cut to later that night and Mildred knows the wealthy Osgood is a loose end she will need to tie up. The woman will be looking for an update from Charles and dead men usually aren’t great with follow through. Knowing she has to throw Lenore off her track, Mildred digs out the woman’s phone number from Wainwright’s room and calls her with news about Wainwright’s disappearance. She offers to meet with Lenore to help fix her Hanover problem. The wealthy woman agrees to the meeting because when one pawn in Mildred’s game falls another is positioned to take their place.

The following morning, Huck thanks Mildred for helping Ingrid escape. He calls her an angel and a flattered Mildred responds with, “I’ve never heard that before.” Only she has way back when she was a war-time nurse who helped injured soldiers die to escape their pain. Her empathy comes from a place of numb and pragmatic problem solving. She will take your pain and lead you to the light, even if that means taking your life. The Angel of Mercy can sometimes also be a harbinger of death. A mercy killing is a beautiful gift to those who only know suffering. Nobody understands that better than Mildred Ratched.