Is Netflix’s ‘Ratched’ Really Worth Your Time?

Everything we can’t stop loving, hating, and thinking about this week in pop culture. [View in Browser]( [Subscribe]( [Image] with Kevin Fallon Everything we can’t stop loving, hating, and thinking about this week in pop culture. This Week: - Ratched has arrived. - Movies are good again. - Meet your new Joe Biden. - Madonna is making Madonna. - Emmys! Puzzles! Fun! I Can’t Believe I Liked Ratched Early in the second episode of Ratched, [Sarah Paulson]( and Judy Davis argue over a peach. At first, it seems like some throwaway dialogue. Then it goes on. And on. All told, it is one of the most intense scenes I’ve watched on TV this year, this argument over a peach. Elio from [Call Me by Your Name]( is shaking. The [cast of Parasite](, scandalized. The longer this peach argument went on, the more confusing it became—but also the more fabulous. [Alternate text] I have seen all of Ratched, and I still can’t rationalize the narrative decision to have Sarah Paulson and Judy Davis spend several minutes spitting vicious dialogue at each other over a stone fruit. But I relished every second of it. This ridiculous argument over a peach is the most invigorated I’ve felt watching TV in a long time. The peach returns later in the series, a callback metaphor that is somehow both extremely on the nose but also kind of irrelevant and nonsensical. So in the spirit of Ratched, which hit Netflix Friday, I’m bringing up the whole peach thing as another inelegant metaphor here. No creative or narrative decision in the show really makes sense, and everything is much more intense than it should be. Yet you can’t help but be riveted and swept up. There’s something almost accidentally spellbinding about it. I’m not sure it works at all as an origin story for Nurse Ratched, the iconic villain from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. In fact, it renders her even more inscrutable. It’s tonally uneven and, thematically, occasionally problematic. But its production value is pristine—an art-deco fetishist’s fever dream—and the acting showcases sublime; again, Sarah Paulson and Judy Davis going absolutely bonkers over a peach. As Ryan Murphy’s forays into Netflix programming skid all over the place (The Politician and Hollywood were similarly uneven), there is something addictingly fun about Ratched. It has a list of problems longer than most series I screen, but I also genuinely enjoyed it more than many series I legitimately recognize as “good,” whatever that standard is. If you can manage to divorce yourself from any expectations you had based on the Oscar-winning film and are willing to surrender to narrative lunacy, then Ratched is actually a bit of a delight. Frequent Ryan Murphy collaborator Sarah Paulson is a great choice to do some Wicked-style “she wasn’t always evil” humanizing of Nurse Ratched, who ranks fifth on AFI’s list of greatest cinema villains. Paulson’s knack for empathy and emotional fireworks could see her humanizing a rock. Any scene she’s in sparks with rapturous nuance. Pair that with the smoking circuit breaker that is Judy Davis and an argument over a peach, and you have high art. (A [video went viral]( earlier this week praising Paulson as one of “the top tier white women” in Hollywood. “When I say white people, never ever am I talking about this lady right here,” [@iwantafrankoceanalbum says in a TikTok](, pointing at Sarah Paulson photos. “Any movie, any show, anything that this girl is on, it’s automatically a 10 out of 10. You don’t even gotta watch it.” She makes points.) The series opens with the gruesome murder of priests who live together in a rectory. The culprit, Edmund (Finn Wittrock), is carted off to a mental health facility, where the doctor will determine if he’s fit to stand trial. Meanwhile, Mildred Ratched (Paulson) follows him there, lying her way into a job at the hospital. It is the babiest of spoilers—so beware—to say that Edmund is her brother. She’s there to protect him. At least I think. The most frustrating thing about Ratched is you never really know what her agenda is, let alone where her morals actually lie. She’s manipulating and using everyone, to the point that when she’s earnest about her emotions—and, wow, are there extreme moments of earnestness here—you don’t know whether to believe her or if it’s more theatrics from an emotional puppet master. Ratched is most comparable to a season of American Horror Story, with sumptuous visuals, shock and gore, and a Telenovela’s devotion to plot twists distracting you from any suspicion that there is no road map here. There’s no tangent that the plot doesn’t gleefully careen down. There’s no plot line that doesn’t reach a juicy climax, only to halt completely in the next episode for the introduction of something entirely new and indulgent. And yet! Maybe it’s the extreme effort to be stylish, or the eagerness with which One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’s unsettling realism is transposed into a pulp-horror-thriller soap opera, but I got more excited about watching this show than many recent streaming options. Few shows invite overthinking more than this one. And few are better for not doing it. It is a show about mental illness that, having little to no expertise on the matter, I can still say with almost certainty exhibited not an iota of understanding of how mental illness works. (Not the cruel therapies in the hospital; the terror of that is the point. But the depictions of multiple personality disorder and of psychopathy are...yikes.) The bliss of any Ryan Murphy output, especially recent ones, is the performances. No one gives better showcases to so many actresses over 40 in such dynamically different roles, all in the same project. [Alternate text] Paulson is as good as you’d expect her to be, but then there’s also Davis doing Judy Garland-lite as a domineering, but misunderstood, head nurse. Cynthia Nixon is shoved through a gauntlet of trauma—she’s a closeted lesbian who is shot, almost dies, falls in love with a psychopath, and loses her job, and that’s just the first five sad things that happen to her—but sells the hell out of every scene. Sharon Stone is a vengeful millionaire who walks around with a monkey wearing a dress on her shoulder. Amanda Plummer is a hilariously feral jazz baby. Sophie Okonedo is given a glaringly offensive character to play, but wrings out of it a tour de force, and Harriet Sansom Harris has like two scenes, but should win an Emmy for them. Like [The Politician]( and [Hollywood](, Ratched is a Choose Your Own Adventure of what to criticize and what to be grateful for in spite of it. It’s definitely an imperfect show, but I choose to embrace the peach. I Saw Good Movies This Week! The fall film festival season is usually a treat. Each year around this time, I put on my one (1) blazer that fits and head off to a week of fabulousness, previewing the films that hope to be Oscar contenders—often in audiences alongside the stars themselves. Suffice it to say, there was a noticeable downgrade in glamor when the Toronto International Film Festival relocated this last week to the same apartment couch I’ve been sitting on for the last seven months, from which I watched premieres of these movies as I’m sure they were intended to be seen: in a tiny window on my laptop while wearing gym shorts. But as the upsetting butt divot in my couch sitting spot plummeted ever-deeper, there was reassurance provided by the festival. Films are still coming! And they’re really good! What a treat! We deserve it! [Image] First off: My God, [Nomadland]( is gorgeous. Frances McDormand could and should win her third Best Actress Oscar for playing Fern, a woman who, after her husband dies and the factory town to which they lent their entire lives essentially disappears in an economic downturn, is forced to hit the open road. Vanessa Kirby, who played Princess Margaret in the first two seasons of The Crown, will likely join McDormand in the Oscar race for her performance in Pieces of a Woman, as a young woman whose baby dies in childbirth grappling with how to find justice, purpose, and any type of solace in the aftermath. And Kate Winslet gives her strongest performance in a decade, in my opinion, in [Ammonite](, though the movie doesn’t necessarily rise to her level. Regina King, it turns out, is not just a stunning actress but also a masterful director, as she proved in her feature directorial debut [One Night in Miami](. And while I already had screened it at Sundance in January, it would be negligent to talk about the best films that played at TIFF without mentioning The Father, in which Anthony Hopkins and Olivia Colman team up to carve your heart out of your chest with a pocketknife. But if the magic of these festivals is an unexpected, quiet discovery, then for me that’s Summer of 85, a movie I’ll be swooning over for a long time. Call Me by Your Name comparisons are inevitable. It’s a coming-of-age romance set in France in the ’80s, and it’s as sumptuous, as sexy, and as full of longing. It’s about how all-encompassing young, hormonal romance is, how confusing coming to terms with your sexuality is, and...death. There’s nothing normal about these times. But here I am hyperbolically fawning over a gay romance that played at a film festival. Nature is healing. Alrighty Then... I’m so old I remember when Saturday Night Live cast members actually acted on Saturday Night Live. It was announced this week that, when SNL returns on October 3rd—live, from Studio 8H, with a trimmed-down audience—it’s coming back with Jim Carrey on board to portray Joe Biden. That’s fun, I guess? He’ll join Maya Rudolph, who will return as Kamala Harris. There’s been no saying otherwise that Alec {NAME} will be back as Donald Trump. Which is to say the three most consequential targets of SNL sketches will be portrayed by people who are not currently SNL cast members. [Alternate text]( These stunt castings always get press and attention. {NAME} even won an Emmy for his Trump, despite the fact that it is [one of the worst Trump interpretations on TV](. It’s the trend that Tina Fey set off when she was hired to play Sarah Palin, but has gone off the rails. Sometimes it’s fun to see a major celebrity cameo on the show as a big politician. (Melissa McCarthy as Sean Spicer.) Often, it’s tedious. (Robert De Niro as Robert Mueller.) Sometimes it’s unclear just what to make of it. (Brad Pitt as Anthony Fauci?) It just seems increasingly silly that the default casting for these major political figures is to not use one of the show’s talented cast members; it’s what they’ve been hired for. Or maybe I’m just jealous that, as part of my job, I am often asked to do my job. It’s honestly rude. Madonna by Madonna This is how [Madonna announced]( that she was going to be writing and directing a movie about her own life: [Alternate text] “Written and directed by the artist herself” or how I feel when I post a particularly great selfie/caption combination. Hey-o! I don’t know why the phrase makes me laugh so much. It’s like a grand acknowledgement of how creatively narcissistic this project is. It’s also so Madonna. In any case, lunatic fans have surmised that Ozark star Julia Garner may be cast as the lead, as both Madonna and her manager Guy Oseary have [recently followed her]( on social media—a level of sleuthing both deranged and impressive, especially if it ends up being true. (She’d be great.) I look forward to watching it 17-39 times in theaters, if it’s ever safe to go to a theater again. An Emmys Treat! Sunday night’s Emmy Awards, for which camera setups and live feeds have been dispatched to hundreds of nominees’ homes for an unprecedented virtual ceremony, is going to be a real puzzle to pull off. And because everyone loves a theme, The Daily Beast has crafted a special Emmys 2020 version of our crossword puzzle. Emmys! A puzzle! Get it? [Alternate text] You can [access it here on Sunday](. Truly a combination of my greatest passions: TV, famous ladies giving speeches, puzzles, and shameless corporate cross promotion. [Alternate text] - PEN15: This show is a miracle. (Sept. 18 on Hulu) - Ratched: It’s Sharon Stone with a monkey on her shoulder, people! (Sept. 18 on Netflix) - Emmy Awards: Because the world should be watching when Catherine O’Hara wins an Emmy. (Sept. 20 on ABC) [Alternate text] - Antebellum: Turns out that not everything Janelle Monáe does is flawless. (Sept. 18 on VOD) - The Masked Singer: This show is my nemesis. (Sept. 23 on Fox) Advertisement [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [Instagram]( © Copyright 2020 The Daily Beast Company LLC 555 W. 18th Street, New York NY 10011 [Privacy Policy]( If you are on a mobile device or cannot view the images in this message, [click here]( to view this email in your browser. To ensure delivery of these emails, please add emails@thedailybeast.com to your address book. If you no longer wish to receive these emails, or think you have received this message in error, you can [safely unsubscribe](.