Ratched: teh Series

"Addictingly fun" says the Beast.

Lots of gorgeous men. The murdered priests were gorgeous, and so was former male model Daniel di Tomasso as the suicide. Looking forward to lots of shirtless scenes for Finn Wittrock.

Any gay characters?

Yes, two of the leads are gay characters.

Trivia: Angela Lansbury was offered the role of Nurse Ratched in the original film but she turned it down. She was one of several to turn down the part before it was offered to Louise Fletcher.

First ep was good. The sets are lush...typical of an over-budgeted Murphy production on Netflix. It dragged a little bit for me, but I think the drag was mainly to add tension in the lead up to Ratched's crazed plans for herself and her career at the sanitarium.

Vincent D'Onofrio can still get it, even though he could be playing Orson Welles at this point. If you read the board, Murphy & Co, cast Vincent as Orson in the next 'Feud' or 'Hollywood'.

He IS basically playing Orson Welles in this.

Does Ratched shop for penis at Corenswet Corner?

Just another playset Ryan built for his Princess Sarah Paulson.

Have you even seen it yet, r9?

Sharon Stone begins appearing in the third episode, and is fabulous--great all-white satin costumes.

Corey Still is so gorgeous and so talented I can't believe he's still not become a star. He should have inherited all of Kevin Spacey's roles--he's as good an actor, but ten times sexier, and not as limited in range.

Corey Stoll is the Mayor of What Are You Queens Drinking?ville for me. Utterly without appeal.

*Corey Stoll, not Corey Still

I remain also amazed at how attractive Finn Wittrock is, even though he never looks handsome in still photos.

Somehow, I thought this was on FX, and I quit hulu yesterday, partly because I didn't find it there. So, there's Ratched and the Tom Holland movie. What else am I missing if I don't re-up Netflix?

DL fave Brandon Flynn is in it too

Brandon Flynn's character has no hands or feet in this.

More style than substance but still fun to watch for the spectacular sets, costumes and cinematography. Judy Davis owns every scene she's in as usual. Sarah P is good enough but I keep thinking that she should be making me squirm more and she doesn't.

OP, it's not just the Vertigo score, it's several of Bernard Herrmann's scores mixed together: Marnie, Psycho, North by Northwest, etc. Nicely done.

It's also got some of Cape Fear mixed in.

First thing I notice is the book/movie takes place in Oregon but this was turned into a California story.

Well, Nurse Ratched could easily have moved from Northern California to Oregon.

This is so GAY how could any DLer complain?

What’s up with the over scaled places in this?

Since when is Amanda Plummer still alive?

Hunter Parrish lobotomized, sounds about right.

Yeah the gorgeous and sweeping mental hospital is pretty funny r24. The sweeeping doctor's office, at a loony bin!

The fashion is nice, but these aren't glamorous characters. It makes little sense why a middle-class nurse has a massive supply of fantastic fashion.

I know, I know, we are meant to turn our brain off and not question it.

Lesbian you mean r4. So far it is lacking on the gay male front.

background on decor:

[quote] Yeah the gorgeous and sweeping mental hospital is pretty funny [R24]. The sweeeping doctor's office, at a loony bin!

It is NOT a loony bin!

Paulson isn't nuanced enough to pull of Ratched. I agree w the above poster. She doesn't sell it at all.

It's hard to believe that Judy Davis is only 65 years old and looks 10 years older, while Christie Brinkley is 66 years old.

Yeah I'm sure she's had some work done, but still, Judy looks like she's old enough to be Christie Brinkley's mother.

When does Christie Brinkley show up in this hot mess?

I think it's around episode 5.

I'm too lazy to look. Who is playing the motel owner/manager.

In the trailer for Ratched, when Sarah Paulson is talking to the viewer, what movie is that music from? Because it sounds so familiar.

R35 The surprisingly still alive Amanda Plummer?

It’s hard to believe Cynthia Nixon once was such a stellar actress that she starred simultaneously in two Broadway shows.

R37 thanks.

And would an asian doctor be so quickly rehabilitated, and the head of a hospital after WWII and the internment camps?

I think the reason the outfits and sets are so grand and lush is due to a somewhat poor attempt to distract the audience from Sarah Paulson's limited acting range.

R40 And it succeeds at that.

R37 The answer is no, but this is Ryan Murphy's creation, and she's the queen of historical corrections for the sake of liberal wokeness.

^ Sorry, not R37, I meant R39

Watched the first two eps. Glossy, lush, costumes, sets. Kind of glam-noir. Nurse R's brother is an insanely violent psycho and she's trying to spring him from hospital. It's pretty hard to root for her. He probably has some tragic backstory but...sort of don't care.

They get mileage out of that big white hospital corridor.

Am I imagining it, or is the dance at the hospital supposed to be a spoof on that Grey’s Anatomy episode where Izzy’s all excited to wear that old prom dress for Denny, but then he dies instead?

What does the teh mean, I know about pron and whet, but not this one?

Did the doctor play the engineer in Miss Saigon?

It means the OP misspelled a word r45.

[quote] It's hard to believe that Judy Davis is only 65 years old and looks 10 years older, while Christie Brinkley is 66 years old.

What a bizarre comparison.

Christie Brinkley is an American fashion model, whereas Judy Davis is a hugely respected Australian stage and film and TV actress. Christie has had tons of plastic surgery and other work to keep her face looking as youthful as possible, whereas Davis (like other hugely respected non-American serious actresses, such as Judi Dench and Diana Rigg) has no need to do so. Actors who want to be taken seriously on the non-American stage usually don't have facial work done, because it would limit their ability to use their faces to express emotion.

Moreover, Davis is playing a dowdy and embittered nurse at the end of her career. She could probably look beautiful today were she to appear on the red carpet, but it would be wrong for her to look that way for this part.

Your post is akin to complaining that Maggie Smith in "Downton Abbey" should have done more to look like Jackie Stallone. (After all, Jackie has minimized her wrinkles!)

Another great production from RM full of gay characters and gay actors. Sublime.

While the reviews for this one were terrible, its the biggest hit Ryan Murphy has done for Netflix. It immediately went to number 1 on Netflix, Hollywood and the Politician embarassingly did not hit number one.

I loved the insane lesbian bar in the middle of the giant redwood forest that Cynthia Nixon's character brings Nurse Ratched to. As if you could just put a lesbian bar there if you felt like it (especially in the 1940s)

R46 Yes, Jon Jon Briones.

[quote]And would an asian doctor be so quickly rehabilitated, and the head of a hospital after WWII and the internment camps?

No. Ridiculous casting choice. So many improbabilities like that are in this show, like the writers have no clue that social norms in the 1940's were wildly different from today. Murphy apparently think it's enough to have everyone in elegant period costume....but speaking and acting like they're time travelers from 2020. For instance, no way in hell would Cynthia Nixon's character marry a black guy to be her beard. And he would never get "partner" at a law firm just for having married a white woman. Quite the opposite, he probably would have been fired. SMH. In that time in history, they would both have been far better off remaining single and just pretending they were married to their work. Interracial couples in the 1940's were a big time taboo.

The show Hollywood was unwatchable for the same reason. No historical accuracy beyond the superficial - costuming, decor, cars. But there was way too much diversity, tolerance and sexual freedom for that time.

There were multiple American doctors of Asian ancestry in the United States in the 30s and 40s, including San Francisco's Dr. Margaret Chung, who was became a national celebrity during WWII and the subject of many newspaper articles because she was seen as symbolizing Chinese-US relations and had multiple sons serving in the US Armed Forces. It's true Japanese-Americans had particular trouble getting work after WW2, and that it was hard then for Asian-Americans to be trusted in jobs administering to whites--but it was not impossible. And Jon Jon Brionnes is not Japanese; he is Filipino (and the Philippines were liberated by the US in WW2, and were then seen as an ally).

It would not have been [italic]likely[/italic] to have had a Filipino-American doctor in the late 1940s, but it would certainly have been [italic]possible, [/italic] especially in the SF Bay Area where the series is set.

Hitchcock meets American Horror Story, meets the L word.

I like it. Stylish fun, and sexy. Corey Stoll is an improbable hunk. All it needs is Sharon Stone, to make it to gay heaven.

And, THERE SHE IS.

Interracial marriage was made legal in California in 1948. This show starts off in 1947.

The interracial marriage is completely anachronistic and definitely an example of the writers ignoring the reality of the 1940s.

The puppet show scene is the most frightening thing I've ever seen.

Also, Cynthia Nixon is starting to look just like her wife.

[quote] This show starts off in 1947.

And then we moved to six months later, making it 1948.

What point are you trying to make r58? That they were newlyweds? Obviously not, when we meet them the marriage arrangement has run its course.

Its okay, Ryan Murphy doesn't need you to try to defend him from an historical inaccuracy.

Also just noticed it's Jon Jon Briones's son who plays the boy who was meant for a lobotomy, Peter.

Do we know that the interracial couple were married in California?

Multiple states never even had anti-miscegenation laws prohibiting interracial marriage, including Washington state, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Kansas, New Mexico, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire, New York. And the following states had appealed their laws prohibiting racial intermarriage before the year 1900: Iowa, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Maine.

Here's a whole series of photos of interracial married couples, many from the USA, from the 19th century--a full fifty years before this series begins.

Yes I am aware. I live in New Jersey where I am proud to say there were never laws banning interracial marriage. That has nothing to do with this show which takes place in California.

Man, you really are trying to bend over backwards to protect Murphy. "His writer's room would never make a mistake, don't say such a thing!!!"

Mary!

[quote] Man, you really are trying to bend over backwards to protect Murphy.

Not at all. You just made an inaccurate claim, and so I pointed out its inaccuracy.

Except everything I said was accurate. But sure, work.

Maybe give it a rest dear? Derailing a thread is fun for no one.

Honey, you're the one who pissed and moaned.

They used a large prosthetic for Finn's dick. Wonder if he got to pick it out.

The worst anachronistic problem for me is actually the dialogue. Characters say things like, "I didn't ask for your input" but it's supposed to be 1948.

love it

Finn might get an Emmy.

Finn has never looked better.

It's amazing to me that Ryan Murphy seems to be sexless in real life, and yet he shows in this such a great eye for male beauty.

Almost all of the dialogue is grossly anachronistic. I don't understand why they don't try to make it at least somewhat appropriate for the era. It's not like there aren't a thousand old movies they can watch to see how people spoke. They must be afraid of repelling the young people. 'Mad Men' did a fairly good job with the language.

r72, how shitfaced will you get if you down a shot every time a character mutters "I was, like..."?

r67, have you seen Finn's real dick?

Paulson will get another Emmy for this.

Is Finn Wittrock's name real?

It sounds as fake as 'Rock Hudson', 'Tab Hunter', 'Guy Madison' and 'Rip Torn'.

R75 His first name is really Peter and his father is an actor too and is Peter Wittrock, Sr. So he couldn’t use that name and must have gone by a nickname.

Thanks for the slide show. The titanic couple - wow. And I liked this last, unknown couple's looks and attitude. Like "fuck you all, we're happy."

So Sophie Okonedo has turned up. I'm guessing the director told her to pitch the character "like Fiona Shaw in the Black Dahlia, but without the subtlety".

The scene of Cynthia Nixon suggestively eating oysters reminded me of Charlotte's dates with Mr Pussy in Sex And The City. The lines around her lips are very noticeable. Does she smoke?

Brandon Flynn looks very attractive despite the lack of limbs. I can see what Richard Madden saw in him.

Sharon Stone looks incredible and is clearly enjoying the role, although I'm wondering if it was written for Jessica Lange.

Judy Davis is clearly having a lot of fun and as for Paulson, this is nothing she hasn't done a dozen times already.

It looks beautiful, the set and costume design are sublime and the cinematography is great, but it's ultimately very hollow.

R48. Just because it 'may' have been technically legal doesn't mean it would have been helpful to either of them in their personal or professional lives. They would have been pariahs. It was a dumb premise. Should have made the husband character a waspy white dude bearding for her....and her for him. That would have made sense.

Historic revisionism is his style now. I don't mind but if this becomes a trend in 20 years we will have a very ignorant generation.

R73 I have seen it when I was in NY at Equinox.

Nothing to write home about.

R23 Because some of us have standards.

I enjoyed it much more than Hollywood despite all the ludicrous historical unlikelihoods. I just suspended logic and went with it. Ryan Murphy has a thing for this era, and the sets and costumes were delightful with the tail end of Art Deco everywhere. Sharon Stone cracked me up and at times and seemed to be channelling a Mink Stole character from a John Waters film in her delivery style.

I loved every episode, thought it was brilliant and totally disagree with the Paulson haters, I thought she was perfect, cold and calculating.

Throw the highlights of mid-20th century culture in a blender. Hit puree. Pour into a 21st century container. The result is a Ryan Murphy production. Enjoy

Corey Stall is hot, would bed him anytime

Every night when I say my prayers with Mama I thank the baby Jeebus for Ryan Murphy.

Is that clifftop motel a set?

The appeal of this show is lost on me. Why am I supposed to care about Nurse Ratched’s backstory!?!?

R88 One of the design articles mentioned it was real and in Big Sur. I found this, which is interesting since it’s called Lucia like the hospital, I guess they liked the name and took it for that? I was wondering while watching that they must book all the rooms for a week to do the shoot and get control over it that way?

Whenever I see something like the Big Sur motel, my first thought is 'how does the plumbing work?' Surely they can't be hooked up to municipal way out there, and it's awfully steep and rocky for a septic tank.

How is Flynn in the series?

Every time the exterior shot of the Psych Hospital appears one is reminded of Mel Brooks' Institute for the Very Very Nervous. I wonder if this is intentional.

R93 I couldn’t find anything about the Gillette mansion in Malibu, only the Gillette Ranch, which I then realized I’ve actually been to when visiting open ranches in the Santa Monica mountains. I wanted to see if that gravel parking lot was real or not. Anyone locate info about the property?

Wish Corey had taken his wifebeater off in his sex scenes with Paulson.

"Nurse Rickets?" " Nurse Cratchit?"

Lol.

Judy Davis and Amanda Plummer were the highlights for me. They both hit the right balance between campy and believable (unlike Sharon Stone and Jon Jon Briones, who are straight up hammy and awful).

Just finished it.

That was one of the dumbest, most ridiculous things I've ever watched. It was bad, trashy camp. Just rancid!

But Judy Davis, Amanda Plummer, and Sophie Okonedo were great. It's a shame they had to be in this rusty bucket of glittery vomit.

If they'd renamed the main character this could have been a bad season of American Horror Story.

I'm not enjoying this one. I'm really bored on this. Background music is super loud for some reason. The sets are beautiful. But it's full of characters I could care less about. I don't think I'll be finishing this one.

I see why it got bad reviews.

The background music is beyond obnoxious. What's worse is that they stole it all from (mostly) Hitchcock films. Whatever happened to original scores?

Finn's head is huge

What was the whole point of introducing Speck murdering the nurses inChicago a decade and a half before it happened as the crime by the brother to capture her attention?

This show is very reminiscent of AHS r99.

Your enjoyment of this show will be lately correlated with whether you enjoy AHS. Its not much of a departure.

They should just meld the next season of this and the second season of Hollywood into one show and spare us having to watch a full season of both. Ratched can become the studio nurse and be involved in on set mysteries, while avoiding being murdered by her brother.

I'd say Paulson front and center is the reason this is turning out to be Murphy's best release on Netflix.

She immediately makes people think of American Horror Story. (As R105 implied.)

Also the show is being pushed to high hell by Netflix.

I'm enjoying it, but I can't get beyond some of the more ludicrous plot twists. Like they let a vicious murderer out and about to go to dances, hang out with animals in a barn and have time alone with a cute little nurse. In RL he'd be wearing a straight jacket and leg irons 24/7 in Supermax.

I know the show is supposed to be campy, but it just doesn't go far enough. It tries to be 'real' at the same time which doesn't work. It feels like a child wrote it.

I wouldn't say this is the best release. Being pushed by Netflix because they paid him too much money. Pose is better than this. I think we're going to be seeing more of Paulson. That movie career it doesn't seem to be working out. She's a b**** in real life so that makes me happy.

Pose is not a Netflix show r109.

And the poster was saying "best" as in most popular.

This is not the most popular show of his on Netflix.

The critics hate it.

By the top 10 metric it is r111. Hollywood and Politician S2 did not hit number 1 on Netflix, this show did.

(R113) Hi Ryan!

You think Murphy is happy about the fact that it took this long for one of his shows to hit number 1 on Netflix r114? It is flat out embarrassing that his prior Netflix efforts did not.

I enjoyed it. It wasn’t the greatest show ever made, but it was fun and engaging. Fuck the critics. I’m watching the Emmys right now and some of the shows they’ve been dumping their loads over look boring as shit.

Am I missing something about the barn? Why was this a part of the plot? And what about the hot springs on the hospital property, what is that about?

At least it had tons of eye candy, both in terms of hot men and beautiful sets.

I want to go to that Lesbian bar in the middle of the forest.

I am a lesbian bar in the middle of the forest!

God the first episode was a slog

Feel like possibly watching this. I'm assuming that Sarah Paulson and Cynthia Nixon's characters are the only gay characters though?

[quote] It is flat out embarrassing that his prior Netflix efforts did not.

Seriously, he has been posting about it non-stop, almost as if he's trying to prove something (to Netflix) about having a show that finally hit their number one spot.

I also saw he's had various other former Murphy co-workers and friends tweeting about the promotional package the show sent out. They usually don't do that.

The problem is staying there. We'll see how well it does once the weekend is over since it was the only new series out.

There's nothing else on right now. And I'm not watching the stupid Emmys. Some of us are desperate for Hitchcock ripoff. Don't judge us. I'm just waiting for The Vow to start.

As much as I love Sophie Okenedo, her part is ridiculous. There [italic]was[/italic] no such thing as multiple personality disorder in 1948 (and certainly no diagnosis as such existed). It was created as a popular meme by the writers of the 1957 bestseller "The Three Faces of Eve," and thereafter patients started manifesting it to make their psychiatrists more interested in them.

It was awful watching Corey Stoll crawl out of that hot bath with his skin peeling, because despite his acting out of extreme physical pain, all I could do was admire how beautiful his legs and ass looked (even with peeling skin makeup) in wet boxer shorts.

^^ I gay gasped, too.

I really enjoyed Judy Davis and Amanda Plummer. They kept me watching this mess.

Yes they kept me watching too. Finn wasn’t bad. It was just such a mess though. MaybeMurphy is smart in that it will get all the AHS fans. But I was hoping for it to be Feud quality. There would be a great story in what was being done in mental health in the late 40s. This isn’t it. But like all his stuff I watched to the end.

It's surprising to me that critics have been so confused by what he tried to do in this: he wanted to make the ultimate Hitchcock pastiche--and it ultimately had nothing to do with the Mildred Ratched character in "Cuckoo's Nest," other than that the main character is a cold manipulative bitch who works in mid-century mental hospitals. It's also a weird melange of many of the ideas from AHS (the mental hospital setting and asylum furnace to dispose of bodies from "Asylum," the murderous handsome male child of a chic wealthy woman from "Freak Show") and from mid-century noir films (the redwood coastline of "Vertigo,' the murderous lovers on the lam from "Gun Crazy," the big dance at a mental institution from "The Snake Pit", the sexy crooked and hardboiled PI from a million noir films, the motel with a snoopy owner from "Psycho").

I don't think it all holds together at all, but it has awesome eye candy=, and was quite entertaining. Certainly it was much better than "Hollywood" or the last several seasons of "AHS"--though not as good as "Feud" nor the two seasons of "American Crime Story."

The best (and only real) performance in the miniseries was Cynthia Nixon's. She is such a good actress, and was superb in the marionette episode.

I will say, however, that Judy Davis and Sharon Stone gave first-class camp performances.

I can't stand Amanda Plummer in this, but I can't stand her in anything. She's always much too much for me.

Yes, R131, Cynthia Nixon was very good in this. It's a shame this wasn't a show just about a closeted Governor's aide who falls in love with a closeted nurse.

Sharon Stone made the series for me.

What’s Murphy’s fascination with aging out actresses, does he have unresolved mommy issues?

Yes, 134, he does. I think his mom had BPD.

R135 Oh, is that why he became so cold and severe not betraying any emotion so that he wouldn’t set her off?

Feud was his best imho

[quote] What’s Murphy’s fascination with aging out actresses, does he have unresolved mommy issues?

Clearly. See AHS: Asylum.

Yeah I watched all of this mess. I don't know why I keep watching his shows cuz they keep disappointing me. The ending was so stupid and corny. The only person I enjoyed was Sharon Stone. I guess I keep remembering how when American Horror Story first started how good it was.

Ryan Murphy's obsessions:

*hagged-out great actresses "of a certain age" (i.e. past 50)

*lots of plot with little genuine narrative suspense

*the acting of Sarah Poulson, Evan Peters, Emma Roberts

*References to mid-century noir films

*mid-century decor and fashion

*Gothic mansions, hotels, and/or mental institutions

*bitchy teenage girls

*gore and torture

*unexpected parts for actors of color

*the history of American serial killers and spree killers

*intensely saturated color schemes

*themes of fighting racism and misogyny

*LGBT actors who are out professionally

*actors known primarily as musical theater stars

I love Vincent D’Onofrio playing the Trumpian politician.

The lead actresses were wonderful. I adore Judy Davis. The eye candy was wonderful. I kept getting caught up in questions like 'how much maintenance crew would it take to keep that hospital immaculately clean?'.

The design and acting, good. Fun to see Sharon Stone.

The writing was just terrible, how do these things get made?

Love it. Only complaint is the loud music

I stayed at the motel in Big Sur 27 years ago!

I need to stay at the Lucia Lodge in Big Sur someday, although I bet now the show will make it so popular everyone wants to stay there.

Was that the real interior, r145?

I was looking it up this summer. I couldn't believe how much they wanted to stay in crappy little motels at Big Sur.

R147 No, one of the articles talked about the obsessive nature of capturing the perfect phosphorescent green of the curtains and lighting behind them.

"What’s Murphy’s fascination with aging out actresses, does he have unresolved mommy issues?"

The problem is that the vehicles he finds for them are so mediocre despite the Technicolor look and all that.

The weirdest thing about this series was that it seemed like it was expected we would feel sorry for Edmond and not want him executed. But he brutally murdered those priests (not just the hypocritical one who had fathered him, but the three other innocent ones too), as well as the black asylum guard. I couldn't feel any sympathy for his character.

[quote] In RL he'd be wearing a straight jacket and leg irons 24/7 in Supermax.

Oh, [italic]hon.[/italic]

There were no Supermax prisons in 1948.

And the word is spelled "straitjacket."

He needs to start worrying less about look of the set. And more about the writing of the scripts.

Finn's arms in the last scene were [italic]sick.[/italic]

I hope his arms get well.

There will be a second season it seems, what can they possibly do?

What was with all the green? There was lots and lots of green in every scene.

I'm interested to find out what will happen once the Cynthia Nixon character finds out Mildred is a murdering psycho, not just a victim who heroically manipulated people to help her brother.

I just watched a promotional video on YouTube in which the four female leads had a contrived conversation in which they read excerpts from some old sexist etiquette manual. Judy Davis didn't participate much, and she didn't get any close ups.

[quote] Viewer Comment: It's also pretty gross that everyone focuses on her being the villain in the book/movie when Jack Nickolsons character rapes a 15 year old (even then a 15 year old couldn't consent) and tries to get out of a prison sentence by faking mental illness.

[quote]R156 What was with all the green? There was lots and lots of green in every scene.

Green is used in a lot of hospitals because it has a calming nature.

Dramatically, it can also have a fantasy, Oz-like effect.

So emphasizing green straddles those two worlds.

Judy Davis is Thelma Ritter playing Roz Russell playing Judy Davis, and has looked this way at least since Husbands & Wives (fuck you Jack Palance) - and owns every scene. As do Sophie Okonedo, Amanda Plummer, and Sharon Stone. Cynthia Nixon - marvellous and takes shit material you could sail the Titanic through plot-hole wise and sells it. Sarah Paulson? Great and will probably get the Emmy though she's not the standout. Best looking series he's done IMHO. But it's an incoherent mess story-wise.

He fetishizes actresses the same way I do female vocalists, and always gets their A-list work from them. I respect that.

Ugh. Gets their A-list from them. Grammatical sodomy. Mea culpa.

It's to make Ratched a sympathetic character. To understand her actions in OWFOTCCN.

Paulson and Nixon should have had sex scene, though. Why does RM shy away from good gay sex scenes?

I was never a vocal critic of Murphy but with this site, although I should be impressed, it's just another repeat of stuff he's done in the past. I get an American Horror story vibe with the whole thriller plot but also a Hollywood vibe from the period. I see it as a regurgitation of what he's done before and that upset me. I was left unimpressed or unfulfilled.

R164 How does one capture such scissoring on camera, and won’t Holland and the school marm be jealous?

^ try this.

[quote] Judy Davis is Thelma Ritter playing Roz Russell playing Judy Davis, and has looked this way at least since Husbands & Wives (fuck you Jack Palance)

Yes, dear.

[quote] To understand her actions in OWFOTCCN.

WTF?

Did you mean OFOTCN?

"He needs to start worrying less about look of the set"

Another Production Designer who thinks he's a Director.

I thought Quentin Tarantino was the only one that stole from directors. He was stealing so much from Hitchcock. I kept making Norman Bates was going to pop up. Glad the loud soundtrack in the background muzzled some of his stupid dialogue.

R164 has Murphy ever given any good sex scenes, gay or straight?

How old is Paulson, shouldn't be in her 20's for this role?

It’s Nurse Bucket (pronounced Bouquet)

Does anyone else think that Judy Davis stops playing Betsy Bucket and starts playing Judy Garland around episode 6?

I just finished it...Fabulous. What is not to love...great sets...great costumes...great cast...hot guys, etc. Yes, the story was a little weak, but it wasn't horrible. I can see why its doing well. As far as negative reviews, Ive noticed theyre mainly by a bunch of millennials who think theyre critics. Its a good show and I look forward to season 2.

It's dreadful.

I finished this show a few days ago and I can't stop thinking about this comment/review I read online where the person equated a Nurse Ratched origin story to a hypothetical Jaws prequel series where we learn how the shark made its way to Amity Island. The point is that nobody needed to know this information. Ratched is less a character and more a force, representing uber-conformity and the ruthlessness of the mental health system. Turning her into a closeted lesbian serial killer/lobotomizer who was abused and raped repeatedly during her childhood (remember we are supposed to sympathize with her!) is such an unnecessary, cartoony cop-out. Violence, sex (specially of the heterosexual kind) and cartoons - that's all Ryan Murphy seems capable of producing.

I don't like Judy Davis. Treated River Phoenix like s*** on his last movie.

"I thought Quentin Tarantino was the only one that stole from directors. "

Tarantino doesn't steal, he pays hommage.

* homage

fromage?

If what you mean is "shit," r179, say "shit." We're allowed.

I'm hoping we're going to get a decent American Horror Story. The last one was so terrible. He has to make it up to us.

I don’t understand the hotel setup. She enters her from from outside, but whenever the clerk or the guy knocked on her door, they were standing in a hallway.

R185 I noticed that as well. And never saw two doors in her room.

R185, R186 the front door is the outside door, but there’s also an inner hallway where other guests and visitors can enter through the “back door”.

So why would the clerk take them outside and to their room instead of going down the inner hallway?

I know it’s an insignificant detail, but it’s been bothering me every time it occurs.

Much like every other show of his, it starts going off the rails about halfway through the season. The last several episodes were not necessary.

I thought it was a decent show and good performances by all if you can ignore the unbelievable aspects and how neatly/quickly things end up with an alliance between Mildred and Bucket. Noticed that Ryan Murphy gave the straight couple a full sex scene (Finn and the young nurse actress on the run) but all we get for the lesbian couple was a little making out before Cynthia’s character gets sick. This lack of any scene of two women having sex has also happened in many other shows (not just Ryan Murphy; Harlots comes to mind, and that one is female-directed/produced) but why would an LGBT creator/producer shy away from same sex sex scenes?

We could've at least had a scene of the houseboys using an armless and legless Brandon Flynn as a fuck toy.

“YOU’RE NOTHING!!! You’re shit! I am a graduate of the New England Conservatory of Music! The Royal Academy of Music. Of the Juilliard School of Music.

I was first chair violin of the London Symphony Orchestra, you shit. I played Mendelssohn for Prince Louis the II of Monaco. Who the fuck are you!?!?”

The peach scene looks really fun.

R193 What bothered me about this scene was the talk of the felt tip pen, which I don’t think existed at this time in the way we think of them and how she is intending it be used. This article states that the modern fibre felt tipped pen came on the market in 1962. It just wouldn’t be something easily plentifully available at this time from what I can tell. It’s this kind of inaccuracies that I can’t figure out is their incompetence in research or if it’s done as a particular game to goad the audience or what? It’s like how can we add an anachronistic felt tip marker into the scene in the biggest way and call attention to it to fuck with the audience? And them spending time and energy on this instead of making sure they have a script that completely hangs together and makes sense from the start of the show to the end. And I’ll ask again, what was the whole thing with the barn, it eventually went nowhere as a plot point?

As noted by other posters, the motel setup is confusing. Also, Sarah Paulson's Little Lulu wig looks very fake. Judy Davis is great, but still playing Judy Garland. Stunning visuals and background music, wonderful costume design. Lots of plot holes. For example, how could Mildred afford those outfits? Did she shoplift in ep 1? When does she have time to maintain her hair and clothes? The lavish, immaculate, elegant asylum was desperate for public funding? Sarah Paulson has the same facial expression in every single scene.

But . . . the output of new shows has slowed to a crawl so we're watching.

Maybe Ryan Murphy should develop a show where Davis is the ghost of Judy Garland who doesn’t know she’s dead and keeps going through all the Hollywood and concert motions as if alive. Quite frankly from the photos just prior to death Davis looks a lot like her, and she can wear clothes like the ones that were made for her in Valley of the Dolls. The period design, wardrobe and nostalgia diva exultation are right up his alley.

R180, NO. Tarantino STEALS. He's also the most overrated hack of the last 25 years. He does a Dirty Dozen rip off, two mediocre martial arts movies, a Blaxploitation movie that completely misses the point of Blaxploitation (those films were important because the Black heroes DIDN'T need some white man's help; they were doing it on their own), a truly GODAWFUL attempt at a Western, and this last leaden, pointless, ponderous, empty POS about Hollywood, and morons praise him like he's done great films. He steals ideas in order to do knock offs of better films by more talented directors. The one that really pisses me off is his insulting depiction of Bruce Lee, an artist who fought white discrimination and white ignorance to make martial arts movies that are FAR superior to those two Kill Bill turds that Tarantino made.

(R195) hit it right on the nail. If there was more things on TV to watch, we wouldn't be watching this boring ass show. It's like each show he does for Netflix gets a little worse.

Just keep watching. By episodes 6, 7 and 8, you will take up reading.

It twas urned me off. Seemed very violent and sort of torture porn. Am I wrong? I really don’t want to watch lobotomies etc. How gross was it?

R140, you forgot:

* Obsession with physical deformities

Right on the money, r201.

I loved it! I’m not interested in all the AHS seasons (I lived “Cult” best), but this kept me connected all the way through.

I’m surprised the reviews were spotty. The acting was superb - who’s dissing Sarah Paulson in this?? She was excellently... you fucking BITCHES!!

[quote]R178 The point is that nobody needed to know this information. Ratched is less a character and more a force, representing uber-conformity and the ruthlessness of the mental health system. Turning her into a closeted lesbian serial killer/lobotomizer who was abused and raped repeatedly during her childhood (remember we are supposed to sympathize with her!) is such an unnecessary, cartoony cop-out.

Did anyone really need THE JOKER (2019) ?

Who complained about that?

There are supposed to be like three more seasons. If there’s truth in advertising they will rename it Wretched.

Sarah Paulson doesn’t believe biological sex exists. She should only be allowed to play FTMs.

R204 The difference is that one is a staple of pop culture that has been reimagined thousands of times, so of course remakes and reinterpretations are to be expected. Ratched is a character that has remained consistent across her limited number of portrayals. "Ratched before McMurphy" is fundamentally unnecessary because that's not what her character is about.

The show was complete trash anyway, so none of this actually matters.

It's a very nice looking show, but the writing is a complete mess and, like all Ryan Murphy shows, it's six episodes of content stretched out to whatever Netflix has decided is the optimum series length.

On top of that, you've got unpleasant characters with questionable motivation doing unbelievable things, and Sarah Paulson's stagey acting which remains exactly the same whether she's doing romance, manipulation or murder.

[quote]r207 The show was complete trash anyway, so none of this actually matters.

The thing that makes it all fairly moot is most people who see the new series never saw the old movie the character first cropped up in.

Well, she first cropped up in the book, he said pedantically.

[quote] The thing that makes it all fairly moot is most people who see the new series never saw the old movie the character first cropped up in.

Yes, but the new series has made the old movie more popular than ever before--it was rented heavily on Netflix after the series began.

And 99% of the people who saw the series will not remember it, but very few people who saw the original movie will ever forget it.

[quote]R211 very few people who saw the original movie will ever forget it.

Eh - the movie’s just another crybaby waaaa-fest from yet another guy who imagines women held him back his whole life.

BTW, why is Nurse Ratched considered the villain when the male lead raped a 15-year-old? (Answer: because a man wrote it.)

R32, do you have any idea how difficult it is to BE Judy Davis?!? You'd look 10 years older too!

[quote]There are supposed to be like three more seasons. If there’s truth in advertising they will rename it Wretched.

I did not think it was great, but I enjoyed watching the first season. That said, not sure I want to spend the time watching four seasons of these characters.

Plays like Douglas Sirk working from a Dalton Trumbo script of a James M. Cain novel and has absolutely nothing to do with Nurse Ratched as created by Ken Kesey.

Sharon was a dead ringer for Express Yourself era Madonna.

I hate to say it, but Sarah Paulson is all wrong for this. You know how Lindsay Lohan said a few days ago she wanted to work with Ryan Murphy? She would have been a better Ratched.

Fantastic sets, fantastic clothes and you will be bored shitless by episode 3.

R172, I've certainly never seen him write one. He only seems to view sex as a horrible act done amongst people being horrible to each other. It's like a teenager who writes a story and decides: "I know! I'll put a rape scene in it, because that's edgy!" Murphy writes sex scenes like someone who never has sex so doesn't actually understand how people really relate to it.

[quote]R218 Fantastic sets, fantastic clothes and you will be bored shitless by episode 3.

I loved every second of it.

I would call it “intriguing.”

I thought Jon Jon Briones was quite attractive in this series, and I'm not even a rice queen.

It wasn’t even coherent. Alliances and motivations shifted from scene to scene, there was an abundance of situations that strained credulity (we could start with the mass murderer housed in the psych hospital basement...that the guard didn’t pay attention as a nurse jerked said mass murderer off, the fact that there was only one doctor in the whole hospital and after he’s gone, the nurses run the place...).

At least it was fun for a while but by the final episodes most viewers couldn’t say that any more.

I really wanted to like this show and a lot of money was spent producing it but each week it got more and crazy so gave up around week 4.

Typical Ryan Murphy show. Looks spectacular but the writing and story are messy. I read an interview by one of the actors on Hollywood who said he stopped a scene in the middle of a take because the background wall set wasnt right. I know set design is important but Murphy seems overly focused on aesthetic at the expense of other things.