HBO Wants A Second Season Of ‘The Night Of’
HBO’sThe Night Offelt like a one-and-done. From the very beginning, it was billed as a miniseries, not an ongoing drama, and the storyline came to a definitive conclusion in the series finale. (Yes,some unanswered questions remain, but they felt less like cliffhangers and more like a purposeful effort to close out on an ambiguous note.) ButThe Night Ofwas also a big, buzzy hit — the kind of show that’d seem like a shoo-in for a renewal in other circumstances. So naturally, HBO is weighing the possibility of aThe Night Ofseason 2.
Casey Bloys, HBO’s president of programming, is very upfront about his desire to seeThe Night Ofcontinue. Asked byVarietywhether he’d want another season, Bloys responded:
Zaillian has said before that they haven’t ruled it out. “We’re thinking about it and if we come up with something we all feel is worthy of doing, we’ll do it. This was designed as a stand-alone piece,“he said in August. “That being said, there are ways of certainly kind of taking what it feels like and what it’s about and doing another season on another subject.”
The Night Ofis a remake of the British showCriminal Justice, which ran for two seasons.The Night Ofwas based on the first season, which centered on a young man accused of murder after he wakes up next to a woman who’s been stabbed to death. The second season ofCriminal Justicefollowed a completely different storyline involving a housewife suspected of killing her abusive husband.The Night Ofcould conceivably follow a similar model, which would make it more like an anthology series a laFargoorTrue Detectivethan an ongoing drama likeGame of Thrones. It’d make more sense than trying to pick back up with the Naz storyline, which seems to have run its course. (Even starRiz Ahmedseems to think so,saying last monththat “to me, the piece feels complete.") Bloys claimed not to know what aThe Night Ofseason two would look like, but speculated that it would introduce a new case:
Even ifThe Night Ofleaves Naz behind, though, that doesn’t rule out the possibility that other characters could return. Bloys, for one, would like to seeJohn Turturro’s John Stone again. “That would be my hope,” he said. “I think that’s what they’re thinking. But all of it is speculation at this point.”
