 Ryan Murphy's latest Netflix project brings Sarah Paulson to a colorful yet gruesome hospital in a prequel to one flew over the cuckoo's nest. If you're avoiding spoilers, don't worry the first half of my review is completely spoiler-free and I will tell you when to turn away for when I do discuss the spoilers. Also tomorrow I will be uploading a second Ratchet video regarding the future of the show itself so make sure you're subscribed with your bell notifications on. Before we begin I just wanted to let you know that I restarted my Patreon so if you want to support me and receive some cool perks like early access to videos and some new exclusive merch watch to the end of the video or check it out right now at patreon.com slash Skyler Gaetano so let's get started with the review. Going into Ratchet I wasn't sure what to expect. While I've enjoyed Ryan's Netflix shows thus far none of them have really lived up to the quality of say American Horror Story, Crime Story, Feud or even Scream Queens so while my expectations were lower than they would be of a new AHS season they were a bit higher than they were going into say Hollywood or the politician given this stellar cast led by none other than Sarah Paulson. Let's just get this out of the way. Season one of Ratchet is not the most amazing season of television Ryan Murphy Productions has created and I'm not going to pretend that it is groundbreaking in any way but with that being said I did actually thoroughly enjoy my viewing experience. I think tackling a similar tone as AHS with similar actors and similar scenarios this show could have easily read as an in-house rip-off and I won't lie certain scenes do feel like they're lifting from asylum and even elements of freak show visually it is also very reminiscent of Scream Queens season two with that mint green hospital setting and similar set design there are also a few scenarios that are reminiscent of scenarios in Scream Queens as well but I suppose we could have predicted that given that Ian Brennan wrote a majority of the scripts for both Ratchet and the second season of Scream Queens but Ratchet does really shine in the aspects of it that are not derivative of the showrunner's previous works the characters while some do lack much depth are all very intriguing and memorable and every actor that participated in the show delivered great performances no surprise here but Sarah Paulson lit up every single scene that she's in and commanded the whole season to the point where when she wasn't in certain scenes I felt like I was just counting down the seconds until she was back on my screen. Jon Jon Breona's work here was also stellar I've only seen him in the assassination of Gianni Versace and apocalypse before this and this was very easily my favorite performance of his there are a lot of crazy things that happen in the show particularly with Dr. Hanover and Breona's controlled his performance to not give into the campy or insane places that the story was taking him other actors performances I think are also worth noting are Cynthia Nixon as Gwendolyn Judy Davis as Nurse Bucket and Sophie Okanido as Charlotte while the tone of the season does jump into territories of horror drama romance and comedy I wouldn't call it tonally confused as each relationship and character stays in their lane the comedic characters stay comedic the romantic relationships are realistic and the horror is consistently gruesome each episode does bring each of these elements into play so it does feel like a healthy and intentional mixture for me the season hit its peak right in the middle with episodes 4 and 5 and while it didn't entirely fizzle after episode 5 it never managed to reach the high that it was on it is at this point of the review that I will be discussing spoilers so turn away if you have not seen the show all right so now let me just give you a brief rundown of what I thought of each episode as well as my rating of each episode right off the bat the first episode diverted my expectations hitting me with some graphic gore and intensely stunning cinematography while the episode was beautiful and intriguing it did leave me wanting more so I gave episode one six and a half out of ten episode two continued with the exposition of episode one that began setting things into motion and this is where I really began to fall in love with the characters the peach scene in this episode is the most memorable peach scene since call me by your name and I gave this episode seven and a half out of ten episode three to me just served as a setup to episode four but I guess it wasn't entirely filler so I gave it seven out of ten episode four blew me away the formula of the show worked its best in this episode and all I wrote for this when I was watching was wow nine out of ten episode five was nearly as great as the episode before it but it suffered a bit in the first half with a little bit of unnatural pacing but the focus on charlotte was very important to the last half of the season but once the dance itself kicked off this was easily one of the highlights of the seasons I loved getting to see drunk bucket and the scene where mildred and Gwen comfort bucket and then damn that final scene of the dance was not at all what I was expecting and it is at this point in the season where things really start to shock me it goes all in with trying to achieve shock value I gave episode five eight and a half out of ten episode six provided even more backstory to edmund and mildred's relationship but overall it felt like late exposition that could have either been dealt with earlier or in a quicker manner it slowed down the pace for me and felt a tad bit like a filler episode six and a half out of ten episode seven the penultimate episode further built the friendship between bucket and ratchet that started to form at the dance and I'm really glad these characters didn't spend the entire season at each other's throats I also loved the early scene with bucket and louise and then charlotte killed dr hanniver and I was not expecting him to die at all and definitely not in that scene I'm a little sad that we won't be seeing that character in future seasons but maybe they'll incorporate him in flashbacks of some sort as long as it serves the story that is and then the nori gets stabbed with a pitchfork which I was also not expecting at all came out of nowhere it was at this point that the shock factor gave me a bit of whiplash and I thought well all bets are off which lowered the stakes for me a bit but in the end I did give this episode an eight out of ten and now episode eight the finale it continued the shock value from the gruesome electric chair scene to the sudden death of huck I know I haven't talked about huck yet because he really didn't do much this season but he didn't have to die like that I would have liked to see more of his character going forward but I do respect the show for killing off so much of its main ensemble in the first season then a dreaded ryan murphy finale time jump occurs and we are in mexico in 1950 the finale fizzles here for me and although I do love that mildred has found love with Gwen and Gwen seems to be surviving for the next season the last act of the finale doesn't really do much for me so I gave episode eight and eight out of ten overall I'd give ratchet season one seven mildred ratchets out of ten but be sure to let me know what you thought about it in the comments below I think the season was strong and I am looking forward to what is to come with the series speaking of once again tomorrow I will be uploading a second video on ratchet regarding the future of the series so look out for that make sure your bell notifications are on