‘The Night Of': If Naz Didn’t Do It, Who Did? (Updated)

We don’t think Naz killed Andrea on “The Night Of.” But if he didn’t, who did? Let’s look at the possible suspects.

NAZ

Let’s get this out of the way. We guess it’s possible that “The Night Of” lead character Naz (Riz Ahmed) blacked out and killed Andrea. But he seemed truly shocked and horrified to find her dead, and like too nice a guy to do something so horrible. Or at least that’s what the show wants us to think.

ANDREA

Again, we have to raise this possibility just to dismiss it. If Andrea killed herself, that would be the worst twist in murder mystery history. We saw when she was stabbed in the hand that she has an incredible tolerance for pain, so maybe she could have stabbed herself twenty-two times? Actually, we feel ridiculous even typing this.

HEARSE DRIVER

Okay, time for the real “The Night Of” suspects. You can’t get anymore foreshadow-y than having a hearse driver (Esau Pritchett) ask Andrea if she wants to be his next passenger. He’s chiding her for smoking, but he could also represent Death itself. There’s something not right about the guy, but did she make enough of an impression in their brief exchange for her to follow and kill her? Probably not.

TREVOR

Trevor (JD Williams) insults Naz on the street with his friend — the mystery man seen on the next slide who we’re calling Death Glare. Detective Box suspects Trevor early on, but Trevor just doesn’t seem murder-y. Weirdly, though, in his interview with Box, he says he was alone when he insulted Naz.

DUANE READE

As we remember, Trevor wasn’t alone on “The Night Of.” He was with a silent, death-glaring mystery man (Charlie Hudson III) identified in a later episode as Duane Reade. Death Glare watched Naz and Andrea so long we wondered if he knew one of them from somewhere… but neither seemed to recognize him. Death Glare — whose real name isn’t Death Glare, but is almost as ridiculous, as we’ll see later — is riding high on our list of suspects.

SOMEONE WE HAVEN’T EVEN MET YET

This would be quite a cheat, wouldn’t it? We’re going to assume “The Night Of” writer Richard Price wouldn’t mess with our minds like that, but we suppose it’s possible this whole thing is socially comment just disguised as a murder mystery, and that he’s using detective story tropes to lure us into a devastating critique of the broken criminal justice blah blah blah. Hopefully not, though. We’d like this mystery solved.