James Widmer

The acting is uniformly wonderful. Sarah Paulson is playing Ratched as a more complex version of her Deadwood character, Miss Isringhausen, and it works very well. My biggest complaints are the same that I have for every Ryan Murphy project: he goes for garish visuals and pulpy plot twists that are designed to evoke visceral reactions in his characters (and his viewers). It gets a little over the top, for my tastes- but it is superbly acted and shot. I say this with the full understanding that Murphy’s work is never boring- just more akin to pulp novels and B-movies than auteur’s fare. I enjoyed it.