Critic’s Rating: 4 / 5.0
4
Why is masculinity so damned fragile?
Additionally, it’s incredibly volatile as well, which Disclaimer Season 1 Episode 6 illustrates in the most thrilling hour of the series thus far.
The real pity is that this slow-burn thriller was so glacial it’s almost too late even to care.
But alas, if you made it this far, you were rewarded with some of the thrills the series initially promised as we roll toward a satisfactory ending.
Finally, Catherine is finding her voice.
It’s infuriating that it took her this long to do so, but it seems she has all of her words reserved for the inevitable showdown or, rather, sit-down between her and Stephen.
One indicator that we would finally get Catherine’s story was how the narrative voice shifted during this installment.
The entire series has used the second person when speaking of Catherine.
But as she recalled bits and pieces of her perspective reflecting upon the controversial Italian trip that set this all in motion, we started to hear the first-person narrative.
It’s one of the ways the pretentious storytelling vehicles that the series has utilized paid off instead of, well, being pretentious.
Catherine is finally stepping into her own, only now. She risks losing everything in her life, and she’s so defeatist that she no longer cares.
Whatever facade she was upholding this entire time has long since cracked, shattered into a million pieces with no chance of repair, and we see Catherine stripped bare.
Stephen has done that, and rooting into her past has forced Catherine to face problems head-on.
However, it’s Catherine finally finding her voice, five episodes too damn late, that’s carrying us somewhere juicy and interesting.
From Catherine’s perspective, which frankly feels infinitely more authentic than Disclaimer’s erotica soft porn palooza that took place during that double feature, she was a young mother who craved a family holiday and was bummed when Robert ran off to work.
She spent time with young Nicholas and enjoyed herself more than she had anticipated, but she noticed this random guy, Jonathan, taking an interest in her.
Instead of the public peek show that Nancy envisioned (there aren’t words to describe the 50 shades of Freudian fuckery that whole ordeal is), we got something that felt more akin to the truth: Catherine adjusting her bathing suit and dusting sand off herself.
However, it’s still an unusual play for course-correcting Nancy’s imaginings and fabrications that she pulled out of thin air without sources, with contradictory answers to each questionable segment.
Catherine was a young mom who felt awkward because Robert left her alone with their child, and she didn’t know what to do with the intense attention that this strange young man was directing toward her.
Catherine admitted that she may have smiled here and there and that, in some way, the eyes on her may have made her feel good or flattered her.
It’s such a distinctly human reaction to have — totally harmless, but she still mentions it in this effort to dissect and figure out why whatever happened between her and Jonathan resulted as it did.
Nancy and Stephen’s golden boy, with the penmanship of a serial killer, was a predatorial young man, right?
We can safely conclude that Catherine was all hushed about this ordeal because Jonathan likely did something to her, and that’s why she didn’t seem to care that he died, or she stumbled through words and had no interest in spending time with his parents and so forth.
Assuming Jonathan preyed on her, it would explain why she didn’t tell her husband about what happened, and she’s been fearful of the truth coming out.
The biggest indication that dear, sweet Jonathan was likely a piece of crap was the fact that his girlfriend Sasha was so fed up with him in some capacity that she literally fled the country mid-vacation, returned to London, and her mother Emma reached out to Nancy to tell her about her son.
But alas, mothers and their sons, am I right?
It seems like, in nearly all cultures, far too many mothers will behave as if the son shines out of their sweet baby boy’s ass and that the entire world is against him rather than said man-child taking an ounce of accountability for anything ever.
For reasons that are wholly unknown, irrational, and irritating as hell, Stephen simply never gave a damn about prodding into all parts of the past when he set out on his revenge quest.
Any reasonable person would’ve probably attempted to look into why Sasha’s mother was calling Nancy to discuss things, but Nancy never shared what, why Sasha left Jonathan in Italy, or even why his longtime girlfriend never came to his funeral.
But Stephen isn’t a reasonable person; he’s a cartoon villain masquerading as a grieving father and widow.
The extent of his curiosity was only reserved for the woman his wife projected all of her grief and anger towards, and he took up the cause despite recognizing how his wife’s grief literally made her sick and became some form of psychosis, too.
Does their old house have lead? Inquiring minds want to know.
So, if a girl had to guess, Jonathan probably did something unspeakable to Sasha, like maybe the romp on the train during the Disclaimer Series Premiere was an assault instead.
And then he probably went on the prowl, taking an interest in Catherine, and things progressed from there.
We may finally get Catherine’s side of the story, but that’s assuming she doesn’t collapse or whatever else after Stephen’s poisoning with her tea.
Because it’s perfectly sensible to drink tea that a man who is set on ruining your life and whom you caught literally trying to harm your child gave you.
If the tea scene isn’t a fakeout, it will be the most ludicrous moment of this series yet.
The bits we have heard from Catherine may also explain why Nicholas has grown up to become a sad soul who struggles in life.
In addition to almost drowning on that beach, as we know that portion of the story is true, chances are he saw something in Italy, and his mind has been trying to protect itself or help him process it ever since.
Catherine spoke about how young Nicholas could sleep in bed by himself but needed the door open so he could still see her.
It’s a detail that’s important for a reason, especially when we’re keeping in mind the supposed sexcapades that happened in her hotel room while Nicholas was asleep.
What’s sad is that if Nicholas witnessed something terrible happening to his mother and barely processed it, he did so by pushing her away and making her some villain in his story.
It harkens back to some fragility and how that manifests.
Catherine is getting to tell her side, but it’s not with Robert yet.
Robert is an insufferable twat whom I cannot take anymore.
Whether Catherine had an affair or a young man preyed upon her, it doesn’t even matter; she does not deserve to put up with his petty, small, useless, insecure man.
It’s mindboggling how Robert will listen to anyone but his own wife.
He has yet to give Catherine much chance to speak or attempt to listen at any point in this series.
And he’s such a self-consumed asshole that even with his own son lying in Intensive Care, he’s still finding ways to mull over Catherine supposedly cheating on him with a younger man.
Just throw the whole man away!
I would say Robert needs to take a long walk off a short cliff, but that seems particularly insensitive given the circumstances.
There’s nothing more aggravating than a man with a bruised ego, and unfortunately, nothing more dangerous.
Robert’s total ineptitude and feelings of emasculation have made him the dumbest character in this series and have led him to risk the lives of his loved ones.
Inviting Stephen, a man whom he doesn’t even know, to the hospital under the guise of being Nicholas’ grandfather for some visit is a level of stupidity that doesn’t have proper words.
But then, so is reading a random book that’s written as fiction as cold, hard fact without actually speaking to the person there.
Robert only proves how out of touch he is at every conceivable level. He was of little use when Catherine told him about the phone call and insisted that something was wrong with Nicholas.
He knew nothing about his friends, his girlfriend, Nicholas’s job loss, or anything else.
Any challenge to his supposed masculinity is of his own doing and making, and it’s disgusting how his issues regarding that are so psychologically, emotionally, and verbally damaging to Catherine and Nicholas, too.
And now, we’re left hanging on the edge, awaiting Catherine to speak her mind.
Rather than a comeuppance for Catherine, there’s a genuine desire to see her make all those around her pay.
But it never should have reached this point, and it certainly didn’t need to take this long.
Disclaimer would’ve worked best as a movie.
But if we absolutely needed to have a limited series, this is one in which a binge format is infinitely better than this slow roll.
Disclaimer desperately needed momentum.
Over to you, Disclaimer Fanatics.
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