Ratched – Pilot

By: Kelly Kearney

Ryan Murphy dives headfirst into the Cuckoo’s Nest universe with this terrifying character study of the infamous Nurse Ratchet. Set prior to Milos Foreman’s Oscar winning film, this offers viewers a front row seat to a woman whose cruelty can only be measured by the tragedies of her past.

The Clergy Killer

It’s a rainy night in 1949 and the local church in Lucia, California has just ended their nightly mass. With a thunderstorm roaring outside, we watch as a mysterious man hides in the shadows. Inside the church rectory the priests sit down for some dinner and town gossip. All but one of the priests, Father McMurty (Greg Winter), has decided to spend their night at the movies watching the Christmas classic A Miracle of 34^th Street. For McMurty, his miracle wasn’t found in the holiday joy but in a bottle of lotion and a lingerie catalogue. The Father engages in some sinful “me time,” which is cut short of a climax when there is a knock at the door. Outside and drenched is the man (Finn Wittrock) we saw lurking earlier and he is claiming to be in need of a phone and a tow truck. Being a man of God who is in service of the people, McMurty ushers the man inside to use the phone. It’s not long before the movie goers make their way home to the rectory and immediately notice things seem off. There is no sign of Father McMurty and that is when all hell breaks loose. The rain soaked stranger is on a killing spree and the clergymen are his intended targets. One by one he slaughters them all until he makes his way to the Monsignor’s (Robert Curtis Brown) room. There he spills his secrets and admits to being the unplanned son of a Nun who was raped by the Monseigneur. This unholy bloodbath is his vengeance to honor his mother. As he rips the church elder to pieces, the camera scans down to a traumatized Father Andrews (Hunter Parrish) hiding under the Monsignor’s bed.

Lucia State Mental Hospital

Fresh faced and beautiful, we find Mildred Ratched (Sarah Paulson) at a gas station on route to the town of Lucia. Mildred could best be described as upper crust and filled to the brim with judgmental elitism. The real story here isn’t Mildred’s chilly demeanor, but the news of a killer on the loose. It has the entire town talking and journalists descending on the sleepy village.

In a visually stunning scene, Mildred’s teal car whips through the windy sea kissed roads of the Pacific West Coast making its way to her final destination, a motel with a “reservation for Ratched, Mildred Ratched.” We soon find out it’s not just a few gas station attendants enthralled with these murders, but the entire town is a buzz with The Clergy Killer. As the motel manager Louise (Amanda Plummer) talks her ear off and shows her around, the typically disinterested Mildred notices her handsome neighbor (Corey Stoll) and flashes him a warm smile. It’s all very brief, but it lends a clue that the no-nonsense Mildred might not be as repressed as she seems.

The next day, Mildred is suited up and ready for her job interview with Dr Hannover (Jon Jon Briones) at Lucia State Hospital for the Mentally Insane. Once there we meet Nurse Bucket (Judy Davis) and get the first look at this cuckoo’s nest Mildred is injecting herself into. Immediately the head nurse and Mildred butt heads over a fake invite letter from Dr. Hanover. Is this quaffed new hire looking to replace Nurse Bucket? Mildred isn’t one to back down. Even if the letter she was sent is a fake, she remains steadfast in her mission to meet with Dr. Hanover. Much to Mildred’s dismay, her interview is on hold while The Doctor pleads with Governor Wilburn (Vincent D’Onofrio) for more funding. His attempts are ignored but do grab the attention of his secretary, Gwendolyn Briggs (Cynthia Nixon).

Back at the hospital Mildred has been waiting for Dr. Hanover for hours and wanders from the lobby to go freshen up. While primping she hears a thud and when she sneaks through the hallways to investigate, she finds a nurse having sex in one of the bathrooms. She tucks that little bit on knowledge into her plotting brain for later use. It’s not long before Hanover arrives back at the hospital and is in no mood to deal with this Ratched woman. He has all intentions of refusing to hear her job pitch, but Mildred has a way of taking control of situations and Hanover is powerless in her wake. She steamrolls over him until he relents, barley getting a word in before she begins recounting her resume to a somewhat impressed Hanover. A nurse during the war she is very versed in trauma, unruly patients and even skat throwers. As impressed as he is, Hanover doesn’t have the funds to hire her but promises to keep her in mind if things change.  Mildred graciously thanks him, but the rejection is evident in her forced smile. She leaves the hospital and ends up in the driveway of an old high school friend or so she claims. She leaves a message for the woman that Arlene Bauer stopped by. Who is Arlene and what game is Mildred playing?

Cut to the motel and we hear over the radio the killer is named Edmund Tolleson and he seems to have a fan in the motel manager. Mildred cuts the woman’s fangirl praise short and asks her to keep her informed of any calls for Arlene. After a brief flirtatious encounter with her male neighbor, one she refers to as leering, Mildred allows him inside her room but more interestingly inside her abandonment issues and sexual fantasies. The two engage in some married role play and it takes a dark turn when it leads to Mildred’s past. An unwanted child, abandoned and alone, isn’t really the type of foreplay this guy is looking for. Before it gets too depressing, he leaves and walks right into the manager who has a message for Mildred. “Arlene Bauer, you have a phone call.”

Blackmail

Next we find Mildred in a bar scene where a young woman (Emily Mest) sits down opposite her. It’s the woman she spied on at the hospital, caught in flagrante. Mildred has hatched a plan to steal this woman’s job. If there are no openings, her job will do. In not so many words she threatens to out the affair to the woman’s husband unless she quits her job. Reaching into her purse she extracts a doll she swiped from the woman’s house. She hands it to her like a threat and says, “For your daughter.”

At the hospital Dr. Hanover takes a meeting with the Governor’s Secretary. Impressed with his ideas, Gwendolyn sees this as an opportunity for her boss to fix his image – going from a dusty bureaucrat to an open minded progressive who can heal the sick and get them back to the work force.  It is a win for Hanover and a win for the Governor’s reelection campaign. She offers Hanover the funding for his new programs, one that includes a barn and horse therapy, if he will open the doors to his hospital for a press conference with her boss. Hanover is thrilled and spreads the good news to Nurse Bucket, who counters that with some bad news of her own. Nurse Amelia never showed up to work. This leaves them short-staffed, forcing him to hire more nurses to temporarily fill in. Mildred is at the top of that list.

First Day on the Job

Suited up in her nurse’s uniform, Mildred walks the halls with purpose. What that purpose is we still don’t know, but it can’t be sponge baths and medication schedules. Nurse Bucket goes over the rules of the hospital, including her love of tranquilizers and cleanliness, much to the cries of their most depressed patient, Salvatore (Daniel di Tomasso). It isn’t long before the Governor shows up for his photo op alongside Hanover and his ideas for patient care. The conversation quickly switches to Edmund Tolleson and what his care could look like, but Hanover assures the press the killer will be treated humanely, with his own room in a former wine cellar turned cell. The moment is cut short when Dr. Hanover is needed right away. A patient, a former priest, has collapsed and Mildred is doing her best to revive him. After a disagreement with Bucket on her tactics, the man is revived and Hanover, the Governor and the press are very impressed. While the Governor shakes hands with patients for photos, Nurse Bucket starts to wonder if the collapsed priest had a reaction to the wrong medication…a job that was assigned to Mildred. Without proof and now with the support of the Governor behind her, Mildred is the new face of the hospital.

During this entire media hype, Mr. Salvatore catches Mildred’s eye. He’s been left in care by his family and Mildred offers him some sympathy and a kind word. She too was left behind by family. Disappointed by a brother, and removed from her parents’ care, she spent a lifetime remaining hopeful that one day they would return, but they never did. If only she had known the truth; that she was hoping for the hopeless, maybe she would have turned out differently. In her own twisted way, she thinks telling Salvatore his truth will set him free. His brother is never coming for him and he will die of old age inside these hospital walls. Tears stream down his face as she leans in and quietly mentions a letter opener on Hanover’s desk. She offers to take him to it and it’s evident she is putting a weapon in the hands of a depressed and suicidal man. She points him in the direction of the sharp tool and leaves him to his own devices. It isn’t long before her plan comes to fruition. Just as Hanover tracks Mildred down to accuse her of handing out the wrong medication, the two hear a crash from behind his office door. There lies the bloody body of Salvatore, who cut his own throat on Mildred’s manipulations. Hanover flies into a panic. The press is flitting around the hospital corridors and a dead patient doesn’t look good for the Governor or his funding. All of his work is at risk and Mildred steps in to offer her help. She will deal with the body while Dr. Hanover keeps the Governor busy. If Mildred’s job was in question before, it’s not now. She will be indispensable, even if she has to kill to prove it. Nothing gets in Ratched’s way.

A Reunion of Lost Souls

As the Governor stands on the steps of the hospital promising his constituents a new California under his progressive leadership, Mildred is in the basement tossing Salvatore into the furnace. The governor leaves but not before telling Hanover his impressions of new Nurse Ratched, “There’s not a lot of meat on her bones, but what’s there is choice.”

Later that night as Mildred returns home to the motel, she spots a line of police cars in the distance. They’re headed to the hospital with Edmund Tolleson. He will remain under the care of Dr. Hanover and his staff for 120 days or until he is fit to stand trial. Entering a back door to the basement cell, Mildred comes face to face with Edmund. Tears well up in her eyes. Relieved she says, “Is that you?” “It’s me,” says Edmund. The two clasp hands and weep as Mildred leans into Edmund through the bars and whispers, “I found you. I finally found you.”