‘The Night Of’ episode 7 review: Naz and Chandra’s surprise bond; the defense goes to work

The past few episodes of “The Night Of” have been intense, but they’ve also contained a few different storylines that we’ve felt were a bit bloated. For example, we are talking about the eczema of John Stone, or the amount of time spent with Freddy at the present.

Tonight, we spent the vast majority of the episode within the courtroom, as the defense started to take advantage of an opportunity to present its own case as to why Nazir was not guilty of the crime of killing Andrea. The most informative bit of information they had may have came from their own expert pathologist Dr. Katz, who noted that Andrea liked to play the stabbing game we saw in the premiere, and also that there was a missing knife at the crime scene.

Later on, Chandra did manage to interview Box to point out that he tampered with the crime scene in terms of an inhaler. Sure, helping Naz with his asthma was a nice gesture, but at the same exact time it could have been extremely political. This was a way to take that inhaler out of the question since it could disrupt a certain narrative about Naz as potential killer.

Now, let’s talk the strangest part of the episode: Chandra and Naz kissing. We saw a possible tease that this was coming last week, but why would someone in her position do this, especially with someone under trial for what was such a heinous crime?

Eventually, we did get back to prison at episode’s end to see the blood start to pour down, which further raised the question as to whether or not prison had influenced the fury within Naz to come out. There is evidence that it was there from his time in school, but those actions and a murder do not necessarily correlate. However, him dealing with rage and survival within Rikers are very different things.

One episode out from the end, “The Night Of” is haunting, painful, and while the kiss still makes us raise questions, the rest of the show remains brilliant. Grade: A-.