The Prestige TV Podcast - ‘Disclaimer’ Episode 6: Fragments of Reality

Episode Date: November 4, 2024

Jo and Rob wipe their fingerprints away to recap the sixth episode of ‘Disclaimer.’ They open with a few listener emails before discussing a theory on the show’s use of golden hour lighting and why its storytelling mechanics feel both clumsy and outdated (2:18). Later, they talk about a few significant developments regarding Nancy, Stephen’s continued unraveling, and the competing versions of the incident in Italy (22:55). Email us! [e-mail] Hosts: Joanna Robinson and Rob Mahoney Producer: Kai Grady Additional Production Support: Justin Sayles Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's up, everybody. Chris Vernon here and welcome to a new season of the NBA and the mismatch. And huge welcome as well to my new co-host, Dave Jacoby. I can't wait to link with you twice a week every Tuesday and Friday right here on the mismatch to break down everything that's happening in the league. Who's playing well, who we loved, who we loathed, trade rumors, team dysfunction. We've got you covered right here. So follow us, subscribe and hit us with those five-star ratings on Spotify or wherever you get your. podcast. And also don't forget to follow us on social media. That's at Ringer NBA and check out the full mismatch episodes with the two handsomest podcasters in the history of podcasting right on

the Ringer NBA YouTube channel. This episode is brought to by Whole Foods Market. Spring is here, so celebrate it with fresh, juicy, seasonal produce and some very tasty limited time flavors. New Whole Foods, Market Peach, Apricot, Rose, Italian soda. Perfect for a picnic or brunch, as is their trending mango Yuzu chantilly cake. But if you're on the go, new 365 strawberry pretzels make a great sweet snack. That sounds delicious. Get savings with yellow sale signs storewide and everyday low prices on 365 brand items. Enjoy the fresh flavors of spring.

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Visit your local deli today. Discover the craftmanship behind every bite. Boershead committed to craft since 1905. Hello, welcome back to the Breasties TV podcast feed. I'm Joanna Robinson. I am Rob Mahoney. It is a big week for our first. friend, the grief cardigan.

Cardi G. It's here the star of the show of this episode of Disclaimer. I believe Stephen is wearing it in every single frame. Oh, huge week. Under the suit, under the robe, the cardigan is getting as much play as the cat usually does. So I think we did a great job picking our email for disclaimer. I think so. And really, as you pointed out, it's part of a capsule wardrobe.

You can accessorize. You can layer. It's great for all seasons. Yeah. I really appreciate the. work that Stephen is doing with the cardigan. And this is definitively, I think, the Emmy real episode for the cardigan itself.

Yeah, yeah. And it's like, if it's between the cardigan and the cat, I don't know, I have to, like, my heart has to go team cat, but we've got one more episode to really see what the cardigan has to offer. All right, here we are talking about an episode of prestige television,

and we've spoken about a cardigan before we've spoken about, it's starry leads or it's starry showrunner. And that might be an indicator to you, listeners at home that we are struggling here at the end of disclaimer. We've got one more week after this and we will be here with you through the bitter end of disclaimer. But it is like the sleeves of a grief cardigan unraveling a bit before our eyes. I just want to hit a couple sort of email related things or big picture things before we get into the episode. First and foremost,

and this is sort of highlighted by some things we learn in this episode. We've got several emails over a few weeks now about the fact that every episode of disclaimer opens with a warning about sexual, physical, and emotional violence. And I think there are likely warning us about more than Stephen taking a header into like a cabinet inside the hospital this week and stuff like that. So that's something that's looming. We've got one episode to go. Would you say, I mean, how are you feeling about that, Rob? And also did that, did knowing, that, whether or not you noticed it or our listeners sent us a bunch of emails

about this, did that flavor how you received sort of like the Sasha information this week? Jonathan's girlfriend went home early and his girlfriend's mom is pissed. What do you think, Rob? I think it flavors a lot of things about the way you watch

this show, but honestly, only to a degree. We've been talking from the very start about waiting for the perspective turn to Catherine's story to figure out what kind of person Jonathan really does. There's been a lot of hand-tipping to the idea that, you know, maybe he wasn't the best guy in the world. Maybe

he wasn't the kind to, you would expect to jump into the water and save a child, even if that does turn out to be exactly the case. There's something more complicated at play here, and there's certainly something in Catherine's character and demeanor. And even as we spot it earlier

in the season, her pointing at that actually she is the victim in this story, there were a lot of signs pointed in this direction, whether there was a content warning or not, but I have to say, that before every episode, you're just kind of primed and waiting for something really heinous to happen. We haven't seen, I would say, something especially heinous yet. In the SVU sense. Yes, in the SVU sense.

I'm not looking forward to it, but it's coming, and I hope they make it work. I really, really do. I don't have extremely high hopes. No. And then we got several emails this week with this theory that, and this is not exactly a theory of craft show, but this theory that maybe what we're watching in present day is also either part of a book or part of an unreliable narrator. And I think it's worth in this moment then

to sort of like parsing the various narrations that we're working with here. We have been working from the start with Stevens' point of view, I, Stephen, narrated by Kevin Klein, that's one narrator. We've been operating with Indira Varma, narrating largely Catherine stuff, Robert's stuff,

Nikki's stuff, but in the U, not the I. And I think some third person too for Robert, right? Doesn't she refer to Robert as Robert? Yes, I think so. So some second, some third for Vera Farma. And then we get Kate Blanchett, Catherine's eye, to narrate the

sort of new version of the past that we get snippets of in this episode, and I imagine we're going to get more of in the finale. How is all of that? Now with the introduction of the Catherine I, we've been asking sort of all along about these different second versus first person.

And I think I'm inclined to believe that part of it is just sort of what we talked about last week in terms of cutting away when she's talking to her mom, this kind of a trick to keep us out of Catherine's head to a certain degree. But also, you know, this episode ends with. Catherine saying, it's time for my voice to be heard. And the show's very subtle, lightway that it's going through this. You know, so now we are hearing from Catherine finally. So how is all of that working for you? What's your interpretation of what's going on?

What do you think? Yeah, I thought up until this point, honestly, for all our complaints about the show, I thought it had done a pretty decent job of juggling a bunch of different timelines and perspectives and these different narration styles in a way that I thought was really interesting and I hadn't really bumped against at all. I got a lot of whiplash in this episode from, I think in particular, Catherine's first person narration just being thrown in there and the way it was introduced and the way it was clipped in, it just felt kind of jutted into the story without explanation or introduction. And of course, by the end of the episode, yeah, she's sitting

down to tell her story. I'm kind of wondering if, like, why not just wait for that? At this point, Why not just wait for the story at like recommendation of what's happening here? I wonder if there was a version of this where that all of that flashback did start just after she sits down with a cup of drug lace tea to tell it. If there was ever a version of this where it ran just sort of in sequence rather than intercut. It felt that way. It did feel that way. It felt snipped up for sure. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. But this episode does start with Catherine and her POV for the first time saying the truth is. Right? And then we get the first of these snippets of the flashback to her version of what happened in Italy. As we had sort of guessed from the start, this version is shot differently than the version that was showing us sort of Nancy's book version of what happened with Jonathan. I think I don't know for a fact, but I think this is probably Chivo shooting this. It's interesting, though, because going with like through those snippets throughout the episode, and sort of seeing it from her point of view or the different version of it. We're still using like Golden Hour. There's still some of that like Golden Hour setting. But trying to think about the way that Chivo versus Dubanel,

again, this is my assumption that the two of them shot, both shot in this location, how they use that Golden Hour light differently, how it feels a bit harsher under Chivo's lens. What do you think of the two styles? For one, I think the two versions of this show have never felt more. disjointed and disconnected than they do when it's edited together in this way.

You know, when these scenes do feel like they're just completely disconnected from everything we've seen so far, I think somewhat purposefully, they've been holding back Catherine's story to this point. Right. And now we're thrusting it into the mix to reveal what the truth actually is. I thought I was most taken out of it when we get a hard cut from Catherine narrated version of events on the beach in Italy straight into Kate Blanchett in the middle of the frame second person in Dera Varma narration style while she's in the hospital with Nicholas. And it's like something about this whiplash I'm just like not particularly enjoying.

But as far as the Italy stuff itself and this version of events, I do think there's something notable and probably something worth digging into about the golden hour aspects of it. And kind of the slow reveal of a different Catherine than we've known at any point in the story, a version who is younger, but with her own understanding of herself versus just like the lens of some guy's mom who died and she's interpreting it from some raunchy photographs. And this version, even though it is a golden hour,

it's not the sort of lustful golden hour that we saw last time around. It's honestly like more of a love story about her finding herself as a mom and enjoying being a mother for, honestly what maybe sounds like the first time, like she's kind of settling into herself and her routine and like her alone time with Nicholas

and starting to really enjoy it. And so from that perspective, I can get behind the sort of warm and fuzzy feel and repurposing it for that kind of emotion. There's also some moments and I kind of liked this actually with the earlier Robert sequence on the bus, this moment of someone sort of thinking really highly of themselves and then maybe like whenever she was like,

I just remember thinking what a good mom or how patient I am, what a good mom I am. And I'm just sort of like, I kind of like that because I'm like, that's so human. I'm so great. Wait, am I? I, I don't know, intercut with all the rest. Okay, as far as the like, are we watching, are we still watching fiction in the present day, which is, again, an email we got from a lot of different listeners. I don't think so. I can't decide whether I hope so or not. Would it be better? I think it would be better just because I clipped two things in this episode for us to listen to. This one, Kai, can you play the one of Stephen? speaking for all of us, please. I was surprised by how easily the pieces fell into place.

Tell me about it, pal. Same. Heart saves, Stuart. Tell me about it. Big same. I would say the moment for me that I maybe even let out like a small, frustrated scream. The opposite of Stevens, ha! In his living room, and how easy all this has come together.

Is when the hospital staff takes the word of an absolute stranger over the mother of of the kid in the bed and pushes her out of the room in order to tend to him. And the explanation later is sort of like this doctor or whatever has a pushy husband and she recognizes his tracing Catherine. And I get, you know, like, we got it last week. We get it that the idea is like women aren't believed

or, you know, all these various things. We understand sort of what the show is trying to do. But that one just like really, maybe even more than the entire office turning on her broke my credulity. I could not accept that that was something we were supposed to take

as a real scene happening in front of us. It's preposterous. And honestly, I think at this point in the show, it really does have clearly some ideas on its mind, some pretty complicated human emotions,

as you mentioned, like the kind of self-reflection and, like, overall neurosis of these characters is something that I think can be pretty effective and is worth diving into. But the version

we get is just increasingly broad, and I have to say just like increasingly dumb. It's just turning into a dumber show by the end of it in a way that I don't appreciate. There are a lot of interesting things that I think could be said about these sorts of situations and this character and gender. And I suspect given the content warnings, I'm sure that's going to continue in the finale and there's going to be a whole conversation to be had. But the version of what we get is the office debacle that you mentioned. Sarah from HR calling asking to give you someone to talk to about your anger. Treating Catherine like a hysterical woman and literally telling her she needs to calm down. It's like I see it. We get it. Yeah. Everything in that vein just seems super obvious to me

in a way that like, Joe, am I missing something here? I don't think so. And like, I have to say that like this kind of story, story about like women not being believed or or thought of us hysterical or pushed out by like men and women alike or all these. Like that's an interesting story to me as depicted by, you know, Kate Blanchett, one of our, like, most talented actors, that's a story that's interesting to me. And, and Quaron, like, usually one of our best storytellers, but, like, the way in which it's done here is just not, there's no finesse. It's just very clumsy. And so, like, yeah, it's exactly the kind of story I should be interested in. We got an email from a listener, Nick, who wrote it and said, I wonder if disclaimer might have

felt a lot more exciting or challenging if it had come out, say, five years ago, when these types of characters felt newer on TV and the intersection of wealth and death felt more transgressive, but in a post, quote, eat the rich world, how tragic is this all supposed to feel and how shocked are we supposed to be these people have dark secrets? While the show repeatedly takes turns, I don't expect, I can't say I'm ever particularly surprised by any of its larger ideas. And I think that really, that sums it up. You know, we were talking about this. I was hoping that this would be like sort of a better version of some of the like big little eyes knockoffs that like I would say specifically Nicole Kidman has been you know sort of diminishing returns doing versions of the story again and again

and now at this point I'm like this isn't any better than those I think even though I think Kate is doing there's a shot in this episode when Stephen here's the glass breaking after the bany he goes downstairs looks in the garden there's a dark thing in the garden turns on the light and it's like Kate Blanchet with a knife in the bright light, that's such an arresting visual. I rewound and watched it a couple times. It's so beautiful and like her desperation, but still like a grounded desperation.

And I'm like in a better show. I know. Like this is incredible in a better show. But unfortunately, I wonder if it goes back to, you know, I know you said you want to say some of this finale, so we don't have to like linger on it, but if it goes back to just stretching it out over, this much space.

If Quaron, who's like an expert film storyteller, if the stretched out version, you know, maybe we wouldn't have time to question why all of Stephen's plans are going so well or all this other stuff.

The length is definitely working against it though. I think we can talk about some of that this week. Look, I hope we feel differently next week. I hope some of the gender conversation feels different next week. think right now, this show kind of wants to be like a he said, she said kind of story. And I think where I'm having trouble with that is she hasn't said anything over six hours about what happened until like we get final snippets in this episode and no sense of who

that is being communicated to until the very end. When I guess that's part of her conversation with Stephen, if this is a story where they are, they are pulling out this theme about believing women and women being heard, like the woman at the center of the frame has to speak and tell her truth for us to be able to contextualize any of that. On the one hand, yes, I really agree with you. On the other hand, I don't want a virgin to, and I don't think you are, but I don't want to stray to territory of like, well, if this happened, why didn't you report it? I know, I know that's not what you're saying at all remotely. I just want to make it clear for people at home. That's not what we're saying,

but like, this is the last email I read. We got this email from Jane who said, this is why Catherine never told anyone. Why would anyone believe her, especially after the young man drowned saving her child? The world would always believe the worst and most salacious version of what happened about the woman. It needs a little prompt. It just needs a little prompting. There are certainly other problems with the show, but this underlying theme is unnerving. And like, again, I think you and I agree with that as like a theme worth exploring. I think it being done so clumsily and so broadly, then sort of undercuts the point. Yes.

Because if you're watching this and you're watching G. Su say you're so canceled Catherine or these, the hospital staff, you know, not believing her when they're. there's like a full-blown stranger in the room and all this other stuff like that, then you watch it, you're like, well, that would never happen. And it's true, like, that would never happen. But versions of it happen.

Absolutely. And so if you showed us the subtler, more realistic version of it, then we can engage in that conversation. You know what I mean? And I think that's where you wash out, like the good parts about the ideas that are being explored here

and the really valuable, like, concepts and emotions that are being explored in that broadness. ultimately I'm landing somewhere like this where if you're gonna do a Roshaman style perspective story we need to see both perspectives so that we can judge and evaluate them

or if you want to do this version of the story where you hold back Catherine's version of events until the very end which give or take a couple scenes in this episode seems to be what we're doing here. You need to actually sell us a version of Catherine that is less believable

because it just never seemed plausible for a minute that we should believe the version of Catherine that was in the perfect stranger. Right, right. If there were more for us to grab onto to think, like, actually, what if this woman, like, is a really bad person? Not just a complicated person

who isn't always the best mother and maybe isn't always the best boss and, like, is vain in the way that people are vain, but there might be actually something wrong with her, then I think I would be more amenable to holding back the story for this long because we would be, like, we would be pulled in that direction,

but I just, I've never felt pulled. I think this goes back to Nick's email He gave it a five-year timeline I would hopefully push it back even further But I think there's earlier times in our culture Where You know if you think of something like The Jody Foster film The Accused

Which is about, you know A woman who is sexually assaulted And there are moments throughout the film Where there are things about her Where you're supposed to be like Well, why should I believe this person Who lives X way or whatever? I really think we've moved

beyond that as a culture. And so, no, to your point, I'm not disagreeing with you. I'm just sort of saying... Well, the politics of telling if this is an assault story, as all the disclaimers before the episodes would tell us,

you probably just can't do that version of events where you challenge the woman's credibility all the way leading up to horrible assaults at the end. Like, that wouldn't feel good either. I kind of feel like that's the trick the show thinks it's playing. This is the problem, right?

It's the show the disclaimer seems to think it is, and then the show that it is in reality, and those have turned out to be quite different things. So again, I think it's possible that if we were watching this like in the 80s when the accused came out or whatever, or perhaps early 90s, I think, you know, it's possible we see someone like Catherine

and we say, oh, well, she's kind of like a shitty mom or at least doesn't know how to connect to her kids. Like, maybe she is cruel and callous, but I think we have hopefully learned to understand that women have more nuanced than that. Okay. I want to play another clip for you and it's to discuss

and I don't want to say our guy, Nicky he's not our guy. He's not our guy. I just want to share with our listeners. I won't read it out necessarily but this tremendous one-to-punch of an email we got we got this email from a listener who was like a couple weeks ago who was like,

you're being way too hard on Nicky like Nick these are all the things that like you know have gone wrong on his life and we've only seen him in these like blah blah like be nicer to him and then they watched not this week's but last week's episode and they're like and then it's just like a fault that was just like

what was it like never mind he sucks he does suck just like never mind this guy sucks Nick is unconscious in a bed the entire episode but that doesn't mean we don't have occasion to be unimpressed by him I would just like to play this clip please guy

do you have any idea who we might be with friends I mean I don't know if he has any friends do you you mentioned you mentioned a girlfriend but I haven't met her I don't know the name

I'm not that sure she even exists Oh tough extremely tough what is the London version of the girlfriend in Canada that's what we need to get to the bottom of like where are they geographically

the fake girlfriend the Isle of Man Abiza I don't know With all due respect to this exchange we do know the answer to this mystery, he does not have any friends. Well, I will say he does at least go to a

drug den where they tell him to wash up and they do drop him at A&E, you know what I mean? The people at your drug den are not your friends. They're not your friends, but I'm just saying some drug done people wouldn't even dropped him at the

hospital. It's true, it's true. They're the real heroes of this story when you think about it. It's them or the cat. So, you know, that's all I have to say about that. During this phase of the episode, I think, is when it really hit for me that Robert at this stage, six hours in, just could not be more insufferable if he tried. And this is one of the areas where if this were a movie,

I don't think I would feel it as acutely. And if this were a movie, maybe there's even parts of Robert's character that are a little bit relatable, or that you can lock into in a certain way. But when you just see him being an idiot over and over and being rude and cruel over, it just doesn't work.

Like that character just doesn't work at this stage. He's just yam. I'm just like, shut the fuck up. I'm having really tough. It's tough. And if you thought being shown repeatedly that he's wrong would result in some kind of comeuppance for him in this episode, you'd be wrong.

He's just going to keep being a little shit all the way to the end. Yeah, we'll see what happens to him in the finale. Okay, Nancy. We get a bit more Nancy information. I think, so along with information we get about Nancy, chiefly sort of through these conversations. she's having with Emma, Sasha's mom, her sort of temperamental nature, perhaps.

I'm judging her less post-Johnathan death, obviously, and more this pre-death conversation when she won't hear this girl's mom about sort of whatever it is that Jonathan did to send Sasha home. We also get several more mentioned in this episode by Stephen himself about sort of like the liberties that Nancy took,

but that the way in which her fictionalized version of events reveals deeper truth, like this is something he fundamentally believes is true of Perfect Stranger. That is, however, fictionalized it may be that there is a deeper core fundamental truth here that his son is good and a hero,

and that his death is a result of this cruel, callous, horrible woman doing something. Yeah. I this was news to me that Stephen had this perspective. I just been kind of operating to this point with the assumption that Stephen thought everything in the book was true. Maybe that's not giving a character that, as we saw earlier, is basically like at least an English teacher, enough credit for parsing the text.

Yeah. But to have that perspective and then be just like unleashing all hell on this family, feels a little fast and loose with a version of the facts that your wife dreamed up while she was hold up in a room and not speaking to anybody. She's not psychic, my guy. And the degree to which I can have empathy, I will say.

Completely. You know, Nancy's unraveling, Stephen's unraveling in the loss of both Jonathan and then Nancy. We meet him, smearing lipstick on his hand and, like, kissing it. We see him in this episode, put Jonathan's deodorant on,

and obviously Cardi G is here with us throughout, and he's just, like, the three of us together, will, you know, avenge, you know, ourselves against this family. And so it becomes this desperate attempt for him. You know, similarly, it's played for humor. But the moment where he has to delete his, like, catfished Instagram account of Jonathan, there is real loss playing on Stephen's face as he does it.

So it's like this is how he feels like he can still be. be close to Nancy. And I think it was an email we got. I can't remember who sent it right now, though, unfortunately. But this idea that, like, this was never Nancy's intention. Nancy didn't publish this. Nancy didn't write it necessarily to punish Catherine. We saw them have an interaction in a cafe.

So, like, we know that Nancy maybe wasn't the hugest fan of Catherine. But this invented this creepy little fan fiction that she wrote about her son, that both Stephen and Catherine are remarking about how detailed it is, was her own personal therapeutic working through, you know, a story that she is invented here. She didn't leave it with the instructions. Now, please self-publish it and get it placed in bookstores and take a syringe full of Drano to the hospital to visit her child. You know what I mean? Yeah.

This wasn't Nancy's, Nancy, for all of her issues. this is not her idea this is Stephen's idea yeah there's a lot of this is what Nancy would have wanted used for reality and for like propping up as an emotional crutch in this episode we don't know what Nancy would have wanted

because she put that book in a drawer and didn't show it to anybody and correct me if I'm wrong but I feel like there was a scene in the first episode where Stephen is adding the disclaimer in the book about how there's not a coincidence that these characters may resemble real people right yeah yes yes so

So that feels like a very pointed gesture in releasing the book on Stevens part, that that's not part of the core text, right? Like, that's not what Nancy was trying to do to expose some great ill, it seems like. She was working through a lot and working through it in some admittedly pretty strange ways, but do what you got to do. But private ways that aren't hurting anyone. Yes. In the privacy of your own son's bedroom and your own home, do what you got to do.

But clearly, Stephen's version of grief is much more vindictive than that. Snoring, gasping during sleep, feeling fatigue, ask your doctor about Zepbound, terseptite. The first and only FDA-approved prescription medicine for moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, OSA, and adults with obesity. Zepbound is a prescription medicine used with a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity to help adults with moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, OSA, and obesity to improve their OSA. Zepbound is approved as a 2.5, 5, 7.5, 10, 12.5, or 15 milligram injection. Zepound contains terseptitide and should not be used with other terseptide

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Call 1-800-545-99 or visit Zepbound.lily.com. Focus features in Blumhouse present. Obsession. When I have a crush on a guy, no one knows. Be careful. I wish Nikki love me more than anyone in the entire world. Who you wish for. Obsession is 96% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.

I love you so, so, so, so much. It's blood-soaked nightmare fuel. Brokawkshers' budget put on her. You have been warned. Obsession, rated R. Under 17, I'm made it without parent. Only in theaters May 15th. with special engagements in Dolby. It's time to refresh your yard

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Shop spring backyard days for seven days at the Home Depot. Now through May 6th. Exclusion supplies to home depot.com slash price match for details. Here's a moment in the episode where I really admired Catherine's restraint and patience, and it's when G.S.u texted her and said,

sorry about Nicolins. Hot off the heels of saying, you are so canceled, Catherine. And if it were me, I would say, fuck you. I'm already getting a call from HR. I don't care.

Also, HR is like, no one can, no one can escape sort of the rules. No one's above the rules, Catherine. So we have to investigate what this stranger has alleged. And like, I suppose what Stephen is alleged is... The harassment, I guess. Arasement? Okay. Like, I was trying to figure out, too, like, what is... Like, Sagittory rape and, like...

Is he underage? Is he not? I don't know. Or, like, a degree of murder by neglecting to... Is that murder? I don't know. Is that a crime in it? I said, I said, I had a degree of murder. I don't know what degree it is.

What is Catherine's crime? The harassment, okay, I guess. That was the closest I could come to figuring it out. I too bumped on that. Why is HR involved in this? Don't know. Okay, like the workplace part, confrontation between colleagues,

people are pushing, slapping, grabbing each other. Yeah, that's an HR situation. What's in the book? I can't see why it would be. Especially, oh, look, this is what gets me the most about this show. Like, I acknowledge that, Joe,

working in journalism, I don't know if this happens to you, but like anytime I read a feature story that recounts a conversation between two people in a room, my brain immediately goes, how did you, like, how do you know? How do you know? Where is this from? It's got to be one of the people in the room or one of the people in the room told enough people that you can successfully corroborate and recreate it. And that's very dicey business. I would not recommend it. And then you only have their version of what happened in the room. Ideally, you need both people's version of what happened in the room. How an office full of documentarians would pick up this book, a book that puts thoughts in the Catherine character's head that is relying on the perspective of someone who died that day. Yeah. And trying to reverse engineer all this stuff. When it's pretty clear it's a book that's pointed at Catherine,

front and center, like, look at what this horrible bitch did. It's just, like, it's way too credulous. So to go back to that documentarian question, we've talked about the other version of the Jonathan in Italy story that we've seen that starts with the sort of vignetting quality of sort of the camera in and out iris effect in katherine's version we hear the sound of a film reel playing very loudly in the background as she's telling this story like a sort of home video almost uh in the don draper days um a version of of this holiday why

Yeah, why? On the one hand, it's almost like a very West Andersonian sort of effect, but like on the one hand, that sound to me Dino's almost like artifice, right?

So is there a version of the story where we're meant to not believe Catherine's version of what happened either, which I don't love inside of a story that's like believe women, but like... Again, if you're going to do that, it takes more track to

get there than they've done. Yeah. But like, or are we meant to be thinking it as like she's a documentarian. This is the documentarians version, which would also sort of give us that film reel audio. But I was trying to understand that choice inside of this episode. I can't say I get it so far other than to the idea of artifice and whether we're supposed to trust this version of events. Like, clearly this is going to be a perspective-based story. This is everything from Catherine's perspective. What she knows, what she doesn't know is all going to be a factor in that. And she, and she, even kind of alludes to it in some of her narration of like,

did I flirt with him? Did I smile at him? Like, did I say something that would have given in the wrong sign? Like, you know, she's pulling from memory too. Yeah. So why we're, I get on one hand, why we're doing a different sort of visual device to separate the perfect stranger version of Italy from Catherine's remembrance of Italy. I think you probably have to do that on some level, just to like draw a really clear line that we are not showing that version of events

anymore. I just don't get why you go to the film real effect necessarily. I'm kind of missing what they're going for there. The thing that I did appreciate about her version that we were watching in this episode is that Jonathan is silent, is a background character. She is never trying to be inside of his head, presume his motivations. And that's just a massive difference from Nancy's exercise, which is, you know, assigning not only blame, but sort of, you know, interiority of Catherine's character, whereas she's like, here's this guy,

he was staring at me on the beach, he was taking photos of me, he was sort of leering at me in the bar, or smiling at me in the bar. And like, yeah, did I, did I sort of like bloom a bit under the intention of this, like, handsome young stranger, perhaps?

But then also for us to see, I will say, like, even as we were watching this season and I was like, surely Catherine's version is coming, in which we see something very different, but how do we square it with the photographs? Like, how do we explain the photographs?

To see her trying to get sand out of her, like, bikini being, like, then this salacious photograph that he took on the beach of her, of her, like, exposing her nipple, like, to him or whatever is perhaps chilling preview of something to come, but that's just sort of like, okay, there can be just, like, very prosaic. explanations for some of this stuff, but I'm really scared to know how we explain the bedroom stuff. So we'll have to see. To the idea of do we believe this version that Catherine is telling, again, I really, I would

really like to not be asked to question this woman's depiction of what happened her. And the fact that Jonathan is just sort of like almost a prop in this makes me more inclined to believe her, because she's not trying to ascribe any, any. motivation to him or anything like that, you know? Well, and it is a little bit more in line with what we know to be true of Jonathan. The little bits and pieces of information we get about Jonathan as a person is maybe not the naive schoolboy who needed to be shown the ways by Sex Yoda that was portrayed in the perfect stranger.

Sex Yoda. I had the thought. Like, I bet Jonathan was really big into the prequels. I bet he was a prequels guy. He's like, you know who had a point? Palpatine. Great points, you know? Great points were made.

But even the stuff with Sasha that's kind of talked around in this episode, and I think that stuff is done to pretty good effect, right? The idea that we don't actually know what happened between Jonathan and Sasha. We know that Sasha's mom was angry enough to yell at Nancy on the phone and that whatever she's saying is so distressing to Nancy that she can't even hear it. She literally is taking the phone away from her head. She, like, can't process what is being told to her. all of which suggests,

you can fill in the blanks for yourself, I think especially the follow-up conversation between them in which she's telling Sasha's mom that Jonathan has died and is saying, like, I have some very distressing news. No, no, the distressing news that I have is that Jonathan has died.

It's like, clearly something really bad went down between them in the fight that Jonathan and Sasha had. And to have that version of this character, a version that by Stephen's own admission, he can't even imagine doing anything for anybody else, kind of in the background, stalking, watching, taking photos,

making Catherine feel uncomfortable and embarrassed, and yes, also, like, feeling his attention in an intense way that has some positive interaction. Right. But I agree with you, like, using him as this background presence, I think is very smart. And it does create a pretty chilling effect on this version of the story.

To the Sasha point, I think it's, like, interesting and important that Stephen never hears exactly what her mom, Emma, has to say about what happened. And Nancy purposely downplays it, right? She says, like, She didn't say anything, basically. Right.

You know, and on the phone, she's like, let's not aggrandize, like, all this is. That's very extreme. I mean, I can't interpret it in my head any other way than, like, he sexually assaulted his girlfriend. That, like, okay, this is a story that I've invented. Sasha is, like, traveling around Europe with him. They're, like, young, they're hot. They're in love. But, like, she is not ready to have sex or doesn't have sex right then or, like, whatever.

And he takes it too far and she goes home. And her mom's, like, he raped my daughter. Like that's, again, that's led by the disclaimer we have at the beginning of all of these episodes. And if that's the case, how fucking disturbing is it that Nancy would open Perfect Stranger with the two of them like frolicing happily on a train? You know what I mean? Like that's the very first like image we get is this like happy consensual like two puppies and love sort of train sex scene. And that's very disturbing. And again, if that's just like how Nancy felt like she could process, I'm inclined to be empathetic to processing like this horrific thing of your child's death, it's however you, however you must.

But also her disinclination to believe anything bad about her son even before this happens is a sad truth about a lot of parents of young men who do terrible things or any young child probably who does. terrible things. Fun times. Lumber. Lumber. Love everything about this show at this stage and the season. Yeah, I think the part of that that sticks out to me about Nancy is like if that was part of her processing, like part of processing is acceptance of what happened and accepting maybe

the bad things that people told you about Jonathan. And again, I get what's happening. As you say, this is a very true thing that people will do to like refuse to believe things about people in their lives, especially their children, just feels like such a ham-fisted way to stumble into the key themes of the show at this point. Get it? Nancy doesn't believe things said about her own son, but she's so willing to write all these things about Catherine.

Isn't that funny? All right. So, disclaimer, is a show that is almost over and that we watched. We have a few plans in the upcoming weeks for shows that we have our eye on. I would say the next show we feel like we are for sure covering. I'm always, like, hesitant to just say it, but I'm just going to say it. Say nothing, which is an FX show that is dropping. as like a binge drop, which we wish it weren't, but it is.

I've watched some. Chris Ryan has watched some. We're both big fans of it. Most importantly, I've spoken to people who have finished it, and they're huge fans of it. We need to pick a show that ends on a high note. I've heard that say nothing, which is based on a very popular book, which is dropping. Number 14th as a binge, we'll be covering it in two parts, I think, is our current plan

to sort of break up the season and half covered in two parts. It's an FX show. You'll probably, you can stream it on Hulu as well. And that is the plan. Anything else you want to say, Rob, about the state of television disclaimer? What's going on in basketball? I don't know. Actually, I have two bits of closing business for you on this episode of Disclaimer, Joe.

One, we missed a crucial update, which is that I regret to inform you and everyone watching the show that Counterbug has passed away. You're right. Do you have any favorite memories of our guy The Counterbug and these standout scenes that are going to stick with you forever? I think there was like a sort of, I'll call it like a flickering or like a wrestling. The last gasps of Counterbug. And you didn't even know you were watching the end until it was too late. It was so strong, really, fighting all the way to the end.

I support Counterbuck. Honestly, the most riveting thing that happened on a counter in Stevens home, because I got to say, Catherine not seeing Stephen's sweeping a bunch of drugs into her tea. I'm sorry. The least subtle drugging of a tea of a glass of Builders tea I've ever seen in my life. And like at the very least she put like a heaping spoonful of sugar in there to like maybe explain why she wouldn't notice the graininess of the sleeping pills that he is mashed in there.

A whole fucking blister pack in there. Like he's just like, he's popping the pills. He's crushing him. He's sweep. If anyone's, big arms. Big arms of the sweeping, you know. I don't care what it is. don't sweep anything off your counter into my tea.

I want to go back to Counterbug for a second. Sorry, I moved us on too quickly. Do you think any of our listeners would be capable of knitting a grief cardigan so small that Counterbug's mom and dad could have their own little grief cardigans to really process what happened to Counterbug over the course of the story? I like to believe one in our listeners and their capacity for crafts. I suspect this is a crafty bunch, to be honest with you. I think they can do it.

I think we could get a tiny little... Micro crochet. That's a booming market on Etsy right now. I love it. Okay. All right. So get your tiny crochet needles out for Counterbugs parents. Yep.

Stephen and Nancy of the counter. And don't drink anything that someone has swept... No. Something into, I would say. Sweeping into a drink is bad. It's a no. One last follow-up, because we talked extensively earlier this season. season about the football allegiances of our core characters.

Chelsea, yeah. Chelsea has played a role in the show so far. Nicholas and Robert, we assume, are both Chelsea fans based on their dialogue. Louis Partridge, who plays Jonathan. Yes. Did appear at a football match over the weekend with Olivia Rodrigo, a Chelsea Manchester United match in which it appears they were there in a man-you capacity. So, really, for plot purposes, we are completing the circle here.

You know, like we're really seeing a family versus this is the thing. Really a tale is old as time. Two households both alike in dignity. Divided over football clubs. All right. Also, I would like to hear from many Chelsea fans how they feel about their association with Robert Nicky in this story.

It just gets worse by the day. Feeling good about it? I don't know. All right. So please email us your thoughts at tiny grief cardigan at gmail. com. Actually, it's just griefcardigan in gmail.com. Thank you to Rob Mahoney.

Thank you to Kai Grady. Stick with us for the end of disclaimer. I just think we've gone this far. We just need to finish this off together. Because, yeah, I mean, we end on a like, dun, duh, duh, is she going to pass out from her tea before she's told her story? God, if that happens, I'm going to be so mad.

I'm going to be so mad. She just gets very sleepy. She can't finish her story. Will the syringe of Drano be employed? I mean, check off syringe. Yeah, I'm excited to find out. And then, yeah, and then sort of get ready for say nothing, which I think is going to be really, by all accounts,

an excellent trip to the prestige TV store. We will see you next week. Bye. This episode is brought to you by Netflix's remarkably bright creatures. What if a Pacific octopus held the key to a mystery that could heal your heart? Well, that's Tova's reality. An elderly widow working at an aquarium. Tova forms an unlikely friendship with their cramudgeonly, Marcellus,

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