‘The Night Of’ episode 5 review: Who is Duane Reade? John, Box’s investigation

It feels almost strange to say that Sunday night’s new episode of “The Night Of” was comedic, but there were many of moments of that in between John Stone and the cat, John Stone out on the town, or John Stone trying to get a certain prescription drug to help him out.

Then, things did take a various serious turn when Naz became further involved with Eddie and his group in jail, and he was forced to do some pretty unspeakable things to prove himself with this crowd. He’s having to do what he can there in order to survive, but in the process, he’s getting distracted and less-helpful to the case. When John interviewed him, though, he was at least able to make one thing rather clear that was new information: Trevor was lying when he said he was alone that night when he saw Naz and Andrea.

From here, John tracked down Trevor and tries to use threats of legal trouble in order to convince him to spill the beans. Eventually, he did get a name out of the guy, and that was Duane. No last name. Just Duane. Duane Reade. Okay, we thought Trevor was just screwing with him (and us), but that actually was his name. This guy’s clearly hiding something judging from how fast he ran away from John after he introduced himself, but the specifics are still to be seen. We had a “cliffhanger” in the sense that John was in some danger, but we figure he’ll emerge from that somehow.

While we did have some of Box and Helen Weiss’ own investigation tonight, John clearly takes the cake here. John Turturro continues to kill it in this role, offering that perfect mix of vulnerability, humor, and actual job skills that the character likes to hide.

As a whole, “The Night Of” continued to be compelling television, but tonight it brought an extra dimension. Maybe we’re so unnerved that we find ourselves laughing more, or maybe the show just lightened the tone for a few minutes tonight. In the darker moments, though, we saw further examples of the corruptness of justice, and what Naz could become if found guilty. Episode Grade: A.