In September 2020, Ratched premiered on Netflix. It was considered a highlight of the platform. She had a recognizable face like Sarah Paulson and was signed by Ryan Murphy, who in February 2018 had signed an exclusivity contract with the platform for 300 million. Murphy was characterized by the fact that he had made commercial success and critical prestige compatible with works such as Nip / Tuck, Glee, American Horror Story or the American Crime Story franchise that included The Assassination of Gianni Versace.
On the day of Ratched's release, viewers encountered the 8 episodes that were part of the first season. The American media warned: Murphy and Netflix had agreed that Ratched would have a total of 18 episodes, so a second season with the remaining 10 episodes was yet to be broadcast.
And what did the series tell? The past of the twisted Nurse Ratched created by writer Ken Kesey in the novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and which Louise Fletcher immortalized in the film adaptation with a work that earned her the Oscar for best actress. In Northern California in 1947, she went to work in a psychiatric hospital where she sold the idea of the perfect nurse: a facade that hid her sadistic impulses.
The reviews were irregular, as had happened to Murphy with The politician, his first series created for Netflix. A stylish psychological thriller without much to scratch. From this page, for example, a server criticized that Murphy, here only on board as executive producer and director, confused paying homage to past cinema with having an identity, and that it was creative recycling to disguise his lack of his own ideas.
It was, in short, a mediocre season of American horror story but with another title, because the AHS brand was at the service of Disney since Mickey Mouse bought 21th Century Fox in 2019. The presence of Sarah Paulson, omnipresent in the filmography of Murphy, or actors like Finn Wittrock, contributed to this sensation, apart from the theme and Murphy's flawed seal as a director.
From Netflix, however, Ratched was sold as a success: 48 million users started the first season in the first four weeks in the catalog. But, when the viewer has gone three and a half years without news regarding the second season, someone has finally silenced the rumors: Sarah Paulson herself, who responded with a brief "no" when a fan asked her on X if there would be an outcome for his nurse.
While at first the de-renewal of Ratched could be attributed as a consequence of the poor results of Murphy, who in the first four years of his contract was unable to provide a single unquestionable hit to Netflix, in the end he did give a couple of surprises to the catalog. : The watcher with Naomi Watts, which is renewed for a second season, and the phenomenon of Dahmer, which under the heading of Monster has another season in development with Javier Bardem leading the cast.
