‘Disclaimer*’ Episode 6 Finally Delivers the Moment I’ve Waited For
Stephen Brigstocke has to go. At first, I understood the motivations behind his revenge plot. After all, it’s the heart of the latest Apple TV+ thriller, Disclaimer*. Here’s the gist: Years ago, Stephen’s son, Jonathan, went on vacation in Italy and never came home. Through some sleuthing, Stephen’s late wife, Nancy, discovered that he’d met a woman abroad. When they retrieved his body, they learned that Jonathan had drowned while saving her son.
As Nancy grieved, she uncovered the woman’s identity: a journalist named Catherine Ravenscroft (Cate Blanchett). Nancy wrote a novel (The Perfect Stranger) about her and Jonathan’s affair. Fast-forward three decades and now Stephen, a lonely widower, makes it his mission to ruin Catherine’s life.
When he sent the book to Catherine’s house, I thought, Sure, why not? Catherine’s alleged behaviour was awful. What’s the harm in a little payback? But afterward Stephen stalked her, gave copies of The Perfect Stranger to her coworkers, and made a fake Facebook profile to befriend her son, Nicholas. Then he sent the kid lewd photos of his mother. His revenge-porn stint led Nicholas to overdose.
Just when I thought we’d reached the limits of Stephen’s abhorrent behaviour, the man decided to take his scheme one step further. It’s not enough to emotionally ruin Catherine’s life—he wants her son to die, too. In episode 6 of Disclaimer*, we see Stephen’s twisted plan begin to take shape.
Nicholas Is in the Hospital
The episode begins with Nicholas’s drug dealers ditching him at the hospital. A car skirts into the parking lot, he’s tossed out, and they drive away. Thankfully, a nurse is standing outside, and she calls for help. Meanwhile, Catherine—who received a distressing call from Nicholas—rushes home to find her husband, Robert. They’re not on speaking terms, but she wakes him up and starts asking questions. First up: Where’s their son?
Of course, he has no idea. The last time he checked, Nicholas was hanging out with friends. What friends? He doesn’t know. Where? No clue. He’s been too busy belittling Catherine to pay attention to Nick’s not-even-sort-of-secret spiral. Finally, Catherine’s phone rings. It’s the hospital. Nicholas is safe, but he’s in critical condition. He had a stroke.
The Timelines Finally Collide
This episode often flips between the past and the present, juxtaposing Catherine’s narration as she reflects on her Italian vacation and an omniscient narrator who knows everyone’s thoughts. In one scene, the narrator hints at something you might've suspected all along: The Perfect Stranger might not be entirely accurate. Nancy, they say, “played around with some facts.” Later on, a flashback reveals that Jonathan’s girlfriend, Sasha, didn’t leave because her aunt died. She went home after something bad happened between her and Jonathan. We don’t know what, but Stephen does remember Sasha’s mother, Emma, and Nancy having a heated phone call. Nancy calls what Emma is saying “nonsense” and then smashes the phone.
In another key flashback, we finally see how Catherine and Jonathan meet from Catherine’s point of view. One day, Catherine was playing with Nicholas on the beach when she looked up and saw Jonathan tracking her with his camera. “I felt very self-conscious,” Catherine says. “I felt exposed somehow.” Well, that’s probably because he took pictures without her consent. In The Perfect Stranger, Nancy writes that Catherine flashed him, which explains some of the images she found on his camera. Per Catherine’s recollection, she’d gotten sand in her top and pulled her swimsuit to the side to brush it off. She didn’t know anyone was watching.
Robert Is (Still) Clueless
The only character I like less than Stephen is Robert Ravenscroft. The man doesn’t pay attention to anything other than his own feelings. While his son is in the hospital—which happened under his watch, mind you—Robert can’t stop thinking about Catherine’s alleged affair. He won’t even sit with her at the hospital, and when Stephen calls, he agrees to let him visit Nicholas. What is it going to take for this man to use his frontal lobe? As soon as Robert gives the green light, Stephen fills a syringe with what appears to be British Drano and heads over.
Stephen Is Off the Rails
Just when you think Stephen’s behaviour couldn’t get more concerning, he chooses to wear Nancy’s tattered cardigan and Jonathan’s dusty deodorant to the hospital. He feels the three of them can “restore balance” together. What a creep. Unfortunately, Stephen looks harmless. The hospital staff believes he’s Nicholas’s grandfather and leads him straight to his bed. Before he can inject the kid, Catherine runs into him and shoves him away. The staff thinks she’s crazy, hauling her off while tending to Stephen’s wounds. It’s madness.
Catherine Is Ready to Talk
On his way home, Stephen asks a nurse for sleeping pills. He knocks out for the night and wakes up to the sound of rustling. Catherine is downstairs. She broke in and is wielding a knife, though she seems relatively calm. Stephen offers to make tea, which he, of course, spikes with a sedative, and the two sit down for a chat. Catherine smacks him across the face, takes a sip, and begins. “It’s time for my voice to be heard,” she says. Next week, we’ll finally hear what she has to say.
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