Bright, incredibly beautiful, ostentatious, narcissistic, vibrating with tension, crazy, bloody – all this is about the new series Ratched, released this week on Netflix. But what does the heroine shown in this psychological thriller have to do with the character “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”, the backstory of which the authors seem to be trying to show?

Sister Ratched, one of the main characters in Ken Kesey’s novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1962) and the Oscar-winning film of the same name by Milos Forman (1975), based on it, has repeatedly been included in the lists of the most important anti-heroes in American cinema. Domineering, aggressive and vindictive, a petty bureaucrat who revels in her little power over people, she became a kind of symbol of the system against which the beat generation fought. She, forever stuck in the 40s, did not understand and did not accept the values of these new Americans, who put personal freedom above traditions, discipline and hierarchy and were not afraid to go against the authorities, no matter what it cost them in the end.

In Foreman’s film, which, by the way, did not like Kesey himself, who considered the main character of his work to be Chief Bromden, and not Randley McMurphy at all, Mildred Ratched’s sister was played by the talented actress Louise Fletcher, who received an Oscar and a BAFTA for Best Actress for this work.

Netflix, Hulu and Apple fought for the right to produce a series based on Kesey’s character. Netflix’s bid was higher. The show was taken over by screenwriter Evan Romansky, for whom it was almost the first major work in his career, and popular TV producer Ryan Murphy (Glee, American Horror Story, Scream Queens, 9-1-1, The Politician), who had long been pursuing Michael Douglas who owns the rights to One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and the character Ratched. Douglas produced the original film, for which he won his first Oscar, and co-executed Ratched. The series was supposed to be a prequel to One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and show the events that made Mildred Ratched the monster she became in the book/movie.

The only problem is that for half of the first season, Mildred Ratched already looks like a monster, more scary than the one shown in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. She literally goes to her goal, stepping over corpses, and she does it so purposefully and confidently that she does not seem to feel any remorse about the lives she took and the destinies she broke.

In the second half of the season, of course, we will be told why the heroine acts the way that made her who she is. Here the human part of her nature will be revealed, however, this will not prevent the “sister” from equally calmly removing obstacles in her path and manipulating people. Yes, at some moments you will even feel sorry for her, but … in any case, Mildred Ratched from Ratched and Mildred Ratched from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest are two completely different characters, full namesakes, working in the same field, nothing more.

Netflix ordered two seasons of Ratched at once, so the story of the killer sister is not over yet, perhaps the authors will be able to bring her to its logical conclusion and dock the title character with the person she became in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Much more boring, limited, faded and discolored than the one shown in Ratched.

In general, if we talk about color, then Ratched is undoubtedly a very bright, sometimes even defiantly beautiful series. It is almost a complete antithesis to the mundane and mundane details of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. The post-war USA in Ratched is deliberately shown as extremely glamorous, glossy, exalted. Too bright colors, dresses from the pages of fashion magazines, chic cars, incredibly beautiful art deco interiors. It has little to do with Foreman’s film or Kesey’s novel, but at times echoes Kubrick’s The Shining. Perfect frame construction, narcissism, show off, the impression that the director and operator of the series want to challenge their colleagues: “Look how we can!”. Maybe this is not bad, but such prettiness turns a seemingly serious psychological thriller into some kind of carnival show. It seems that you are not watching the backstory of Sister Ratched, the ideal watchman of the beat generation, but the next season of American Horror Story.

Well, traditionally for recent thrillers and detective series, viewers have a lot of questions about the logic of what is happening. Every second in this series skillfully forges any documents, including medical ones. The security is just awful. A psychiatric hospital is like a front yard where no one watches over the patients. When one of the patients disappears in the first series, he is remembered only in the third. Yes, there was such a person, disappeared somewhere, well, God bless him. The disappearance of the second, third, etc. no one really cares anymore. Well, it is customary for them in psychiatric hospitals. A hospital for the mentally ill with no doctors at all? Why not, who needs these doctors. Lobotomy as a way to cure a lesbian? Perfect solution. Etc. Yes, punitive psychiatry existed in the United States, but still, not on the same scale.

Well, especially for connoisseurs of traditional values. The performer of the role of Mildred Ratched, the talented Sarah Paulson is an open lesbian. The series has a lot of LGBT+ content based in part on Paulson’s personal experiences. If that bothers you, well…

In general, Ratched impresses with the cast, primarily female. In addition to the excellent performance of Sarah Paulson, noteworthy are the works of Judy Davis (the main sister of Betsy Bucket), Cynthia Nixon (the governor’s press secretary Gwendolyn Briggs), Alice Englert (Dolly’s sister) and Sharon Stone (Lenora Osgood), who has not appeared on the screen for a long time. And Vincent D’Onofrio is traditionally good, albeit in a small but bright role of Governor George Milburn.

The first season of Ratched leaves an ambivalent impression. It’s a beautiful series with amazing actors, but unfortunately it has very little in common with both Kesey’s book and Foreman’s movie, on which it’s based. Let’s see where the authors turn in the second season, but it’s obvious that you shouldn’t count on a happy ending here.