Morning after mysteries
ONE of the more bizarre South African news stories of late has been that of the 31-year-old man caught with his pants down in the bed of his 50year-old mother-in-law in Uitsig, Cape Town. The problem was that both parties were so drunk that neither could remember the chain of events that threw them into bed together. Netwerk24 reported that the mother-in-law had “asked God to open up her memory of the night”, but God had yet to oblige.
Someone else asking God to open up memories is the lead character in HBO’s riveting new series The Night Of. Naz is a 23year-old Pakistani-American college student living in New York. Naz is not what one would call “cool”. In particular, he struggles to pick up women, which is why he leaps at an unexpected invitation one Friday night to attend the kind of party that nerds like him rarely crack the nod for.
The friend who is supposed to give Naz a lift to the party flakes out, however, and in a moment of uncharacteristic rebellion Naz borrows his father’s taxi cab without permission to drive himself there. En route, an attractive young woman gets into the taxi in the belief that Naz is an on-duty cab driver. Seduced by her looks, Naz agrees to drive her uptown. The two end up at her flat, where they drink, take drugs, and eventually fall into bed together.
When Naz awakes, however, it’s to a scene of pure horror. His mysterious female companion lies dead on her bed, stabbed countless times. Naz has absolutely no recollection of what happened, and — as with a certain Uitsig mother-in-law — his attempts to unleash the memories are in vain. The murder victim is a wealthy white woman; you can guess exactly how bad this all looks for the dark-skinned Muslim son of an immigrant.
That’s what unfolds in the first half of the pilot for The Night Of, establishing the fascinating premise of the show. Over the subsequent episodes, the viewer is left grappling with the same questions as Naz himself, his family and friends: is this young man capable of such a heinous crime under the influence of drugs and alcohol? How do you defend yourself against a murder charge if you have no alternative version of events to offer?
The show isn’t just gripping from the perspective of puzzling out the riddle of Naz’s guilt or innocence. It takes on multiple themes of extreme relevance to contemporary America: anti-immigrant tensions; Islamophobia; intergenerational conflict in conservative religious families. If that makes it sound like hard work, it really isn’t. You won’t find a more engrossing mystery all year — other than the ones playing out in Uitsig bedrooms.