The Night Of

You might be wondering what I’m doing talking this week about something from 2016, but over the previous 197 posts I think we’ve established well enough there is no method to my madness.  The Night Of was one of the first boxsets recommended to me at the very beginning of this project, and it’s been lodged in my brain ever since.  It even got downloaded (by me, on purpose) to my Sky box at the start of the year when I finally decided that I must get down to following up on its recommendation.  But there it stayed, cruelly ignored while I worked through Fargo and a variety of other Netflix trappings (Call My Agent!, Last Chance U: Basketball).  But then, with Oscars season upon us, its star, Riz Ahmed, was everywhere.  I needed to see what all the fuss was about and conveniently had a slot in my viewing schedule.

I’m ruing the day I didn’t dive in as soon as this show was recommended to me.  Episode one immediately got its claws into me and I tingled with smugness at the thought of finding something to watch that was not going to disappoint.  There was intrigue from the first minute, all against a backdrop of the much-missed city of New York (what with foreign travel being an impossible offence while the sniffles keeps on going round the world).  Knowing something terrible is going to happen: there’s nothing more compelling than that.  From the moment Nasir (played by Ahmed with wide-eyed conviction) gets invited to a Manhattan party from his Pakistani enclave of Queens, the show’s very title makes it clear this isn’t just a pleasant evening in the city.

I’m not going to get into too many details, as these would all be spoilers, and I know for a fact you’ll be following my pleas to see for yourself this exquisite boxset.  Needless to say, there’s a certain amount of being led astray, of trying things for the first time and of cutting loose from a conservative upbringing while potentially ill-equipped to deal with its consequences that makes this fateful night all the more significant.  The tension then takes hold, with us as the viewer violently willing Nas to slip out of the precinct while awaiting processing for his initial misdemeanour.  Cleverly, we are left in doubt regarding his innocence as far as the evidence shows, but we are desperate for him to be cleared of all charges at almost any cost.

Along the way, every character that enters the universe of The Night Of comes with such depth and richness that we almost don’t notice Nas’s long absences while they work their way into our lives.  John Turturro’s John Stone oozes New Yorker, hardened and brash, and with no shits left to give about what anyone thinks of him or any of his skin conditions (at least, so his outer shell would have us believe).  I did wonder at the size of his out-of-home advertising budget as his Subway posters are everywhere, especially if he only charges $250 a case.  Nas’s parents do a huge amount with very little, dignity burning behind their eyes, while Detective Dennis Box earns our sympathy as he retires and Helen Weiss, the district attorney, even as she works against us, carries a certain charm.  The Wire’s Michael K. Williams haunts as Freddy, showing us everything that’s wrong with the American justice system.

That said, it was the cat that I got most excited about.  It just goes to show that great writing and great character development are lost on me when there’s a purring feline rolling about on the floor.  I felt I could have cured John Stone’s allergies simply by wishing them away.  So, from New York night life, the episodes progress to a taut court case.  At points, all seems lost.  At others, the characters’ behaviour aggravates both you as the viewer and their own sorry situations.  But we’re kept guessing till the end, fed some red herrings to keep us going and distracted by artful production design and cinematography from the fact this is (apparently) a rehash of a 2008 British show.  I don’t care where it came from, this gem was a great find, and maybe the story is more universal than as specifically New York as I had thought, but it’s elevated by so much else that it’s definitely one for the boxset list.

The Staircase

Deep in a second lockdown, the last thing you need while trying to account for lost income and no gyms (thanks, Bozza) is a tense and paranoia-inducing documentary about murder, guilt, loss and the flaws in any justice system.  I know this now.  But I didn’t when I decided the time had finally come for me to consume Netflix’s well-known thirteen-part series: The Staircase.  Previously, it had proven easy enough to ignore in the algorithm, particularly with such distractions as the second series of The End Of The F***ing World, a Wales-based attempt at I’m A Celebrity (works quite well, actually) and, thank goodness, despite its dilution by social distancing, Strictly Come Dancing.  Don’t even ask me about season four of The Crown – that will just have to wait (plus it’s not like my enjoyment is at risk from spoilers).  But no, podcast after podcast had conspired to reference The Staircase in heated discussion, bringing out my worst fear: boxset omission.  Here I am carefully curating all my viewing so I can chime in with any conversation, and yet I had missed what sounded like a bit of a classic.  Not that I can interrupt people while podcasting.  I’ve tried that before and they can’t actually hear you so there’s no point.

Potentially a poor man’s Making A Murderer, The Staircase looks like it’s going to offer you the same sort of did-he-didn’t-he, blow-by-blow account of an American crime as examined through the American justice system.  Indeed, both shows err on the side of the subject’s pleas of innocence, highlighting how courthouses are vulnerable to corruption, bias and unfairness, but while the Steven Amery case focuses on a low-income family whose only wealth is in the form of dilapidated cars, the clan at the centre of our story, by the look of their North Carolina mansion, seem to be drenched in riches.

But, they do have an awkwardly poky staircase, and it’s this part of the interior that forms the point of dispute driving the whole series’ narrative.  At the bottom of it, the body of Kathleen Peterson is found in 2001, covered in blood.  Is her tragic death an accidental fall, or the result of murder by her husband, Michael Peterson?  Either way, it’s his frantic calls to 911 that open our story.  It’s a chilling beginning and one seemingly designed to arouse suspicion immediately.  As the trial proceeds and we learn more about the Petersons’ happy family home, containing well turned-out children from previous marriages as well as some adopted daughters, we can only look on as the state brings a case against Michael and appears willing to play every trick to clinch a conviction.  We’re going back twenty years, so attitudes towards sexuality highlight an excess of narrow-mindedness.  Juror response research even yields free admissions that experts with Chinese accents aren’t easy to trust.  The odds stack up against Michael who, out on bail, potters about his large home drinking cans of Diet Coke while his legal team strategise.  He brings to mind an early-season Caitlyn Jenner in Keeping Up With The Kardashians, bemused by the goings on of the young people in the home but ultimately happy in some jogging bottoms.

It’s hard to discuss much more about the case without spoiling the plot.  I was hoping for references to an owl theory that had played out centrally in the podcast discussions that had driven me to the programme, but, unless I blacked out at very specific moments, I totally missed this.  Instead, over the course of many years, we watch a middle-aged man grow very old and suffer, eliciting natural sympathy no matter the verdict.  This is contrasted with the burning hatred that Kathleen’s surviving sisters have for him, which grows only stronger with time, giving some indication of the impetus behind his prosecution.  There’s uneasy viewing throughout, from graphic depictions of Kathleen after her fall to deeply skin-crawling testimonies in the courtroom.

As we progress, you develop a sense of melancholy from all the waste.  All the time, money, energy and emotion that goes into something like this, only for it never truly to be over, highlights the human damage and hopelessness such a case leaves in its wake.  Nothing can bring Kathleen back and nothing can make clear what really happened.  Our perspective is only ever really that of the accused, so sympathies naturally develop there, but nobody really wins.

The episodes each pivot around a singular development in the case, but we could potentially have zipped through some of them a bit more quickly to tighten up the documentary’s intensity.  The shaky footage from the early 2000s is hardly going to stress out your HD telly, but this is more of an unputdownable story than a visual feast by any stretch of the imagination.  In addition, the camerawork improves as the episodes shift focus nearer to the present day, particularly in the three final editions added by Netflix.  You’ll come away feeling uneasy, knowing what a blow poke is and questioning who gets to decide guilt and innocence, but at least you’ll be about thirteen hours closer to the end of a lockdown.

How To Get Away With Murder

Netflix inertia (noun): To be unable to decide which boxset to start next, despite trawling through the various menus, watching all the trailers and soliciting friends’ recommendations.  Typically occurs during withdrawal from finishing a previous boxset.  Often leads to entire allocated boxset time being used up in failing to pick a new one, resulting in disappointment.

Picture the scene: I had just finished all of Teen Wolf (I know) and didn’t know what to start next.  Rather than risk the above condition, I made an impulse choice, basing it on some billboards I had seen in LA in 2014 and not much else.  I really wasn’t thinking.  Courtroom dramas have never really appealed as they just seem to be people shouting objection and judges banging gavels, all while my limited knowledge of the UK or US judicial system prevents me from really caring what’s going on.

But the premise of How To Get Away With Murder is sexier than that.  This is because the whole show is sexier than your average drama.  That doesn’t mean it’s all private parts and naughty swears.  It’s soap operatic in its approach to the (many) sex scenes: the bra always stays on, the covers are mostly up, or the camera doesn’t go below the waist (I really have checked carefully).  This isn’t Game Of Thrones with willies and boobs flapping about everywhere.  Although I could take some coarser language.  The biggest cuss you will hear is “You ungrateful little twit.”

Nevertheless, the tameness stops there.  The rest is pure wildness.  If your job is helping accused murderers avoid jail, whatever it takes, then, when you end up embroiled in a homicide yourself, you’re well placee to get off scot free.  And so we enter the world of Annalise Keating, defence attorney at large.  She’s also a college professor teaching criminal law.  She seems to have time to take clients’ cases and to teach classes, and all of this seems to happen somehow in the home she lives in, which is also a 24-hour office solution for her employees and interns.  I think I would feel weird knowing my boss sleeps upstairs.

Keating is so hard she eats her own shit, particularly in early episodes before the layers of her personality have been peeled back.  You know she eats her own shit as she permanently has an expression on her as if she’s looking for somewhere to be sick, which is an understandable consequence of such behaviour.  But this doesn’t do justice to Viola Davis’ masterful performance.  Keating is horrible, but it doesn’t take long till you’re unable to stop yourself from rooting for her.  Talking of pained faces, accompanying Keating’s sick face, we have Bonnie Longbottom, her long-suffering number two (as it were), who mopes about looking like she has just smelled a fart the whole time.  I’m glad I didn’t go into law.

These grown-ups, along with Frank the paralegal (who mostly is having an even worse time), are joined by five interns fresh from Keating’s new intake of students at Middleton University.  It’s easy to see them as a box tick in stock characters, but they really do come to life in their own right as the show progresses.  Their illustrious internships are maintained by working all hours supporting Keating with her various cases.  In this sense, How To Get Away With Murder is slightly episodic, taking on a new defendant, through to trial, with each instalment, giving the interns the chance to fight for Keating’s affections in the process.  But each series is structured around more gruesome body disposal, with our beloved lead characters caught up in their own stabby stabby slashy slashy.

These are foreshadowed with various flash forwards and flashbacks which don’t always hang together that well, but each series in itself is neatly resolved around all the big reveals.  And that is its power.  As always, first episodes get you well and truly sold in, but the mysteries pile up and up until you can’t resist one more instalment.  Before long, the various lies and secrets weave all the characters together to such an extent that nobody can trust anyone and even we as viewers lose all sight of the truth.

Everyone has something on everyone else, but somehow the interns’ friendships spring from hate, resulting in cracking crackling dialogue as they goad one another.  And back to the sex: almost everyone sleeps with everyone else.  Who’d have thought spending all hours at your professor’s house sifting through legal case files for no money would be so arousing?

Either way, there are two other things that make this show pure fantasy.  All the characters constantly answer their mobile phones.  They should learn by at least episode three that this only leads to bad things.  I stopped answering my phone at work in 2013.  Secondly, Keating’s kids are helped by policeman Nate Lahey in their legally ambiguous endeavours.  His top seems to fall off all the time and he is so chiselled that it must pain him to breathe as much as it pains me to shove too much cheese in my face while watching.  I won’t mention the plotline laziness where one character is simply able to hack things left, right and centre to help with their cases.

So it might not be perfect, but this holds the record of probably causing me the most audible gasps while watching.  Next time your thumb is hovering on the remote and you can’t quite commit to that next boxset to binge, try some US crime glamour (with bras on) and plump for this one.