dvr this
HBO, Sundays, 9 p.m.
HBO’s latest water-cooler hit is a miniseries about a Pakistani-American college student named Nasir (Riz Ahmed, in a career making performance) who wakes up after a one-night stand to find the woman he’s slept with brutally stabbed to death. He panics, runs and then he’s caught and charged with murder. John Turturro is both funny and heart-breaking as his schlubby lawyer. The great character actor Bill Camp is cold and restrained as the main detective. And Michael Kenneth Williams, playing the jailhouse kingpin who befriends Nasir, hasn’t had material so good since The Wire. Written mostly by the great novelist Richard Price and Oscar winner Steve Zaillian, and mostly directed by Zaillian, The Night Of seamlessly blends themes about race, geopolitics, gender and the failure of the American justice system; the result is fascinating and sublime.
