Ratched Review

[AB]

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-r...murphy-netflix

Paulson plays the title role. Already a mistress of manipulation, Mildred Ratched soon inveigles her way into the Lucia mental hospital, run by Dr Hanover (Jon Jon Briones, another of Murphy’s repertory company). Hanover is not evil, or even unkind, but he is a passionate pioneer in his field, with all the worst that implies for the vulnerable patients in his care. Few programmes require a trigger warning for trepanning, but this one does, so please beware of episode two. Ratched secures her position by means of a little blackmail, importuning of suicide, poisoning and bold lipstick. As is the custom in a Murphy production, her wardrobe is to die for.

What her precise purpose is we do not know, but it is surely connected with the multiple murderer Edmund Tolleson (Murphy mainstay Finn Wittrock). Tolleson is due to arrive for assessment at the hospital after killing three priests and traumatising a fourth, who witnessed the throat-slitting, skull-smashing and monsignor-stabbing spree from under his bed. He is eventually delivered to the Lucia’s cavernous, vaulted wine cellar, which has been lined with bars and given the full Silence of the Lambs treatment, because go big gothic or go home, am I right?