Getting to see a lot more of Cate Blanchett sure is a solid distraction from the fact that the last two episodes of Disclaimer were painfully unimpressive. But they did move the story forward. And I gotta hand it to Cuaron for making a show which, despite having a fairly linear episodic flow, made me feel like I was watching a whole different show with every other episode. I guess at the very least, Disclaimer is watchable because Cuaron’s masterful grasp on human emotions kind of saves an otherwise lackluster story.
Spoiler Alert
Catherine talks about Italy
I know how messed up this is gonna sound, but I bet Catherine’s kinda thankful that her mom has dementia. It’s not just privacy that keeps a person from not wanting to talk about a recent loss of any kind. There’s also the denial factor. If you don’t talk about it, you get to hold on to the often toxic hope that you can fix it and then no one will have to know. So when she’s out on the street with all the luggage Robert has bundled together in a rage, I think Catherine’s glad that she can go over to her mom’s for an impromptu stay. Catherine may be in denial about what stage of dementia her mother’s in and how fast things can go downhill, but she’s aware that her mother won’t know the right questions to ask, so she’s got to be glad that she doesn’t need to explain her visit and stay. In bed with her mom after ages, the thoughts crossing Catherine’s mind paint the picture of a sweet mother-daughter relationship where the daughter might’ve been a little cavalier about the mother’s well-being. Catherine needed this. She needed to be in the vicinity of someone who would’ve heard her truth and still loved her. And knowing that her drowsy mother might not even remember most of the things Catherine’s about to say makes it all the more convenient. This marked the first time in 20 years that Catherine felt like she could talk about what had happened in Italy without losing anything that meant something to her. And it’s only when she speaks it out loud that she understands how much pain her actions have caused people. Is this also her path to acknowledging that the book isn’t too far off in its depiction of her? In any case, things were just the same in their household the next day. Her mother forgot. And I bet Catherine wished that she could forget too.
Jonathan comes back to life
Now that I’ve seen what Stephen’s up to with his idea to create a fake social media account of a teenager, I don’t know why I didn’t see it coming. Facebook’s a no-go because only old people are on it, so Stephen resurrects Jonathan with an Instagram account. Stephen’s first-person monologues as he perfects his trap for Nicholas are interesting, to say the least. But what it’s mostly telling of is how Stephen’s convinced himself that he’s a good, respectable man even though he’s currently in the business of ruining lives. All’s fair in grief, I guess. And it’s not even like Stephen has to go out of his way to reel Nicholas in. Nicholas knows that there’s something up with his parents, but as a 25-year-old “boy” who’s thrilled to move back into his parents’ house because he’s now the pawn in his dad’s power play, he’s got all the time in the world in his hands. Judging by the way Nicholas has turned out, I’m sure that therapy was either never on the table or wasn’t followed through with any proper thought. So when Stephen picks young-people phrases up from the list that the guy who helped him create the fake account wrote down, it takes almost no effort to convince Nicholas that he’s talking to a 19-year-old boy. It’s got to be a new sensation altogether for Nicholas, having a young kid who’s seen Europe treat him like a very cool adult. There are lies in the mix, of course. Nicholas is desperate to please Jonathan, so he pretends that he was a total player on the trip to America that he’s actually never been on. And soon enough, Nicholas is triple-texting Jonathan and basically hankering for his attention. And there you have your diagnosis. Considering we have some roundabout idea of what kind of people his parents are, I can go out on a limb and say that Catherine and Robert weren’t there for Jonathan the way they should’ve been. I guess like most parents, they’d hoped that the mean and reclusive teen phase would pass. But it never did. And by the time they even stopped to take a look at what a mess they’d made as parents, Nicholas was perpetually stuck in that self-destructive, rebellious mindset–an easy target for Stephen.
Well, I guess that’s it for Catherine’s career as a journalist
I doubt that Stephen ever thought that his shrewd observational skills and his understanding of people’s body language would make him a really good stalker, but that’s where we are now. Stephen’s left no corner of Catherine’s life uninspected. What he recognised in Jisoo, Catherine’s assistant at the seemingly humble news office, is a desperation to be seen, to make something of herself. Stephen knows enough about this world to know that even though Jisoo seems completely smitten by Catherine’s authoritative air, it’s only because that’s what she wants for herself. So when Stephen walks in, wearing the personality of a sad little old man who’s terrified, Jisoo has no reason to sniff out anything suspicious. Stephen’s brought enough copies of The Perfect Stranger for the entire office. And he can hardly contain his satisfied grin when Jisoo laps up the bait. There’s no loyalty in a business that thrives on unmasking evil hidden underneath the garb of wholesome benevolence. But that’s not the only reason Jisoo readily buys Stephen’s claim that because he wrote that book about Catherine, she’s been harassing him. Remember how Catherine’d asked her to look Stephen up? The pedophile theory was all Jisoo, but Catherine didn’t really correct her either. So now Jisoo is of the idea that Catherine’s used dishonest means to find out Stephen’s cell number and address so she can threaten him into silence. This whole ordeal is like Christmas to people like Simon, people who are clearly jealous of Catherine’s success. And since Catherine’s kept things so hush hush and made the terrible mistake of bringing Jisoo into it all, all of Catherine’s colleagues are ready with their freshly-sharpened pitchforks when she comes into work. Stephen’s successfully stolen the last safe space Catherine could count on. And she’s just made herself look all the more guilty by landing a tight slap on Simon’s face on camera. Not that he didn’t deserve it, but as Jisoo says, Catherine’s about to be “so canceled!” But Catherine simply doesn’t have the mental bandwidth to worry about her phone being blasted with notifications from HR. Considering Nicholas is the last person who doesn’t know her truth yet, and also because he’s the most vulnerable one, all Catherine can think about is how to protect him from all this. So she does what anyone in her position would do. She goes over to Stephen’s place for a face-to-face clear-the-air sort of meeting. But Stephen doesn’t want closure. He’s been stewing in his pain for so long that the conclusions he’s reached are branded into his soul. What he wants is for Catherine to suffer.
What does Robert want from Stephen?
You know what’s interesting about this whole thing? A lot of the pieces in this game hinge on hunches. Stephen could have been so wrong about so many things. Robert could’ve been a whole different person. He could’ve gaslit himself and stood by Catherine. Nicholas could’ve grown up a solid guy his parents were proud of. Catherine could’ve been less private with the people at her work and let her guard down enough to build a more solid foundation of trust with her coworkers. But these aren’t just lucky coincidences for Stephen. He’s a smart guy. So he played his bet on the assumptions he made about Catherine and the way her life would turn out based on the kind of woman they’d thought her to be in the Brigstocke household. So the fact that he knew that such a negligent mother was going to raise a ne’er-do-well who would fall for even the slightest bit of attention and validation wasn’t a coincidence either. It was a simple deduction from the facts he had. And boy does Nicholas play into his hands! He spends the whole day talking girls and some infuriating stuff with an old man pretending to be a 19-year-old. They’ve formed a connection. A connection that includes their shared interest over the only book Nicholas has read in a long time, The Perfect Stranger.
You see, Nicholas doesn’t say much, but he’s obviously weirded out by his parents’ individual enquiries about the Italian vacation when he was five. He doesn’t remember anything from the trip, but the fact that something’s off about his parents and the Italy trip has been coming up way too much lately, that’s enough for him to know that something happened there. So when Stephen slowly loses his Jonathan mask and reveals the whole thing to Nicholas, he believes it right away. What’s not to believe? Stephen had all the brutal evidence of what Nicholas’ mother did a click away. Shock was all Nicholas felt when he saw that the boy he thought he was talking to died decades ago. And then came the pictures that’d traumatize this already messed up guy for a lifetime. Just a minute ago, Nicholas was trashing the woman in the book. And now, his mother was that woman. His mother was the woman who didn’t love him enough to prioritize him over an Italian affair with a teenager. She was the woman who let him drift away in Italy and, depressingly enough, in life. What could Nicholas do with it all except drown in the feeling that I’m sure he’d been trying to quieten all his life? His mother doesn’t love him. She’s never loved him. That’s all that Nicholas feels. But while Catherine’s never been the best mother, she does love Nicholas more than anything else in the world. So it crushes her to hear Nicholas’ muffled cries on the other end of the phone call. And all she feels is panic because she can’t reach him after he hangs up. Earlier in the episode, we saw how Nicholas was one of those people who played around with drugs and convinced themselves that they had it in control. Even if that was true in Nicholas’ case, his mind’s a horror show now that he knows that his mother didn’t care about him even when he was a toddler. Everything about Nicholas screams insecurity. And considering that in her meeting with Nancy, a frustrated Catherine yelled that she’d wished Jonathan didn’t save her son, I don’t think Nicholas’ mind has been lying to him. Growing up with a narcissistic mother has driven self-loathing very deep into Nicholas. And now that he has proof, I don’t think he’d even try to talk himself out of addiction. Stephen’s winning.
But there’s something weird going on in the ending sequence of Disclaimer episode 5. Robert’s asked Stephen to meet. And judging by what he has to say about his wife, I don’t think Stephen even needed to hide the fact that he’s trying to ruin her life. Robert’s siding with the person who believes that Catherine’s the worst person in the world. And while that may be because Robert shares that belief now, it’s possible that he’s also trying to befriend Stephen to find out what his endgame is. Stephen is obviously not an easy man to manipulate. But there’s a way Robert can stay one step ahead. Stephen underestimates Robert. If Robert can use that to his advantage, maybe he can save the people he genuinely cares about underneath all that hurt and rage he’s feeling now.
