Disclaimer is about a successful journalist who receives a book in the mail that seems to reveal a surprising number of her own secrets, due to being based on her life. She tries to work out who's trying to reveal her past mistakes while we also learn why this figure began their vendetta in the first place.
The first episode of Disclaimer, titled simply "I" (they all have Roman numerals as titles), sets up the story, however, due to numerous time jumps some people might find it quite confusing. To ensure that you haven't missed any story beats, this Disclaimer episode 1 recap will go through everything that happened, to simplify things. I've largely kept things in the order we see them, but have combined a few elements for brevity.
Of course, spoilers ensue so if you'd like to watch the show first, sign up for Apple TV Plus in order to check it out.
We meet our characters
We begin with a young couple: Jonathan (Louis Partridge) and Sasha (Liv Hill) who are having sex on a sleeper train passing through the countryside. They eventually arrive at their destination: Venice. Their segment clearly takes place earlier than the others.
In the modern day, Catherine (Cate Blanchett) is receiving an award for her journalism. She's there with her husband Robert (Sacha Baron Cohen), and afterwards they go home and have some wine. Before they go to bed Catherine checks her mail, and finds a book called The Perfect Stranger has been mailed to her. It contains a dedication "To my son, Jonathan" as well as a disclaimer saying that it is based on real people.
Also in modern times, a bored schoolteacher Stephen (Kevin Kline) is taken to the headteacher's office to get chastised for his remarks about a schoolboy's essay. He refuses to apologize. Later he's having some items of clothing removed from his house, which belonged to his wife Nancy who died nine years prior.
In Venice, Jonathan and Sasha take a gondola ride, and she wants them to kiss under a certain bridge so that their love will last forever.
Back to Stephen; he finds a secret compartment in the wardrobe that hides a handbag. Inside is a key, some lipstick and a load of pictures. He looks through them and they initially seem like pictures that Jonathan took on his holiday (Jon is his son), but lots of them are also raunchy pictures of Catherine.
In her own timeline, Catherine is reading the book and something from it shocks her, making her vomit.
The manuscript
The Venice trip comes to an end abruptly when Sasha receives a phone call. Her aunt was hit by a lorry and killed, and she has to go home. Jonathan puts her on a train and bids her farewell, and she's upset by the departure.
Stephen goes into Jonathan's room; we learn that he's no longer living, and after he passed Nancy began to lock herself in the room. Stephen uses the key he found to unlock a drawer and finds a manuscript that Nancy was writing in the room every day. It seems to be the story that Catherine received.
Back in her home, Catherine sets fire to the book she was sent. Robert notices and stops her, and Catherine tells him that she thinks she's being punished for mistakes she's made. She tells him she did something bad long ago, and we also learn from this conversation that they have a son called Nick who she's estranged with. Nick was kicked out because he was still living at home as an adult but he holds a grudge against Catherine for it.
Stephen takes the manuscript to a friend, and he pretends that he wrote it. The friend suggests he self-publishes it online, and Stephen agrees, knowing that he's going to destroy someone's life by doing it.
A holiday takes a turn
Some time later Catherine is packing up her home with Nick (Kodi Smit-McPhee) because they're downsizing. She wants Nick to be more independent but he's curt with her. It turns out that Nick also read a copy of the book that Catherine was sent, and he tells her that the character dies at the end.
We return to Venice: Jonathan is trying to make new friends but with no success. He writes a postcard to his mother saying that he's taking lots of pictures, that Sasha went home, and that he's going to head to the seaside.
We catch up with Stephen a couple of months after his last scene: he's received hard copies of his book. His friend is excited to start a publishing business but doesn't realize that Stephen only cares about sending one novel to one person.
The last scene of the episode is with Jonathan on a beach somewhere. He sees a woman standing at the shore, and given that she has a young son called Nicholas, it's clearly Catherine. Jonathan begins to take her picture and she seems to enjoy it.
