'The Night Of' Episode 8 Recap: Don't Stop Believin'

Warning: This recap contains spoilers for the series finale of The Night Of.

Heading into The Night Of finale, the jurors on HBO’s hit summer crime drama had to decide whether Nasir Khan was guilty or innocent of brutally murdering Andrea Cornish in her $10 million Manhattan townhouse. Meanwhile, those of us at home waited nervously to pass our own verdict on the series as it presented its closing arguments for itself as being worthy of our investment. Would “The Call of the Wild” be guilty of hewing to the traditional non-ending ending favored by HBO’s stalwarts like The Sopranos and the first season of True Detective — finales that left viewers bitterly divided about whether they had witnessed an act of genius or the proverbial middle finger of self indulgence? Or would it strive to be found innocent of such a contested charge, offering up a clean conclusion that tied up every loose end and left no doubt in the viewer’s mind that justice had been served?

Based on the reaction on social media after the credits rolled, it’s safe to say that, much like the trial on the show, The Night Of ended in a hung jury. Tweets like this:

Appeared in the same stream as reactions like this:

It’s worth noting that this isn’t exactly a “Tony is dead”/“Tony isn’t dead” situation. Naz is released from prison at the end of the episode when a jury of his peers is deadlocked 6-6 on his guilt. And there’s the strong implication that a newly invigorated Detective Box is going to bring down the man who emerged from a sea of red herrings as the most likely culprit: Raymond Halle, the financial advisor who was raiding her inheritance for gambling money and successfully shifted the blame onto her slimy stepfather, Don Taylor. So those who want a prime suspect now have one, and can look forward to the day when he’s ushered into the courtroom in chains — which, given the glacial way the criminal justice system works, will probably happen sometime in the year 2025. Meanwhile, the (probably) innocent man is now free to go home and get on with his life, eyes focused on the future and heart bursting with happiness about living in a world without bars. Sound great, except…

…Except there’s very little to feel great about in the wake of Naz’s acquittal-by-technicality. Chandra’s once-promising law career is effectively over, which is the standard side effect of kissing your client in a holding cell, to say nothing of smuggling drugs for him. John Stone’s eczema is back with a vengeance, sending him to the ER when his veritable department store of drugs fails to keep his skin clear. Don is free to continue chasing cougars at gyms all over Manhattan, at least until Andrea’s share of her mother’s will comes to him and he can earn his cool $10 million from selling the townhouse. (Assuming he can still get that price based on its status as a murder house. Actually, who are we kidding? It’s New York — that price tag is shooting up to $15 million.) Three men short of his former entourage, Rikers lifer Freddy Knight is left throwing solitary haymakers at a weathered punching bag. Naz’s parents are selling the family home in Queens and his brother, along with everyone else in the neighborhood, is giving him dirty looks. And Naz himself is a drug addict haunted by his cloudy memories of the night that changed his life forever. He may be free, but he’s been sentenced to an existence in which he’ll never truly feel like an innocent man.

The Crime: For now, the death of Andrea Cornish will have to be officially considered unsolved. Unofficially, all signs point not to Don or Duane Reade, but to Ray, with whom Andrea has a furious row on the titular night of and who subsequently followed her until she sought refuge in Naz’s waiting cab. The motive and means are there: he needed to keep her silent about his embezzlement and also possessed the keys to her place. But as Helen Weiss pointed out to Box, the evidence against Naz is more damning than the fragments they have on Halle. And connecting the dots necessary to bring him in is a project that could take months and even years. Fortunately, now that he’s off the force and working a cushy — if decidedly unglamorous — job as a campus cop, Box has nothing but time.

The Cops: It all started with a turn of the head. That’s the crucial detail that convinced Box to dig back into the case he had written off as closed. Reviewing the footage of Andrea walking down the sidewalk and hopping into Naz’s taxi mere hours after his retirement party, the on-his-way-out-the-door cop finally notices the way she glances behind her before moving to open the cab door. The expression her face clearly communicates that there’s someone behind her she’d rather avoid, spurring Box to discover what the “something” is. On the one hand, catching that head-swivel in the final hour is a dramatic contrivance that might inspire your own bit of head shaking. At the same time, let’s not forget that the Box we met in the first episode was already retired in his own mind. Nabbing Naz was going to be his last big collar, allowing him to leave with his head held high. But the brutal questioning he endured from Chandra in court about sneaking evidence from an active crime scene erased any hope of a celebratory farewell. Catching Ray, then, is the thing that might finally allow him to rest easier at night. And it’s a good thing he’s pursuing this lead, because it’s clear that his former NYPD colleagues could not care less.

The Court: Chandra’s lip-lock with Naz is a story point that’s been directly ported over directly from Criminal Justice, the 2008 British series that inspired The Night Of. And it’s entirely possible that it played better in its native land. Here, though, her decision to act on her attraction to Naz undermined what we thought we understood of her up to that point. And while the series has made a point of illustrating how smart people a capable of making extraordinary dumb decisions, based on the events of the finale, the kiss undermined Chandra as a character purely for a late-inning narrative gambit — a possible mistrial — that wound up having very little bearing on the final outcome.

Speaking of dumb decisions, Chandra’s choice to put Naz on the stand was almost as catastrophic as their kiss. Over the course of ten painful minutes, Helen verbally pummeled the guy into an almost-confession, reducing his lawyer–who had allowed her confidence following her successful grillings of Don and Duane to override her good sense–to tears. Still, she can claim at least 60% of the credit for Naz’s hung jury, assembling enough of a defense to cast reasonable doubt in the jurors’ minds. The other 40% goes to John Stone, who delivered the speech of his career in a monologue that didn’t feel particularly realistic, but was eminently satisfying. Acknowledging his past as a proponent of the “Take the deal” school of lawyering, John passionately argued in his client’s defense, inspiring Naz to greet him with an awed “Thank you” when he finally took his seat again. Of course, at the end of the episode, Stone’s back to defending the guilty for a quick $250. But at least he can say that he connected when he took his big swing.

The Cat: C’mon…like John would ever really sign his furry pal’s death sentence. In the wake of Helen’s decimation of Naz on the stand, Stone tries to shed every trace of the case he’s invested so much time and emotion in, up to and including Andrea’s cat, dropping it back off at a kill shelter in a cardboard box. But then in the final scene, the kitty is glimpsed zipping through John’s living room as his owner is on his way out the door, thrilled to have a whole apartment to roam around in, not just a single room. If The Night Of doesn’t return for a second series, how about a spin-off? Working title: Stone Cold Cat.

The Night Of can be watched on HBO Go and HBO Now