Ratched Season 1 Episode 1 Recap – Pilot

[00:01:00] A priest presides over a mass at the local church in 1947. It is raining hard. They decide to close the church after mass. The priest bids goodbye to one of his parishioners and walks back to their quarters. A man closely watched the priest return to his quarters as he crept behind him. The priest joins the other priests for dinner. One of them introduced him to Father Adeyemi from Nigeria. Father McMurtry is late for dinner because Agnes Samson needed further convincing that stealing her sister’s watch wasn’t a sin. They are heading over to see a movie, but Father McMurtry decides to fake a cough and stay in for the night. After dinner, he goes to his room, locks the door, and takes out a lingerie magazine along with a bottle of Vaseline.

[00:02:30] The man from earlier stands outside in the rain, waiting for an opportune moment to strike. He goes to the quarters and knocks on the door. Father McMurtry hears the constant knocks and decides to stop masturbating to check who it is. He goes down and opens the door. The man tells him his car broke down and he needs to use their phone. Father McMurtry lets the man in and tells him about the phone in the parlor. He goes to the kitchen to make the man a cup of coffee, but he decides to follow him. The man sees some leftover food on the table. McMurtry offers the man some food, but he refuses.

[00:03:30] The priests are just coming out of the movies. They enjoyed the film and headed home. One of the priests sees the dishes left on the table and decides to clean them up. Everyone else heads up to their rooms and prepares to sleep. As Father Adeyemi prepares to brush his teeth, he hears water dripping inside the bathtub. He pushes the shower curtain and sees Father McMurtry’s dead body—the man slit his throat and dumped his body inside the bathroom. But the man hasn’t left yet. He is hiding behind the bathroom door. He kills Father Adeyemi, hitting the priest’s head on the toilet a few times. The other priests hear the commotion; they go to the bathroom to check.

[00:05:30] As one of the priests opens the bathroom door. He sees the man hitting Father Adeyemi’s head on the toilet. He tries to run back to his room, but the man catches up with him and stabs him to death. The head priest hears the commotion and goes to check what’s happening. One of the younger priests runs back to his room as the man follows him. “Hello, Monsignor,” the man sees the head priest and tells him about his mother, Sister Margaret McGuire. The man is the monsignor’s son. Monsignor runs into the room where the young priest ran earlier. He grabs a clothes iron then swings it as he tries to hit the man, but he dodges it. The man stabs the monsignor. Monsignor admits she knew Sister Margaret, but he tells the man she wanted to have sex with him.

[00:07:00] The man responds his mother got sent to a whore house because of what happened between them. After his mother died, he got sent to the orphanage. The man blames the monsignor for everything that happened to him. Monsignor apologizes to him. He tells the man he’s just a sinner, and he already suffered for his sins. The man disagrees. He tells the monsignor the suffering has just begun. The man stabs him to death as the other priest watches under the bed, hiding while holding his hands to his mouth.

[00:08:30] A woman waits for a gas attendant to bring her the morning paper along with a map to Lucia. The murder of the priests is the current talk of the town. The woman sees the headlines in the paper as the gas attendant tells her the murderer got sent to Lucia. He asks if she’s a journalist, but she doesn’t answer. Instead, she tells the gas attendant to bathe more often as his hands are filthy. The woman drives off and heads for Lucia. She arrives at the place and heads to the local motel. She introduces herself as Mildred Ratched while booking her stay. The hotel owner tells Mildred a few house rules before leaving her be. The next day, Mildred goes to the Lucia State Hospital to meet with Dr. Hanover.

[00:13:00] Mildred hands over a letter to the trainee nurse, telling her she’s the new night shift nurse and has an interview with Dr. Hanover. The nurse calls over the head nurse, Nurse Bucket. She gives her the letter as Nurse Bucket goes straight to Mildred. Mildred introduces herself, but Nurse Bucket doesn’t respond politely. She tells Mildred she didn’t send the letter, nor was it signed by Dr. Hanover. Mildred tells her she just needs to talk with Dr. Hanover. Nurse Bucket tells Mildred Dr. Hanover won’t be back until that afternoon. Mildred doesn’t mind waiting and just sits down in the hospital’s lounge.

[00:16:30] Meanwhile, Dr. Hanover takes a pill as he waits to talk with the governor. But the governor’s secretary tells him the governor can’t meet him and will reschedule next month. Dr. Hanover disappointingly goes to the bar to have a drink. As he decides to leave, he sees a man staring at him—he gets another drink to calm his nerves. The governor and his secretary entered the bar where he’s at, so Hanover decides to approach them. The governor doesn’t want to entertain Hanover, but his secretary suggests hearing him out. The governor allows Hanover to provide his sales pitch until their drinks arrive. Hanover starts to talk, but the drinks arrive shortly, so the governor tells him his time’s up. He’s left with no other choice but to leave.

[00:19:00] Mildred asks the trainee where the bathroom is. She freshens herself up and hears a loud bang from the other room. She goes over to check and sees one of the trainees having sex with an orderly. Mildred looks at her in disgust as the man continues pounding the trainee inside the bathroom. Mildred leaves and goes back to the lounge. Nurse Bucket tells Dr. Hanover about Mildred. Hanover is still angry about the governor’s response but agrees to handle Mildred. He goes to the lounge to send Mildred home, but she creates a scene, forcing Hanover to invite her to his office. Mildred does her best to secure a position in the hospital, but Hanover doesn’t have the funding to hire her. He tells Mildred he will consider her for a position once he has acquired additional funding.

[00:25:30] On her way out, Mildred grabs one of the trainee’s handbags and hides it within her portfolio. She looks at the nurse’s ID inside her car and visits her address. A man was leaving the house when Mildred arrived. She tells the man she’s looking for Amelia Emerson. The man tells her Amelia isn’t at home. She tells the man she’s Arlene Bauer, Amelia’s old high school friend. The man agrees to tell Amelia about her. Mildred returns to her motel and tells the owner to let her know if anyone calls about Arlene Bauer. The owner agrees, so Mildred goes back to her room.

[00:28:30] Mildred slides a note into her neighbor’s room that night. She’s asking if the man is married. The man responds he’s not and slides the note back into her room. The man thought he would bed Mildred, but she had other plans. She wants the man to pretend they’re married and are fighting. The man finds the scenario too weird, so he pulls up his pants and goes back to his room. As the man opens the door, the motel owner tells Mildred someone is looking for Arlene Bauer. Mildred meets Amelia in a local bar and threatens Amelia’s marriage with what she saw at the hospital.

[00:32:00] Amelia wants to know what Mildred wants. Mildred responds she wants her job. Since the hospital doesn’t have the funding to hire her, she creates a vacant position for herself. Amelia knows her husband won’t believe Mildred, but she can’t risk anything, so she eventually agrees. Mildred tells her she just needs to tell her husband she no longer wants to stay in Lucia. That same night, the governor’s campaign manager visits Dr. Hanover. She wants the governor to anchor his re-election campaign on Hanover’s hospital. Dr. Hanover can’t say no and immediately accepts the offer.

[00:35:00] The next day, Dr. Hanover ensures that his hospital is running like a well-oiled machine. He orders Nurse Bucket to arrange a ten-to-one patient-to-staff ratio, but they are short-staffed. Amelia hasn’t reported for work, and another nurse named Jackie is still on vacation. Before Dr. Hanover entered the lift, another nurse brought him a fruit basket—signed by Mildred Ratched. She is currently in her motel room, waiting for Dr. Hanover’s call. Surely enough, the doctor calls the motel asking for her. Mildred immediately goes to the hospital to report for duty in Amelia’s place.

[00:37:30] Later that day, the governor arrives at the hospital along with his campaign manager. Mildred is preparing the daily medicine cart for their patients and discovers a bottle filled with blood pressure pills. She takes one and puts it in one of the patients’ medicine rounds. The governor and the press talk about the clergy murderer, Edmund Tolleson, and how the hospital would handle him once the government transfers him over to their care. Dr. Hanover tells the press that patients in Lucia are not chained but are cared for as human beings. Suddenly, Nurse Bucket runs over to Dr. Hanover—one of their patients collapsed. Dr. Hanover and Nurse Bucket want to take over the situation, but Mildred insists on handling the situation. The governor rushes inside the room along with the press.

[00:40:00] Everyone sees how Mildred saves the patient. They immediately bring the patient back to his room. Nurse Bucket tells Dr. Hanover that someone gave the patient the wrong medicine, which caused him to go into shock and collapse. Dr. Hanover wants to talk with Mildred, but the governor pulls him away. He wants to know what happened to the patient and if he survived. The governor then tells Hanover he wants a picture with the press about the lifesaving event. Hanover refuses to have a picture, so the governor chooses Mildred instead. Since the press will publish the photo, Mildred now officially works at the hospital. Dr. Hanover couldn’t stop the governor, who promised to give a check for $75,000.

[00:42:00] After what happened with one of the patients, Mildred approaches another patient named Salvatore. Mr. Salvatore’s brother recently died, and his other family members don’t want anything to do with him. Mildred sympathizes with him. She tells him she also has a brother. Mildred tells him she was taken away from her parents at a very young age, and all she had was her brother. But her brother was also taken away from her, which left her all alone. Mildred wanted to protect her brother, but she couldn’t do anything. She tells Salvatore he will spend the rest of his life inside the hospital because his family doesn’t want to see him again. She tells Salvatore the truth, so he doesn’t spend the rest of his days hoping that one day he could be with his family again.

[00:46:00] While Mildred is busy brainwashing Salvatore’s mind, Dr. Hanover goes to the medicine cabinet and discovers that someone has opened the blood pressure pill bottle. Mildred takes Salvatore to Dr. Hanover’s office and tells him to take the letter opener from his desk. Mildred leaves him alone inside the doctor’s office before anyone finds out she took Salvatore there. Dr. Hanover confronts Mildred about the pill bottle. He knows none of their patients are taking that medication, but before he could blame Mildred, they hear a loud thud from his office. He enters his office and goes to the bathroom. He sees Salvatore lying in a pool of his blood—he slit his throat using the letter opener. Hanover panics. The press is downstairs, and if anyone sees Salvatore’s body, he is ruined.

[00:49:00] Mildred offers to help Dr. Hanover. She tells him to go back downstairs and meet the press with the governor. Mildred offers to take care of Salvatore’s body. She tells Dr. Hanover to tell the governor and the press that he formerly offered Mildred a position at Lucia State Hospital. Dr. Hanover is in a state of shock himself. He doesn’t know what to do, so he just agrees with everything Mildred tells him. She cleans up Salvatore’s body and takes it to the incinerator. The governor is pleased with his press conference and everything that happened at the hospital. He tells Dr. Hanover to say goodbye to Mildred for him. He is interested in Mildred, sealing the deal for Dr. Hanover and the future of his hospital.

[00:52:00] That night, the police arrive at Lucia along with Edmund. Mildred sees the convoy headed over to the hospital from the parking area of the motel. The police turn Edmund over to the Lucia State Hospital for 120 days. Mildred visits Edmund’s holding cell. He recognizes her and tells her he doesn’t want to die. Mildred assures him he isn’t going to die.