'Disclaimer' Premiere Recap And Ending Explained: What Really Happened To Jonathan?

It takes quite some time to get the ball rolling in Apple TV’s Disclaimer, which is based on Renee Knight’s 2015 novel of the same name. That’s kind of unforgivable considering the expectation here is humongous—with someone like Alfonso Cuaron behind the camera (he is, in fact, directing all the seven episodes) and Cate Blanchett being the face of the show. There’s no denying that Cuaron is a master storyteller, which starts to show after a while. By episode two, Disclaimer is unputdownable, and you can’t wait to find out what really happened to Jonathan Brigstocke. That’s what seems like the central mystery at this point, but of course, there are many other questions, and I really hope we don’t end up being “lost” by the end of it (personally, I won’t mind though if that happens). The non-linear narrative of Disclaimer is confusing at times, but it also yields a lot of fun. Let us now look into the first two episodes of Disclaimer and do some speculations.

Spoilers Ahead

What Happens In The Show?

Jonathan and Sasha, who are barely into their twenties, are on a trip to Italy, and they’re having a great time. Unfortunately, the trip is cut short when Sasha has to return to London due to a death in her family. Jonathan stays back (suggesting the relationship might not be that serious; why else wouldn’t he come back with her?), with Sasha leaving him her innerwear to cope up. However, pretty soon he’s on the beach, getting bewitched by this extremely attractive, almost mythical woman – Katherine. She is holidaying with her four-year-old son, Nicholas. Katherine and Jonathan have a very erotic first interaction, which hints at things happening between them pretty soon. He also befriends Nicholas right away, and the reason I’m mentioning this is because I have a strong feeling that this bit of thing is going to play an important part in this story.

That was in the past, though. In present days, Katherine Ravenscroft (Blanchett; the younger version is played by another Australian, Leila George) is a celebrated journalist and documentary maker who’s known for uncovering particularly uncomfortable truths. She’s married to Robert (Sacha Baron Cohen in a bad wig, although that doesn’t ruin anything), who has a cushy job. They live in a very cool, modern house that looks like heaven thanks to how the legendary Emmanuel Lubezki (a Cuaron regular) captures it and the very adorable, British shorthair house cat. Katherine and Robert’s life seems pretty much perfect, except one back spot – their twenty-five-year-old son, Nicholas. Nick has recently moved out, thanks to his mother’s insistence. He hasn’t been able to achieve much in life, which is an implication of Katherine and Robert not being able to be good parents. Katherine doesn’t deny it as well, and while Robert appears very supportive of his wife initially, deep down he does blame her (which we find out later) for Nick.

Disclaimer really kicks off when Katherine receives a copy of this novel called “The Perfect Stranger,” and the plot of it happens to eerily resemble her own life. Of course, the reason she actually gives it a read is the book is dedicated to a ‘Johnathan’ and the writer (who has expectedly used a pseudonym) claims that any similarities with real-life events are actually intentional. Freaking out, Katherine tries to burn the book in the sink, triggering the smoke alarm. Robert handles the situation and assures his wife that the book is not about her and she shouldn’t be worried. It’s evident that he doesn’t exactly know about Katherine and Jonathan. For a moment, we see a deeply anxious Katherine actually considering telling him—but she backs out. 

What’s eating Stephen Brigstocke?

In a plot that seems to be unrelated to anything, old and grumpy private school teacher Stephen Brigstocke (a fantastic Kevin Kline, easily the performer of the show, so far) gets fired for misbehaving with a kid (we’re going to circle back to this after a while). Well, he doesn’t seem to care much about losing the job, and it is soon revealed that Stephen is Johnathan’s father. He’s also responsible for publishing the novel and sending that ominous copy to Katherine. The book is, however, actually written by Stephen’s dead wife, Nancy, who died of cancer a decade ago. Much before that, Jonathan died pretty young, which ruined the couple’s life—especially Nancy’s. She spent the rest of her life grieving about her dead son by pretty much alienating herself in Jonathan’s room and, of course, writing the book. Then she left the manuscript for her husband to find, and eventually set a revenge plan for Katherine in motion.  We can assume that Katherine has probably something to do with Jonathan’s death. And from the look of it, Stephen has made hurting Katherine a purpose of his life. He has his friend Justin to help, who’s ready to leave the job of private school principal (yeah, the same one where Stephen worked) to make the book famous. Justin has no idea about anything though; he thinks his friends have written a fantastically addictive novel, and he can’t wait to rake in the mullah by helping it get published. There’s an important scene where we see Stephen asking Justin whether the lead character of the book (read Katherine) deserved her fate, to which Justin replies affirmatively. This hints that Stephen might be unsure of how much he wants to hurt Katherine. 

However, there’s no doubt that he intends for her to suffer. Why else would he personally go to Robert’s office to drop off a package that has some really explicit photos of Katherine, shot by Johnathan in Italy? Also, Stephen takes pleasure in tormenting Nicholas, who works at the electrical section of a department store. There’s this profoundly hilarious scene – where Stephen goes to the store, pretending to buy a vacuum cleaner from Nicholas, taking him to the counter and deliberately giving a very difficult name (Google Joseph Conrad’s full name; he’s a Polish-British novelist, by the way) to write the cashmeno, only to not buying and leaving Nick high and dry in the end. Stephen sneakily leaves a copy of the book at the store, which Nicholas reads. In an earlier scene, we’ve already seen him telling Katherine that he does believe the lead character of the book deserved to die. Interestingly, Nick tells Katherine that a very pleased customer left him the book at the store, which is clearly a lie considering what really happened. 

How Does Robert React To The Truth? 

Joke is on you if you thought Sacha Baron Cohen was playing the part of just a nice husband. Well, that probably would have been good for Katherine, but Robert turns out to be an insecure loser, in the guise of a supportive partner to his wife. The moment he sees the photos, he recognizes the hotel room in which those were shot. He booked the hotel by himself after all. Unfortunately, he had to take off in the middle of the trip for some work emergency. The couple were already having issues back then; they were quite distant, so Katherine’s infidelity makes sense here. Finding out the truth after all these years is expectedly a hard pill to swallow for Robert, but it can’t be said that he didn’t see it coming. Guy was a little younger and a lot less experienced compared to Katherine when they got together. His insecurity about his wife was always there, and it’s undeniable that Katherine saw Robert as a safe option—with whom she could spend her life. 

A confrontation scene between the couple was always on cards, but before that, we get a dose of a desperate Robert trying to find out the whole thing all by himself. He blows off dinner (which looked stunning by the way) that he and Katherine were supposed to have, doesn’t reply to her texts, and ends up at Nick’s flat. Taking Nick out to dinner might seem like a heartbroken good dad behavior, but soon he starts talking about the trip in Italy, where he had to leave midway. Apparently he feels sorry about it, even though Nick keeps telling his father that he barely remembers anything regarding the trip. It’s not surprising to see Robert pressing his son about ‘this friend of mom’ Nick met in Italy. Sadly for him, the attempt goes in vain, and ultimately he ends up coming back to his house and drops the bomb on Katherine. 

She’s very shocked, of course. Robert is absolutely furious, and the thought of losing her man bothers Katherine. She also can’t deny the existence of the photos though, and Robert’s accusations of him never being enough for her. We learn that Robert’s family did warn him about Katherine, but he didn’t listen. Cuaron masterfully closes off the episode by abruptly cutting off the scene, with Robert storming out of the home and driving off to god-knows-where in his car. We can conclude that Stephen’s mission of hurting Katherine has been successful. And with five more episodes to come, things don’t look bright for her at all. 

What Really Happened To Jonathan?

Alright, this is where we speculate. In the past, Katherine meets Nancy at a restaurant, and their conversation takes a wild turn. Nancy demands to see Nicholas and also says Katherine’s son owes his life to her son, Johnathan. Katherine hurriedly leaves by telling Nancy that she wishes Jonathan hadn’t saved Nicholas. Does this further prove Katherine really didn’t want to be a mother in the first place, like what Robert says during the confrontation? Nancy also lies to Katherine about her husband being dead. This might just be the part of the revenge where Katherine wouldn’t be worried, given that everyone in Johnathan’s family is dead. It does provide Stephen a better opportunity to do his thing without being noticed. 

Katherine does find out about Stephen though, thanks to her work—well, a very competent assistant, if I have to be specific. When the assistant asks if Katherine is looking for any particular kind of story, she replies it’s probably nothing. Interestingly, at the same time the assistant is scribbling the word ‘pedophile’ with a question mark. Sure, there’s not even an inch of evidence to remotely associate Stephen with that, but he does get fired from the school for being inappropriate to a kid. Also, we have been Jonathan writing postcards from Italy to his mother. There’s no doubt that Jonathan and Nancy were extremely close to each other, but we don’t exactly know about the kind of relationship Stephen had with his son. However, this seems way too far-fetched to even label this as any sort of theory, so I’m dropping it for now. 

Let us now come to Nicholas. I do believe that he remembers Jonathan (remember their first meeting?) but chooses to live in denial. Maybe in childhood, he didn’t say anything to keep his parents together. But something did happen, and if we go by Nancy’s claim, then Johnathan saved Nick’s life—that’s something nobody can actually forget. Also, Katherine’s claim of Nick not knowing anything about Johnathan seems like a lie in order to reassure her husband (it clearly doesn’t work). One thing on which we can all agree is that Johnathan is dead for sure, but we still have no idea what part Katherine plays in that. It can’t be good because she was hiding it from the world all these years.

Some Notes ...