Apple TV+’s Disclaimer plays with the idea that perspective is the most crucial factor in a story. In Alfonso Cuaron’s show, it isn’t as simple as a story coming off different based on who’s saying it. Judging by the 4th episode, what Disclaimer is actually trying to tell us is that the truth has a way of leaking out of the narratives that people set up to justify their feelings and actions.
Spoiler Alert
The Escalating Italian Affair
Catherine’s time with Jonathan wasn’t as short and fleeting as she makes it out to be. It lingered longer than a one night stand and a sudden lapse of judgment. It lingered long enough for both of them to do things that neither of them had ever experienced before or would ever experience again. Sasha became a distant memory to Jonathan. And Catherine counted on her son’s hazy toddler mind to forget the things he’d been seeing. They were comfortable around each other. And call it an impulse or a gut thing, Catherine trusted Jonathan to keep the racy pictures he’d clicked of her private. But while measured risks and fun were all Catherine was after, it meant something else to Jonathan. Tension reared its head in a joke. Jonathan playfully teased Catherine that he didn’t want to be so hush hush about it. Catherine let it slide. That might’ve been her biggest mistake.
The effects Of Jonathan’s Death On Nancy
It’s amusing how similar Stephen and Catherine actually are. They’ve both kind of been kept out of the heart of the family. They’ve been the lesser loved parents in their households. But that also means that Nancy was really close with Jonathan. It was an ugly mix of rage and confusion she felt when she got back to London and buried her son. That ugly feeling is what kept her underwater in her own bathtub. If it wasn’t for Stephen finding and saving her, maybe she would’ve drowned herself out of the sheer strength of her grief. The only thing that was felt in the Brigstocke house for years was Jonathan’s absence. Stephen’s concern for his wife and their life as a couple lost the war against Nancy’s determination to die a slow death. She locked herself in Jonathan’s room, refused to get treatment for her cancer, and joined her son in the grave next to his. Those two plots had originally been reserved for Stephen and Nancy. So even in death, Stephen will be excluded from the family. But there’s something about Nancy’s grief that sticks out in an odd manner. And the same thing explains why Catherine was given a truly villainous portrayal in Nancy’s book. In one of the flashbacks, we saw how much Nancy loved being the only subject of Jonathan’s photography. She was strangely unfeeling about Stephen’s sadness over being invisible in his own family. So it’s undeniably likely that Nancy’s hatred for Catherine came from a place where she was jealous of her. There was attention and devotion in all the pictures Jonathan had clicked of Catherine, something that Nancy probably thought only she could claim from her son. Plus, there’s the fact that Nancy never liked Jonathan’s girlfriend Sasha either. If you think about it, it’s highly unlikely that Nancy knew anything about Catherine. The extent of Nancy’s knowledge about what had happened in Italy were the pictures clicked by Jonathan. So for her book, she filled in the blanks with unfettered hatred. Maybe that’s why, even though we see Catherine as a very flawed woman but hardly the worst person in the world, everyone who reads the book absolutely hates her guts.
Catherine’s fall
I don’t think Catherine’s used to having her texts and calls ignored by Robert. So even though Robert’s not in the wrong for stranding her in silence, it almost feels like a betrayal to Catherine. Robert’s not been the same since he saw the pictures and skimmed through the book. He’s so consumed by anger and self-loathing that he can’t even get his head into something I think he’s usually good at–making something illegal look like a mistake so there’s plausible deniability. So the work meeting’s a bust. But Robert’s taking the reins back in his personal life. He’s basically decided to push Catherine out of their family without even giving her so much as a chance to explain herself. For the time being, Catherine seems to want to take the high road with Stephen. So instead of going after him, she plays polite and drops him a voicemail. It’s an acknowledgement that gives Catherine some of the power back. She’s not hiding. She’s initiating contact with Stephen. And then there’s the fact that she calls it fiction. That’s more a gesture that communicates that Catherine’s standing up for herself against Stephen. But Stephen’s cooking up something weird. He’s already dropped by the bookstore that Catherine frequents and put his book on display. So it looks like Stephen’s trying to leave the bitter reminders of the past in every space where Catherine feels safe. And in this peculiar power struggle, Stephen’s about to put together a fake Facebook profile of a teenager. While it’s practically impossible to guess what he’s going to do with that, he for sure doesn’t need it for the research of his next book like he’s claiming to his friend.
Jonathan Died In The Sea
A lot of comfortable lies shattered when Robert got to know what his wife had been doing in their hotel room with a 19 old boy 25 years ago. A lot of what he thought was exclusive for him was shared with people outside of their marriage. But were all these lies told by Catherine? Or was some of it a soothing concoction fabricated by Robert’s insecurities? If we’re to believe the unnamed narrator, Robert’s sexual inexperience is why Catherine held back her true vivacious self. So the fact that Robert thought that he was mesmerizing enough to have overshadowed everyone who came before him could very well have been a lie he told himself. Catherine’s affair getting out in the open robbed him of these comforts. So he figures that the best way to avenge his broken heart is to reject Catherine altogether. He so desperately wants to avoid confronting Catherine that it almost looks like he’s scared of ending up forgiving her for the things she’s done. Maybe he doesn’t want to risk being manipulated by the awful woman in the book. Maybe that’s what gets him to pack up her things and land her in an awkward situation where their son is told that mom’s about to go on a work trip. Catherine says one absolute truth before leaving her house. She wanted Jonathan to die.
When we’re back in Italy, that’s the truth we’re about to watch unfold on the beaches of the Mediterranean. Catherine wasn’t eyeing the mom of the year award when she left little Nicholas at the beach and went for another of her adventures with Jonathan. It was supposed to be one of the last few times they got together before Catherine’s flight to London the next day. But Jonathan fell for Catherine. And despite her efforts at making it as clear as possible that she didn’t want it to be anything more than a fun little adventure in Italy, Jonathan dreamed up a whole romance with Catherine and even bought tickets to go with her to London the day after. We’ve been hearing in passing that Jonathan died saving Nicholas. And turns out, what we heard is true. Catherine’s anxiety over the Jonathan situation made her little nap on the beach go on for longer than she intended. And by the time she woke up, Nicholas was floating away in his little dinghy. Her screams alerted Jonathan, who jumped into the water to save Catherine’s son. Even though more people joined in later, Jonathan was the reason Nicholas didn’t float away out of reach. Nicholas was saved, but Jonathan died before the rescuers could get to him. But was it entirely an accident? No, not really.
In the ending of Disclaimer episode 4, we see how Catherine ignored Jonathan’s screams for help. She wanted him to die because she was scared that he’d disrupt her perfect cookie-cutter life. So no matter how much Nancy blew things up in her head and in the book, there’s no denying that Jonathan died because Catherine let him die. Catherine got away with it by denying any involvement with Jonathan prior to the incident at the beach. But as luck would have it, the dead boy’s father is now out for her blood.
