“You’re overwhelmed with the sadness of things lost.” This is an episode of Disclaimer washed in bone-deep sadness. It’s largely shot in low light and color, and it feels like it’s raining even if it’s not.
Gone are the sunny climes of Southern Italy; they’re replaced here by grief, anger, and apathy. Speaking of apathy, what do we know about Nicholas Ravenscroft? The only son of Catherine and Robert, he’s stuck in a quarter-life crisis, taking jobs like selling vacuum cleaners at a department store largely just to fund his drug addiction. The most interesting aspects of the fifth chapter of Disclaimer provoke a dangerous question: Did the wrong kid die? How much would Jonathan Brigstocke have accomplished if he had saved himself that day instead of Nicholas? And would Catherine have even cared? The acting and production values on this episode of Disclaimer remain top-tier, but the writing suffers more than it did in the first four episodes for two reasons: 1.
) It centers the show’s least interesting character in the apathetic Nicholas, whose life is torn apart before we really get to know or care about him; and 2.) One can sense a bit of a shallow understanding of both social media and addiction, which are both included here as dramatic devices without writing that says much about either. The most effective way that the former is used is in the sound design.
It’s an episode with a lot of notification dings. It’s also an episode steeped in palpable melan.