My Page to Screen post looks at Disclaimer: Book vs Apple TV series. More about the cast, the episodes. Plus a full plot summary of the 2015 book Disclaimer by Renée Knight AND an analysis of the book vs the 2024 Apple TV show. Let’s discuss!
Disclaimer: Book Vs Apple TV Series
Here’s a quick rundown on Disclaimer, the 2024 Apple TV series
- Episode list and release date
- Cast of Disclaimer on Apple TV
- Summary of the 2015 book Disclaimer by Renée Knight including spoilers for the ending
- Coming soon: analysis of the book Disclaimer vs the 2024 Apple TV movie
Disclaimer Episode List
- Episode 1: To my son, Jonathan (October 11, 2024)
- Episode 2: Do you ever think of me (October 11, 2024)
- Episode 3: Destiny doesn’t ask permission (October 18, 2024)
- Episode 4: I wanted him to die (October 18, 2024)
- Episode 5: (November 1)
- Episode 6: (November 8)
- Episode 7: (November 15)
Cast of Disclaimer on Apple TV
- Catherine Ravenscroft (journalist and documentarian): Cate Blanchett
- Stephen Brigstock (retired school teacher): Kevin Kline
- Robert Ravenscroft (Catherine’s husband): Sacha Baron Cohen
- Nicholas Ravenscroft (Catherine and Robert’s son): Kodi Smit-McPhee
- Jonathan Brigstock (Stephen and Nancy’s son): Louis Partridge
- Nancy Brigstock: Lesley Manville
Plot Summary of the 2015 book Disclaimer by Renée Knight
How is the Apple TV version of Disclaimer different from the book?
The book version of Disclaimer has a timeline that shifts between London in 2011 and 2013 and is strongly influenced by events that happened in Spain in 1998.
- In 2013, documentary filmmaker Catherine Ravenscroft reads a book called The Perfect Stranger and becomes physically ill. Despite the usual disclaimer on the opening pages saying that “any resemblance to persons living or dead is strictly coincidental,” Catherine knows the truth: this book was based on events that she experienced in the late 1990s.
- Two years earlier in 2011, teacher Stephen Brigstocke has just been fired after a parent complaint. After the death of his wife, Nancy, he’s been struggling.
- In 2013, a shocked and confused Catherine tries to google the book’s author, E.J. Preston, but finds nothing.
- In 2011, a now unemployed Stephen decides to finally get rid of some of Nancy’s things. She was an aspiring writer and left some unpublished manuscripts. He’s shocked to find some lingerie photos in an old handbag of Nancy’s and proceeds to go through everything in the house.
- Catherine reflects that she’s tired of lying. She remembers that The Perfect Stranger was sent to their old address and forwarded to her. Nicholas, Catherine’s twenty-five year old son, stops by. When he sees the book, he mentions that he’s read it too. She asks him how it ends, and he says “she dies.” After he leaves, Catherine locks herself in the bathroom and reads a depiction of the character based on her being pushed in front of a London train. Robert finds her and she tells him that someone is trying to punish her.
- In 2013, Stephen self-publishes one of Nancy’s manuscripts. This is the book he sent to Catherine.
- Catherine recalls meeting Nancy back in 1998. She didn’t want to, but felt obliged and then sorry that couldn’t give Nancy what she was looking for. Catherine finds a home address on the letter Nancy wrote to her back then. Catherine goes there, but a neighbor tells her Nancy died of cancer. Catherine also learns that this is her son Jonathan’s flat and that Nancy had been living there before she died.
- Catherine asks an employee to look into Stephen Brigstock and learns that he took an unhealthy interest in one this students. She writes an online review of The Perfect Stranger, calling herself Charlotte.
- Stephen goes to an office building and drops off an envelope.
- Catherine’s husband Robert is shocked to receive an envelope of photos with pictures of a younger Catherine in a bathing suit and lingerie, some quite explicit. He realizes the photos were of a trip Catherine took to Spain when Nicholas was five.
- Robert confronts Catherine, who admits she slept with the man who took the photos. He asks her who she thinks wrote the book, and she says her lover’s father. And that her lover is dead.
- Back in 1998, Stephen and Nancy get the news that their son Jonathan drowned in Spain. They go their to identify and claim his body. They learn that Jonathan died saving a young boy.
- Robert kicks Catherine out and she goes to stay her mother’s house.
- We learn that Stephen changed the ending of Nancy’s book. He’s also annoyed that Robert is reaching out to him. He does a reading of his book at a bookstore and makes a Facebook page for Jonathan. He also sends copies of his book to Catherine’s work, which exposes the fact that she asked an employee to research Stephen.
- Catherine gets put on leave and remembers meeting Jonathan back in Spain in 1998. He was taking photos of her one the beach.
- Stephen catfishes Nicholas as Jonathan.
What Happened to Jonathan?
- Catherine recalls the drowning. When she fell asleep on the beach, young Nicholas went into the water alone. Jonathan saw this transpire and swam in to save him, but drowned in the process.
- Stephen posts pictures of Catherine and Jonathan on the FB page and adds Jonathan’s death date.
- Nicholas, who is known to experiment with drugs, gets dumped at a hospital after an overdose. Catherine and Robert come to the hospital and she is horrified when Stephen shows up. Convinced that he had something to do with Nicholas’s condition, she gets him kicked out, but Robert says he was the one who invited him.
- Stephen reflects that yes, he might have pulled out one of Nicholas’s medical tubes, given the chance.
Spoilers for the Ending of Disclaimer by Renée Knight
- Catherine goes to speak to Stephen and tells him the entire story of what happened. Jonathan was photographing her on the beach. Then he broke into the hotel room where she and Nicholas were staying and sexually assaulted her, threatening to hurt Nicholas unless she complied. As part of the assault, Jonathan forced her to take the lingerie pictures.
- A horrified Stephen recounts Catherine’s story to Robert. On reflection, Stephen wonders if Jonathan let himself drown. Stephen also acknowledges to himself Jonathan might have been capable of committing sexual assault. He remembers stalking his student, which happened after Jonathan died.
- Catherine recalls that she became pregnant after the assault and had an abortion. In the present, she receives a letter from a lawyer. Stephen has died burning items in the yard and has left his house and Jonathan’s flat to her.
- Robert and Catherine go to Stephen’s house, which is a horrible mess. She has been trying to forgive Robert, but she cannot. She can’t get past the fact that Robert immediately assumed she cheated.
- Looking at the negatives from the photos that Jonathan took all those years ago, she sees Nicholas in an open doorway. He must have seen her assault. Jonathan still claims not to remember anything, but Catherine hopes that being open about what happened will help them rebuild their relationship.
Questions Readers had about the book Disclaimer
Why didn’t Catherine tell Robert about her assault in Disclaimer?
I saw this asked many times on Goodreads. I don’t think it’s right to judge the decisions of SA victims. My guess is that after the assault, she just wanted it all to go away. And years later, she was so shocked that her personal trauma had been made into a book that she just shut down.
Why did Jonathan assault Catherine?
I hope the show does a better job of explaining this. In the book Stephen has SO much hate for Catherine, and then as soon as she tells him Jonathan assaulted her, he’s like “oh yeah, that could have happened.”
Disclaimer Book vs Apple TV Show
I watched Episode One, and liked it.
I liked the narrator! So much of the book is Catherine (and Stephen’s) internal thoughts and feelings that I think the narrator is a nice touch.
Changes I noticed from book to series:
They are spending much more time filling out Jonathan’s trip with his girlfriend. In the book, he went to Spain with Sarah. In the show, he’s in Italy with Sasha. In the book, they had a fight and in the show Sasha has to go back to England after the death of her beloved aunt. I hope they do a better job of setting up Jonathan as a violent criminal.