***Warning: Major Ratched spoilers ahead***
Ryan Murphy’s take on the One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest tale has finally been released and brings to life 1947 America and their treatment of mental health.
With familial bonds being tested to the extreme, and trying to live out a happy life in an LGBT relationship in a world that still considers it an illness, Mildred has her work cut out for her in order to bring about a happy ending.
But the finale brought her some new issues, and season two is going to bring the biggest tests yet.
So what exactly happened?
Here’s what you need to know…
Gwendoline (Cynthia Nixon) and Mildred (Sarah Paulson) have had one solid month of happiness together, but things are tinged with sadness as Gwendoline’s chemotherapy treatment is leaving her weak and sick.
Faced with the idea that she may die from her cancer, Mildred proposes they head to Mexico together. While Gwendoline thinks it’s so she can die in paradise, Mildred has other ideas – there are doctors with experimental treatment that may save her.
Returning to Lucia Medical Center, Mildred is pleasantly surprised to see that Betsy Bucket (Judy Davis) has transformed the centre into a warmer place for its patients – and she’s even hired a woman doctor (which is very progressive of her, and 1947).
But while that’s all well and good, Mildred’s pain is still present – as she’s there to see what will happen to her brother Edmund (Finn Wittrock) as he faces execution by injection.
In a bid to help Edmund find peace, she allows him into the residential barn to look after the animals, where his kind nature actually thrives, particularly with the horse and pig.
However, Senator Stratton has been hard at work, and has brought back the electric chair in a bid of showmanship, even throwing the switch himself on another death row inmate to win over voters – but it goes horrifically wrong, and in a sickening moment he allows the prisoner to burn in front of witnesses.
Gwendoline uses her connection to Stratton to try and get him to reconsider lethal injection for Edmund, but in his (very chauvinistic and creepy way) tells them no, saying ‘politics isn’t about policy anymore’ but about making people listen. He’s a performer, not a politician.
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Desperate, Mildred enlists Betsy and they come up with a plan to kill him quietly in the barn, away from public spectacle.
Meanwhile, Charlotte Wells (Sophie Okonedo) has taken on a new persona – former hospital head Dr Hanover – and he has some demands to see Edmund.
To make it worse, when Betsy runs to get help, Charlotte finds a gun, and when Huck tries to get through to her, she shoots him in the head.
Kidnapping Betsy to take her to Edmund, things take a turn when Edmund surprisingly warms to ‘lunatic’ Charlotte, and instead takes her side.
Locking Betsy up at gunpoint, he demands to know Mildred’s plan, and then makes a run for it with Charlotte, instead of facing his death.
Two Years Later
After everything that happened, Mildred and Gwendoline successfully made it to Mexico, and have started a life there.
Gwendoline is now miraculously in recovery thanks to a revolutionary treatment involving mistletoe, and the pair are joined by Betsy who is visiting them on vacation.
Sipping cocktails by the pool, it appears that they all have their happy ending, with Charlotte and Edmund completely vanishing after escaping the ward.
But Mildred is still haunted by her brother and is sure he isn’t finished with her – even dreaming he broke into her home and stabbed her after tracking her down.
She was right to be worried, and after killing seven nurses as a ‘tribute’ to her, Edmund phones her up in Mexico, revealing someone sold her out to him so he knows where she is.
But Mildred is ready, and tells him that if he feels betrayed and wants to kill her, she’s already waiting to come after him.
In the final moments, it’s revealed that he’s already on his way- with Charlotte, and a former nurse from the hospital.
Ratched is available now on Netflix.
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