A New Night Of Crime and Injustice on HBO

A college kid borrows the family car to go out partying–but that car is a New York City cab, and its off-duty light is broken. Soon, the kid’s got a passenger, a beautiful young woman who gets him high, plays knife games with him and takes him to bed. When he wakes up, she’s been stabbed to death; in a panic, he grabs what appears to be the murder weapon and drives off.

That’s the night that begins HBO’s new miniseries The Night Of, one that comes to include a long, tense sequence ending in Naz’s arrest. The son of Pakistani immigrants, Naz (Riz Ahmed) is watchful and guarded. Though he’s clearly sensitive, his time in jail at Rikers Island, under the guidance of Michael K. Williams’ kingpin, forces him to forget his humanity. Williams hands him a copy of The Call of the Wild, a book to fit the circumstance.

The Night Of draws upon all of New York City, its strivers and its oppressed, to tell a story of how the justice system swallows up lives. John Turturro, as a defense attorney seeking his one big case, blends opportunism and mercy beautifully. There’s so much detail on display here that it’s frustrating to find the case built around a woman painted as complicit in her own death, with a fondness for hard drugs and daggers.

But this is a minor flaw, not least because, like too many crime victims, she eventually falls out of the story. What makes The Night Of work is its depiction of how incarceration alters a person, leaving an impact that will remain even if Naz is freed into a world of few prospects. It’s not actually about one night–it’s about endless unlit, violent days.

–DANIEL D’ADDARIO

The Night Of airs Sundays at 9 p.m. E.T. on HBO