Creator Alfonso Cuarón breaks down the finale

Warning: This article contains spoilers for ‘Disclaimer’.

The Apple TV “Disclaimer” is a lesson in storytelling.

The seven-part series tells the story of Jonathan (Louis Partridge), a 19-year-old boy who dies on holiday in Italy after being taken in with Catherine (Cate Blanchett), a married older woman.

Jonathan’s widowed father, Stephen (Kevin Kline), seeks revenge on Catherine for the role she played in his son’s death. It is only at the end of his mission that Stephen realizes that he may have been given the wrong impression about his son.

In an interview with TODAY.com, “Disclaimer” creator and director Alfonso Cuarón talked about the ending of the series and said it is important to pay attention to all clues.

“This is something I worked closely with Cate on,” says Cuarón. “We always say that you should see this show twice, because the second time you see a completely different story.”

“You will see a story of a woman trying to speak and she is always interrupted, even in many ways by the audience with their judgments. So it was very important to never give false clues because in the end you see how it all comes together and makes sense. Catherine tells everything with her behavior,” he adds.

Read on to see how “Disclaimer” ends.

Is the story of Jonathan’s death true?

Not quite.

Early in “Disclaimer,” the audience learns about Jonathan’s death in “The Perfect Stranger,” the book his mother, Nancy, wrote about his life, but it doesn’t tell the real story.

In the book, Nancy says that Jonathan had an affair with Catherine, an older woman, after she seduced him during her family vacation to Italy. Their rigorous night of lovemaking is preserved by explicit photos Jonathan took of Catherine that night. The next day, Jonathan dies while saving Catherine’s 5-year-old son, Nicholas, from drowning.

According to the book, Jonathan wants to follow Catherine to London and be with her romantically. His girlfriend had gone home early due to an emergency and he is enraptured with Catherine. Catherine, meanwhile, is less enthusiastic – and in the drowning she sees an opportunity to solve her problem.

Although Catherine sees Jonathan struggling in the waves, she decides not to tell any of the bystanders who came to the beach to save Nicholas. By the time anyone sees Jonathan in the water, it’s already too late. He is pronounced dead at the scene. Nicholas is safely returned to shore by two nearby spectators.

Once Nancy learns about Jonathan’s death, she becomes obsessed with learning how her son really died. Nancy gives up everything that used to bring her joy and spends her time hiding in her dead son’s bedroom, where she eventually writes “The Perfect Stranger.”

Did Nancy know about Jonathan’s violent nature?

Since Nancy died long before the events unfolded in “Disclaimer,” it’s difficult to know exactly how much she knew about her son.

However, it is clear that Nancy chose to believe only certain parts of Jonathan’s life. As a mother, she doted on her son and seemed puzzled when she learned why Jonathan’s girlfriend, Sasha, left him alone on holiday in Italy and returned to London just days before he died.

In “Disclaimer”, Nancy receives a call from Sasha’s mother, Emma, ​​after her daughter returns home already aggravated. During the phone call, she is told that Sasha and Jonathan had some sort of argument.

When Emma gives Nancy more details, Nancy seems to lose her patience and says, “Well, I guess it’s up to them to work out their differences.” Let’s not glorify things here, Emma. We don’t know what happened there.”

Nancy even goes so far as to say that Sasha is “exaggerating” about her and Jonathan’s breakup and that what she told her mother is “nonsense” that sounds “very extreme.”

While the show doesn’t share what Emma said on the phone, it’s clear that Nancy knew her son could be dangerous to some degree and chose to ignore the signs.

When Stephen asks Nancy about the call, Nancy simply tells him that Emma said their children had a fight and that’s why they’re no longer together. Without questioning it, Stephen believes Nancy and then calls Sasha “a mess,” which Cuarón says further demonstrates the show’s message of being “wary of story and form.”

Cuarón explains that Stephen is a “very weak person” who has been “undermined” by Nancy and Jonathan and that is why he has been “in denial” for so long.

“He’s just afraid to face something, and he just takes Nancy’s point of view as his own. So he denied,” Cuarón explains. “It’s true that we don’t want to think such things about our children, but when it comes to Stephen, he is completely subservient to his wife’s version of reality.”

As for whether or not Nancy was aware of Jonathan’s violent nature? Cuarón says: “I would be almost certain of that.”

“In many ways, Nancy’s impulse to write ‘The Perfect Stranger’ was a way for her to protect her son and change her son’s story,” he explained. “Thanks to the book, she was able to turn her son into a naive, heroic, romantic figure, who is very different from reality.”

Does Nicholas die?

Early in “Disclaimer,” Stephen makes it clear that he published his wife’s book, “The Perfect Stranger,” simply to torture Catherine. He wants her closest friends and family members to know what role she played in Jonathan’s death.

Stephen devises an elaborate catfish plan to tell Nicholas his role in the story. Distraught by his mother’s representation in the novel, Nicholas overdoses and ends up unconscious in the hospital.

Once at the hospital, Stephen tries to kill Nicholas by injecting him with an unknown substance. However, Catherine stops him just in time.

He tries again once he spikes Catherine’s tea, causing her to fall into a deep sleep. At the hospital, Stephen attempts to give Nicholas the lethal injection, but stops once he sympathizes with a confused Nicholas, who calls out for his mother.

What does Stephen see in the photo?

After the truth about Jonathan comes to light, Stephen decides to burn all the explicit photos his son took of Catherine the night he raped her.

As he puts the photos in the fire, Stephen notices a small but important detail he has missed: Nicholas was in the room when Catherine was attacked.

One photo shows a young Nicholas looking at his mother from the reflection in the mirror. It is at that moment that Stephen realizes that his journey towards retribution has hurt more people than he realized.

“Revenge and retaliation will end the same way, because it is exactly the same as the saying: ‘He who seeks revenge must dig two graves,’” says Cuarón.

At the end of the show, Catherine tells Nicholas what happened to her in Italy. Nicholas begins to cry and says he doesn’t remember the trip or that she was raped. As he repents, he hugs his mother and they both take the opportunity to get to know each other better on a blank slate.

“Very often we do not remember the traumatic episodes we witness. But just because we don’t remember them doesn’t mean they aren’t stored in us and come out in other behaviors. This is evident from Nicholas and his addictive behavior,” says Cuarón.

“Disclaimer” ends with Catherine rebuilding her bond with her son. After years of putting her career first, she decides to focus on Nicholas and repair their once strained relationship.

This article was originally published on TODAY.com