REVIEW: ‘Ratched’ goes overboard with its own ‘Cuckoo’s Nest’

You can tell “Ratched” is a Ryan Murphy production.

It boasts sumptuous production design, more than a little sex and a story that doesn’t quite know where it wants to go.

Viewed as a prequel to “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” it attempts to explain why Nurse Ratched was, well, so mean.

Tracking her back to some technicolor past, she’s a nurse with a lot of issues hoping to get a job at Lucia State Hospital, a California hotel-like facility where all sorts of horrors take place. For good measure, it even has a prison where psychos can be stashed until they’re evaluated. Among the incarcerated: a killer who takes out a handful of priests in the series’ first scenes. Played by Finn Wittrock, he’s Marlon Brando portraying James Dean in an Alfred Hitchcock film.

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Eventually, he meets Mildred Ratched (Sarah Paulson), but not until she has had ample opportunity to create enemies, undercut allies and appear mysterious to everyone who meets her at sleezy nightclubs.

She has an adversary in Nurse Bucket (Judy Davis), a no-nonsense right hand who does whatever the hospital administrator wants – including boiling skin, performing lobotomies and testing patience.

“Inmates running the asylum” is an apt description of Lucia State Hospital. It looks gorgeous (right down its color-coordinated uniforms) and has a number of strong supporters. But there’s concern from the governor’s office and a press secretary (Cynthia Nixon) who could spell doom if Ratched doesn’t get to run interference.

Because it’s like some 1950s melodrama, “Ratched” is quite attractive initially. Like a mansion with dozens of rooms, it pulls you in until you realize one bedroom looks pretty much like every other one.

Characters appear quirky (Sharon Stone as a rich maven is particularly juicy), then they emerge as just plain crazy. Ratched’s relationship with a mystery man at a motel intrigues, but doesn’t go anywhere. Instead, there’s a lot of filler that has to shock and awe before we get to the big showdown.

Jack Nicholson and company don’t show up before the finale (this is years before that stint) but there are enough situations to make that look like small potatoes.

Paulson continues her streak as Murphy’s go-to actress. She has the style and force to make the premise work, particularly when she’s in play with Nixon. They dance around a familiar theme, then find a way to bring down this house of horrors before it implodes.

Jon Jon Briones gets the juicy hospital administrator role but doesn’t do much with it, particularly since he has such a rich staff. If there’s a star in this, it’s Sophie Okonedo who makes multiple personalities register multiple times. Had Murphy put her in every scene, “Ratched” might have gone to the next level.

Instead, it’s just a shirttail relative of “American Horror Story,” another series that isn’t always sure what it wants to do.

Ratched” airs on Netflix.

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