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HBO's The Night Of - eight part crime drama, final episode 8/28 [SPOILERS]
So It Goes
We keep moving...Registered User regular
We keep moving...Registered User regular
This is a thread for talking about The Night Of, American crime drama series of eight episodes, adapted from a BBC show Criminal Justice.
Cast and crew: http://www.hbo.com/the-night-of/cast-and-crew/index.html
No spoiler tags necessary in this thread. PLEASE UNDERSTAND ANY AND ALL EPISODES MAY BE SPOILED BELOW.
From creators Steven Zaillian and Richard Price, The Night Of is an eight-part limited series that delves into the intricate story of a fictitious murder case in New York City. The series follows the police investigation and legal proceedings, all the while examining the criminal justice system and the purgatory of Rikers Island, where the accused awaits his trial.
Cast and crew: http://www.hbo.com/the-night-of/cast-and-crew/index.html
No spoiler tags necessary in this thread. PLEASE UNDERSTAND ANY AND ALL EPISODES MAY BE SPOILED BELOW.
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maybe i'm streaming terrible dj right now if i am its here
Yeah in some moments the show feels brilliant, in others kind of trashy and cliche. It's interesting to say the least and I like all the actors.
But the good definitely outweighs the bad, and I am looking forward to the finale.
Out of curiosity, was that a new girl at the cold open of episode 7? Wouldn't that be kind of a big deal in any normal case where someone without any kind of criminal record is locked away?
Among all the other stuff that is being handled strangely in the courtroom, like the pieces of crucial evidence people just keep picking up outside of bags for no fucking reason.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
He was being sarcastic that it was the same MO. I mean she was stabbed(?), but he was just noting the lack of anybody giving a damn about a rando chick not living in a brownstone being stabbed in the street.
Unless they're setting up limo driver guy as an actual serial. But I don't think so.
My money would be on stepdad, but he's just too obvious.
I'm definitely assuming Naz didn't do it, his guilt would blunt the impact of the whole show. Plus the inconsistencies it would cause (no blood on his clothes, despite him being dressed IIRC, and such).
I'm still having trouble with the idea that the cops would ignore somebody who stood to get millions of dollars from her death, and who had a history of DV, even with a silver platter case like that. OTOH, it might weaken the case they were making, so I guess it's possible they'd choose to willfully put on blinders to any other theories. It's not like we have seen real world stories where precisely that happens.
Then we pick up with Naz and every minute is straight out of Oz.
Doesn't fit.
Haha that infuriates me. They must have made the decision it looks cooler or something. Let's all handle the murder weapon!
I do love how moustache-twirlingly evil they made the prosecutor though.
maybe i'm streaming terrible dj right now if i am its here
Is the defense going to put duane reade on the stand and ask him questions to basically make him implicate himself as potentially the murderer? Woah duane reade needs a lawyer
Don't think Duane gives a fuck. Did like his couple of "that's what they say" answers.
And I did get the feeling that after the first episode or two they largely gave up on the realism thing. It just turned into eight hours of Law and Order: Cynical Viewers Unit.
Still liked it.
But obviously more dramatic than bringing in witness a, b, and c to say that stepdad is a golddigger or undertaker is psycho scary.
Edit: haha "do you ever lie?" is the worst tv lawyer question I've ever heard
I tried to suspend disbelief on Chandra's behavior...female prison guards have done worse for inmates. But nothing we saw suggested any reason she'd go that far. A pill or two to help her client get straight for testimony, when he's clearly in withdrawal? Maybe. Straight up drug mule? Come on.
Though honestly no more fantastic than the idea that a detective would keep digging for exculpatory evidence on a case that's days away from a verdict.
Or are we to assume he prosecutor is going for the "it's only unethical if you get caught" mentality?
Investigations on both sides were shoddy as heck, too.
Well, again, the detective got it illegally. So that's motivation. But nothing stopping him from delivering the video excerpt from outside the restaurant, with a post it identifying the guy, to Stone. Let Stone run with it, once he knows it's out there he can probably pin it down.
Stepdad was enough for a hung jury, give them a guy who was with her that night, called her repeatedly, had shady history, and was embezzling her money? That would have been an acquittal.
So yeah, outrageous.
Question I have, I guess, is whether the defense would have already had copies of all that too? If so, is she required to help them connect the dots? Or would their merely having all the same info (cell record, video, bank statement) be enough?
I'm guessing the prosecution only had to turn over what they were using though, which wouldn't have included any of that. So double unethical regardless.
Very much so. He had whatever the criminal equivalent of an ambulance chaser is, along with an intern from a "real" firm who has precisely zero resources at her disposal. He was screwed.
As for he police, like Stone said their investigation ended in the ten seconds between finding the knifing and tackling him to the floor. After that zero effort was spent on "find the killer" and all of it was on "build a case against this suspect." Which is why Box finding the evidence at the end was equal parts fairy tale and Scooby Doo ending. At no point was that particular suspect foreshadowed to the audience, at least not that I remember.
And it's my understanding that's fairly realistic. An investigation in that scenario is going to be entirely limited to building a case against the suspect. Let's face it, you have a guy fleeing the scene with a bloody knife on him, 99.9% of the time he's guilty.. You don't waste effort making sure it wasn't really Old Man Wilkins wearing a rubber mask all along.
Someone didn't catch that one when they reviewed the script.
"Battle of Gettysburg" according to the tech on the scene.
Was surprised that the defense didn't bring it up, or at least that we weren't shown that argument. It seems significant.
Gonna be honest though, I have little faith in the police or prosecutors to consider such an inconsistency to be a show stopper. Again, you've got a guy fleeing the scene with a bloody knife. He's almost certainly guilty. In Serial the detective referred to it as "the spine of the case." You can find inconsistencies in any case, but overall there's a clear narrative that makes sense here. Naz as the killer makes sense. Lack of blood on his clothes would be worth a shrug at most.
It would have been in his pocket while the murder happened. He dropped it later. It can make sense.
Again, in the interview with the detective from Serial (first season) the wide array of inconsistencies in the case against Sayed are brought up. He basically says you ignore those. You make sure the central narrative of the case makes sense, and build the case and evidence accordingly. No blood on the inhaler? Either make it fit (as I do above) or ignore it. If the defense wants to make a thing out of it, that's their job.
This is why True Detective Season 1 was so good to me, the characters actually acknowledged this problem of fitting facts to the presupposed narrative and actively fought against it. Because it's a real problem and an actual real detective wouldn't necessarily seize the first obvious option and never look back. If the Night Of was trying to convey this theme they did it hamfistedly at best.
Agree. And I think one issue here is that Box is portrayed as a good detective. Somebody who might seize on a significant enough inconsistency and let it give him pause.
I get the feeling the police looked at the stepdad long enough to exclude him. We just weren't shown that. The others? Meh. I'm trying to remember what keeps Box looking at the case. Was it just the lack of confession? Gut? Maybe it was the lack of blood. I think one key is that IIRC he had enough blood on him (from her hand during the sex) to suggest he hadn't showered, which makes the relative lack of it on his person or clothes a real issue.
I do think that, absent another viable suspect, a detective or prosecutor would still go forward with that case. And a jury would still convict. Maybe I'm wrong.
I got hooked by episode one, rest of the show failed to deliver. I want the show that goes with that premiere.
bad lawyering is something I might catch here and there but personally doesn't bother me nearly as much as the inconsistencies of the prison scenes and how quickly nas changed. But I do see that that's a huge part of the entire point of the thing.
on the one hand I like the idea of eight eps and that's it, making a tightly written and executed story
on the other hand, it definitely had the feel of too much happening too quickly to really feel the length of time, and weight of experience, that caused some characters to change dramatically from when we are first introduced to them
Visually it was very well done, most of the acting was great, but the themetic elements fell flat, beyond imparting cynicism about each and every level of the criminal system. I mean, the Wire did that in a way, but it did it so much better. same with True Detective, which had a take on bad men trying to do something good within (and then outside of) a bad system.
I am also happy (wrong emotion but you get it) that they showed the damage the system causes to otherwise good people. Him smoking up at the spot where she and him got high was just heartbreaking, as was the moment where he treated his mom like he learned how to act in prison. That is a wound that will unlikely heal and it is true to form.
But the courtroom stuff itself was weak, and the idiocy of the investigations just did me in.
Like, you can use city cameras to follow people throughout the city? And you waited to do this for a murder victim until the trial was nearly over? The fact that the prosecution and defense treated "The Night Of" as having begun for her when she got into his cab is just ludicrous. And then the prosecution didn't bring the evidence to court in any way whatsoever? Someone was brutally murdered and they didn't look at her financial records for motive?
Gah.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
i felt like this was more a reflection of naz seeing right through her lie of always thinking he was innocent, and that his mom will always wonder if maybe he did do it, especially in lieu of an actual "not guilty" decision
maybe i'm streaming terrible dj right now if i am its here
Consider this; his eczema went away when he had kitty, came back with a vengeance when he returned kitty...
I think the guy just needs to have kitty in his life forever and take lots of Zyrtec.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...