Ratched Season 1 Episode 6 Recap – Got No Strings

[00:01:00] Edmund and Dolly continue running from the police. The police brought dogs with them to follow their scent. Dolly strips to throw the dogs off their scent; she tells Edmund to do the same. Edmund does what she says, and they run through a river. They arrive at an abandoned farm where they stay for the night. Meanwhile, Mildred worries about Edmund while Gwendolyn goes into surgery. Gwendolyn survives, and Mildred stays with her for the rest of the night. Mildred tells Gwendolyn she wants to confess something. She wants to tell her the truth about her identity and her plans. Before Mildred could confess, Gwendolyn wakes up. She tells her not to speak and shouts to the other nurses to call in a doctor.

[00:07:00] Dolly and Edmund make due for the night with a can of tomatoes. She finds an old rifle inside the house and points the rifle at Edmund, who couldn’t keep his shit together. Edmund tells Dolly she’s scaring him. Dolly doesn’t understand, but Edmund tells her he’s the least scary man in the world. She asks him what he means, but Edmund just tells her to drop it. Dolly leaves the house and heads over to the barn. He follows her and asks what she’s doing. Dolly takes some sheets from the house along with a couple of pillows. She tells Edmund she can’t sleep inside the house because of all the rat feces. Dolly is starting to panic. Edmund calms her down by kissing her; eventually, the two have sex in the barn.

[00:12:00] Morning comes, and Edmund is amazed at Dolly’s wildness. She tells Edmund she imagines being Jane Russell. They kiss and are later startled by a rooster. Edmund tells Dolly he’s hungry enough to eat the rooster. He asks Dolly if she knows how to cook it. She knows how to cook it, but she tells him they need to catch it first. Edmund doesn’t want to kill the rooster. He tells Dolly that the rooster is innocent and hasn’t done anything bad to deserve being killed. Dolly can’t believe Edmund can’t kill a rooster when he has already killed five men. Edmund explains that animals are different from humans. Dolly had enough of Edmund’s excuses. She catches the rooster and shows Edmund how to kill it, but he can’t even watch her kill the rooster.

[00:15:00] Edmund tells Dolly he could clean the rooster up if she would teach him. Meanwhile, Mildred goes to see how Gwendolyn is doing. She tells Gwendolyn she’s out of harm’s way. Gwendolyn responds she feels like she was shot and wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. She laughs but stops as it feels like being stabbed by a hot poker. Mildred scolds the nurse for turning on the television on a children’s show. She wants the nurse to change the channel, but Gwendolyn tells Mildred she requested the children’s show. Mildred sits down beside her and watches the puppet show. Something about the puppet show triggers Mildred’s memories.

[00:17:00] Gwendolyn invites Mildred to see a marionette show in Modesto the next day. She’s supposed to meet Governor Wilburn in Stockton, but she’s unable to drive herself as per the doctor’s order. Gwendolyn tells Mildred she could drive her over to Stockton and see the marionette show on the way. They could even have dinner, and Mildred would be able to take Gwendolyn’s car back to Lucia the next day and still make her shift. Mildred refuses to take Gwendolyn to Stockton. She tells her she doesn’t want to see a puppet show, leading to an argument: Mildred does not allow anyone in her life. Gwendolyn wishes to have met Mildred before seeing the world and its horrors.

[00:20:00] Mildred finally agrees to go with Gwendolyn to see the puppet show. She couldn’t say no as Gwendolyn points out she nearly died, realizing that life is too short. Mildred tells Gwendolyn her brush with death also illuminated things she wants to have in life. She tells Gwendolyn she doesn’t want to lose her, so she’s happy to accompany her on the things she wants to do. Gwendolyn responds nothing would make her happier than to have Mildred by her side. Mildred packs a bag, and they leave for Modesto. They sit in the second row as the puppet show begins.

[00:22:00] Everyone is having the time of their lives except for Mildred. The theater is full of children. Gwendolyn thanks her for agreeing to watch the show. Mildred sees her life flash before her eyes. The puppeteer is telling a story about a brother and sister. Somehow Mildred thinks the story is about her and Edmund. They became orphans, abused by different people. The caseworker who handled their transfer forged their papers. She wrote that Edmund and Mildred were siblings so that they would have each other. Each orphanage was worse than the last, so were each foster parent. They were adopted merely for the money the government paid their foster parents.

[00:25:00] One day, Edmund got beaten so bad Mildred thought he would die. They ran away and returned to the caseworker who pitied them and found them a new family. Their new parents were rich and took care of them until they were healthy again. But things came with a price. The parents showed them a puppet stage where they could play, but it soon became clear that they were going to be the puppets. The parents placed coded classified ads in the newspaper to lure in rich pedophiles who would pay tons of money to see Mildred and Edmund perform lewd acts with each other.

[00:28:00] Edmund and Mildred decided they needed to get out before it’s too late. Edmund disagreed and wanted to get revenge. Mildred begged Edmund to just escape with her, but he didn’t want to leave without getting revenge. He took a pair of scissors and gouged out the eyes of their foster parents. Mildred saw everything while Edmund told her to go. She ran until she couldn’t. She didn’t want to leave Edmund, but she didn’t know what else to do. Mildred vows to find him and be reunited with him someday. Mildred suddenly loses it. She stands up and shouts at the puppeteer. She makes a scene then realizes what is happening. She leaves the theater. Gwendolyn apologizes to everyone then follows Mildred. She drives Gwendolyn to Stockton and apologizes for what happened at the theater.

[00:30:00] Gwendolyn tells Mildred to stop the car. She wants Mildred to tell her the truth. Gwendolyn heard Mildred after her surgery. She knew Mildred wanted to confess to her about her life. They go to a restaurant where she tells Gwendolyn about her past: how she got into foster care and found a brother, the caseworker who forged their papers to turn them into biological siblings, how different men and women abused them, and how they came to their last foster parents. Mildred tells Gwendolyn she and her brother had enough, but her brother didn’t want to just leave—he killed their foster parents. She tells Gwendolyn she vowed to find her brother and reveals her brother is Edmund Tolleson.

[00:34:00] Edmund wakes up and wakes Dolly up. They overslept. Edmund wants to keep moving before the police catch up to them. Dolly wants to have breakfast first, but they don’t have anything to feed themselves. She tries to get Edmund to have sex again before they leave, but he doesn’t want to. They get dressed, but as they leave the barn, the police tell them to drop their weapons. Edmund and Dolly ran out the back of the barn, but the police surrounded the barn. They lock themselves inside. Dolly wants to shoot the police and fight back, but Edmund knows he needs to surrender, so they don’t get killed. She doesn’t want Edmund to surrender himself, but he doesn’t have any choice.

[00:36:00] Edmund tells her he wants to spend the rest of his life with her. He kisses Dolly and slowly walks out of the barn. Edmund gets down on his knees and tells the police Dolly didn’t do anything wrong. Suddenly, Dolly goes out of the side door and starts shooting the police. Edmund tries to stop Dolly, but it is too late. The police sees her and riddled her with bullets. Edmund can’t do anything but watch as Dolly falls to the ground and dies. The police move in to arrest Edmund as he stares into Dolly’s eyes.

[00:38:00] The police take Edmund back to Lucia. Mildred signs Edmund’s paper. The police placed him under armed guard. Edmund wants to talk with Mildred, but she doesn’t want to talk to him. The sheriff tells her they will keep an eye out on Edmund until the governor arrives the next day. Mildred tells Edmund he’s lucky the police didn’t kill him. The next day, Nurse Bucket tells Richard about Governor Wilburn’s arrival. Richard tells Betsy she’s looking good, but she no longer feels for him. Richard meets with Governor Wilburn and Gwendolyn. Mildred tries to control the situation, but Wilburn tells her to shut up.

[00:41:00] Governor Wilburn regrets trusting Richard and making the hospital the core of his reelection campaign. He recalled everything and knew it wasn’t a good week for his campaign. Wilburn doesn’t care about anyone in the hospital, nor does he care about Edmund. All he wants is to win his reelection campaign, and he needs to do it by having Edmund declared fit to stand trial, where he will be charged guilty and sentenced to death. Gwendolyn brings the paperwork over to Richard. Wilburn threatens to cut all of Richard’s funding if he doesn’t sign the papers. Richard signs despite Mildred appealing to him. Wilburn insults Richard by telling him he’s the crazy one in his hospital.

[00:43:00] Gwendolyn speaks to Governor Wilburn after leaving Richard’s office. She tells him he’s a brave man for keeping the hospital open even after what happened. Wilburn reveals he had already pulled the state funding for the hospital. It will go bankrupt within a month, and Edmund Tolleson will be dead the following Monday. He lied to Richard to get him to sign the papers for Edmund’s trial. Gwendolyn tries to advise Wilburn to put Edmund’s death until after the elections. She tells Wilburn they could tease the voters into voting for him so he could kill Edmund using the electric chair. Governor Wilburn tells her she has a nice ass, but he can no longer tolerate her stupid advice. Wilburn fires Gwendolyn as his secretary and campaign manager then leaves the hospital.