Is 'The Night Of' capable of a satisfying ending?
HBO's “The Night Of” began as an enthralling, intricately detailed murder mystery anchored by three terrific performances.
Seven weeks later, it's almost a deadpan comedy about a Saul Goodman-wannabe who conquered eczema.
Based upon the British TV series “Criminal Justice,” “The Night Of” concludes its eight-episode run Sunday at 8 p.m. The miniseries began its journey to HBO three years ago when “Sopranos” superstar James Gandolfini was set to star as John Stone, the aforementioned defense attorney who lucks into a high-profile murder case, in a show written by Steven Zaillian (“Schindler's List”) and Richard Price (“Clockers”). John Turturro inherited the role after Gandolfini's death, joining a cast that includes rising star Riz Ahmed (“Jason Bourne”) as accused Muslim student Naz Khan and Michael Kenneth Williams (Omar from “The Wire”) as prison kingpin Freddy Knight.
The first two episodes were riveting, essential television: Naz steals his father's cab to go to a party in Manhattan, but a young woman named Andrea (Sofia Black D'Elia), who jumps in the cab while he's at a stop light, has other ideas. She takes Naz to her home, where the two get drunk, get high and get busy. Naz wakes up hours later in the kitchen, unable to remember most of the night. He discovers Andrea has been stabbed to death, and makes a series of dumb mistakes that land him in jail and make him the obvious (and only) suspect in her murder.
The show's title suggests that all eight episodes will revolve around dissecting Naz's fateful night, and the show is indeed at its best when it sticks to the investigation. Bill Camp, a theater actor best known to TV viewers for a stint on “Boardwalk Empire,” astounds in the role of Dennis Box, a detective on the verge of retirement (of course) who knows how to bend the rules without breaking them, and how to get as much information out of naive Naz as possible. In the opening episodes, Camp is hero, villain, counselor and inquisitor. He is thrilling to watch.
The five episodes that followed have tested the audience's patience to varying degrees, taking the focus off the “night of” and putting it on Stone, a down-on-his-luck ambulance chaser whose troubles with foot eczema are given the same, hyper-detailed attention as Naz's incarceration. Stone gets fired from Naz's case when high-profile litigator Alison Crowe (the always-wonderful Glenne Headley) takes interest and assigns her employee, Chandra (Amara Khan) — a young adult of South Asian descent, like Naz — to defend him. But did Stone's story end there? Nope, he's still around, investigating the victim's stepfather (Paul Sparks) and visiting multiple doctors to find a cure for his feet.
Meanwhile, the show treats Naz's new life in prison as secondary to his not-lawyer's skin disease — which is fine, since everything that happens in there is so predictable. Targeted by his fellow inmates, Naz seeks protection from Freddy, who employs Naz as a drug mule, gives him prison tattoos and gets him addicted to crack. By the end of last week's penultimate episode, when Naz shared a kiss with the otherwise smart, strong Chandra, I wanted to throw something at my television.
If “The Night Of” has a point, it must be that the corrupt American justice system is failing everyone. And that's a fine point to make, but you still have to give the audience someone or something to root for.
• Sean Stangland is a Daily Herald multiplatform editor. You can follow him on Twitter at @SeanStanglandDH.