Warning: The review of the season premiere of Disclaimer will contain spoilers.

It shouldn’t be understated how rare it is to see the massive abundance of talent behind and in front of the camera in AppleTV+’s latest limited series Disclaimer. It’s become too easy to joke how Apple fills its catalog with projects with A-list stars but barely remembers to promote them, but a series which boasts Oscar winners and nominees like Alfonso Cuarón (who writes and directs each episode), Cate Blanchett, Kevin Kline, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Sacha Baron Cohen, cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki, and music from Finneas O’Connell simply demands attention from the start.

Cuarón’s last project was the 2018 semi-autobiographical Oscar winner Roma, which presented something of a departure from his later films, and Disclaimer feels like another step in a bold, new direction. Adapted from Renée Knight’s novel, the limited series contains more of his trademarks – the long takes, the naturalistic cinematography – but finds him working in the slow burn thriller genre, away from sci-fi. From the beginning, Disclaimer shows that it’ll be a series that forces you to pay attention to the details until you’re hooked in solving the mystery.

The two part premiere, simply titled “I” and “II”, introduces us to all the major players through distinct and memorable set pieces. The use of multiple narrators and shifting perspectives – sometimes the narrator speaks in first person, sometimes third, and sometimes second – along with the pinhole dissolves, shows us that Disclaimer is a show dealing in subjective truth, as if we’re a distant observer to a scandal. Blanchett stars as Catherine, a renowned documentarian living a comfortable life with her husband Robert Ravenscroft (Cohen), a hedge fund manager. Theirs isn’t exactly a marriage of convenience, but there’s obviously something off-kilter about it, and it’s evident even before the shoe drops at the end of “II.”

Meanwhile, we have Stephen Brigstocke (Kline), a professor at a tony private school who resents nearly everything about his life, including his recently deceased son Jonathan (played in flashbacks by Louis Partridge). It’s his quest for unspecified revenge which kicks Disclaimer into action, as he seeks to destroy Catherine for what he believes she did to their son. What that was remains to be seen, but hopefully the show won’t delay in meting out the details. Both episodes give enough scintillating details to keep us wanting more, but thrillers have often been crushed under their own weight when keeping plot points under wraps for too long.

The flashback sequences will likely be the key to all of it, where Jonathan is quickly left alone on a holiday until he meets a younger Catherine (played by Leila George), alone with her son Nicholas (played in present-day as a loser retail worker by Smit-McPhee). But all we have to go on so far is their brief meeting in “II” and some raunchy photos of Catherine which Stephen distributes in the hopes of upending their lives. There’s also the detail of the book “The Perfect Stranger”, sent to Catherine and Nicholas, which purportedly details the scandal. But why did Stephen go through the roundabout way of writing it when he has a more air-tight way of exposing everything?

Beyond the layered performances, especially from Blanchett and Cohen – their scene together at the end of “II” is a masterclass in crumbling trust in real time – Cuarón makes the show a beauty to behold. This shouldn’t come as a surprise, as Emmanuel Lubezki is one of our greatest living cinematographers. But the show’s production design boldly announces itself as a kind of character in its own way. From the Ravenscroft’s posh London flat to the ultra post-industrial office where Catherine works, and even Stephen’s drab home, Disclaimer is a show where every detail is a sight to behold. A season premiere’s primary duty in any show is to set up the setting, the characters, and the stakes of the show going forward, and both “I” and “II” work to efficiently set up an interesting storyline to propel the show forward, while still leaving plenty of intrigue to leave us hungry for more.