Summer TV Obsession
A look at HBO's new drama The Night Of
A night of poor decision-making—secretly borrowing his dad’s car, picking up a strange woman, ingesting the drugs she offers him—leads Pakistani-American college student Nasir Khan (played with the perfect dose of nervous naivete by Riz Ahmed) into a life-shattering nightmare. After spending a decadent evening with the woman at her Upper West Side townhouse, Nasir wakes up to find her stabbed to death. Bewildered, he runs and quickly gets caught. The police assume he killed her and start compiling the evidence to prove it—that’s when the unraveling mystery of what actually happened that night gets juxtaposed with the terror of seeing a possibly innocent suspect trapped in the claws of New York’s criminal justice system. Nasir’s main ally is bleeding heart lawyer Jack Stone (played with typically quirky charm by John Turturro). It’s a big, bold, timely premise for a series and it’s filmed with a David Lynchian emphasis on atmospherics, which ups the tension level to exquisite proportions. If you’re looking for a new, high-caliber HBO series to obsess over, The Night Of definitely delivers.
The Night Of officially debuts July 10 on HBO.
