Stone chasing after the guy was completely ridiculous.

I did love the scene where Naz gets the drugs and swallows them while talking to Stone and Chandra, and Stone knows the whole time but doesn't mention it until the end.

well, what would he have had to gain by mentioning it any sooner? he needed to use his time talking about the case

I liked the Stone stuff other than chase. The rest showed Stone knowing how to play/take advantage of petty criminal, chasing a guy he though might be a knife wielding murder was pretty absurd though.

I also enjoyed the scenes with the police detective. Nothing too interesting plot wise, but thought they were really well done and something we don't often see in cop shows (reminded me a bit of the McNulty/Bunk murder scene - minus him solving the case and all the cursing dialogue).

The case scene is also the first time where I recall thinking how the role was originally meant for Gandolfini to play. I think Turturro is actually a better fit as Stone than I can imagine Gandolfini being for most of the lawyer stuff and Stone's general character. But the chase scene, while completely ridiculous to begin with, I feel like may have been at least a tad more believable with Gandolfini as Stone

Almost 100% Freddie + Duane is tied to the murder. Only question is if Naz will survive without criminal record until the murder trial.

Wouldn't you just have naz killed in prison then?

Yes, but this show doesn't always operate on logic.

At even odds I'd bet money on Freddy not having anything to do with the murder (no, I won't actually make bets since the British version exists, which I obv haven't seen)

Yea I think most of this ep was to remind the audience that naz could be the killer and the rest to advance the "other guy" angle. Meh but enjoyed it as a ep 5


I hope they aren't playing the Freddie is involved angle. I like that Freddie used naz in this ep purely for his benefit. A little more realistic then him just taking him under his wing for ze knowledge

"Yea I think most of this ep was to remind the audience that naz could be the killer and the rest to advance the "other guy" angle."

THIS! They wanted to show another side of Naz so that the audience would get doubt about him being innocent.

Freddie being involved would be a bit ridiculous, and his actions so far are quite opposite to what he should be doing if his agenda to let Naz take the fall.

Reasons why it makes sense for Freddie to be involved:

- TAKE THE DEAL
- Why would Freddie care about Naz, a complete unknown? He is smart, fine. Not every prisoner is an idiot, if he needs a chess/talk partner he should find one quickly.

the entire chase scene was just embarrassing. Who writes this ****?

I'm sitting there holding my breath as idiot Stone is walking to the back of the store, wondering if he's about to be killed---

instead, a middle aged out of shape John Turturro with foot fungus scares off a Giant scary looking (and likely violent) criminal, who runs away, only for us to try and chase him down in a pitch dark alley?

Then on top of it it drags out the final 5 minutes of the episode.

GOAT SHOW GOAT

freddie being involved is ****ing stone ******ed and a byproduct of this newfound insane era of coming up with vastly unrealistic and convoluted theories not based in any semblance of reality thanks to a few crazy twist endings and ppl having way too much time on their hands and thinking every single thing must be intertwined and related.

it's just ludicrously unrealistic and would be absurdly contrived story telling and like chuck said if it weren't for the fact it would be way to easy to get free rolled I would bet large sums on him not being involved and I'll LOL at this show if he is.

not every show is LOST.

I think Freddie just read Naz as the perfect type of guy to have on his team. Naz fits all these categories:

*Too pussy to **** Freddie over.
*Not crazy enough to **** Freddie over.
*Smart enough to not **** Freddie over.
*Smart enough to get some stuff done without getting busted.

While I agree that not every prisoner is dumb, not a lot of prisoners fit all those criteria. We saw this episode that Freddie started using carrot/stick tactics to manipulate Naz into his bidding. This will probably continue forever or until Naz gets busted.

Whatever Freddie has planned for Naz, it makes no sense if all he wants to achieve is to let Naz take the fall for the murder. The 2 scenarios in which Naz can take the fall are:
*Naz dies in prison and nobody gives a **** anymore. Seems like it would be ez game for Freddie to pull this off.
*Freddie doesn't want to kill Naz but wants him to confess he did it. Please explain to me how Freddie's actions so far make any sense if this is his end goal. Naz has proof on Freddie smuggling heroin into prison and into allowing someone to be beaten down, both should be relatively easy to proof.

Nailed it.

I'm a little mad this show is devolving into some typical, tired whodunit stuff. Like, if Bodie's buddy Duane turns out to be The Real Killer and that's supposed to be a satisfying ending to this show because the camera zoomed in on his odd reaction to Nas & Andrea entering her apartment in episode 1, **** this ****.

The show isn't bad but it feels like the investigation storyline has barely progressed after 5 episodes. It also feels like they lost too much time for there being satisfying ending to this storyline. I guess it's more about what happens to the characters (mainly Naz/his family and lawyer dude). Maybe that was the show its intention from the start, but I feel like we were pitched something different in E1. I will also be disappointed if 1 of the 3 super obvious weird interactions from episode 1 end up being the killer without there being more to it.

I still think there is only a low chance that Bodie's friend did it. We learned right before the chase started that he got into violent **** all the time. It's the type of guy that isn't going to wait to hear what he's being accused of and just runs off assuming they have something on him.

They set up that Freddie could be connected, rbk, not sure how you missed that. It all comes down to the scene with Andrea's drug dealer and Stone. Stone wanted him to give up the name of his supplier, who the dealer was obviously scared of and owed money to. He had a sense of urgency in getting money from Andrea, as Stone pointed out, meaning he owed money to someone. IF Freddie was his supplier, he might have told Freddie where he could get some easy big money (rich out of control Andrea) to get him off his back. If you're looking for dots to connect, it's extremely clear by now that Freddie is a drug dealer. From what I understand, Rikers is a holding jail for awaiting trial/sentencing. Freddie is still running drugs in the jail. If they're going by reality, it stands to reason that Freddie hasn't been convicted of anything yet, or is awaiting sentencing.

Again, to make it clear, I'm not saying that Freddie being involved in a backdoor way in the murder is an ideal resolution of the case. However, in this heavily foreshadowed series, the dots are very easy to connect that he can be involved (meaning that outcome wouldn't be stupid in context). And him turning Naz into the guy the police are portraying him as would be very beneficial to him. If the murder of Andrea was closed, no further attention would be given to what actually happened. At the very least, this murder is not what it seems. They've said that over and over. The default position is that Naz did it, but there is enough reasonable doubt for him not to have done it. They've now given us everything we need to know he's capable of doing it in the last episode. And it was absolutely clear in the first episode that they wanted us to notice the guy who was with Trevor. They had two potential red herrings in that episode, Duane Reed and the stepfather. Both have extremely unclosed storylines, as of right now (funeral scene for the stepfather).

While this is certainly a straightforward story, they're telling it in a way that is saying to dig deeper than the surface of what we know (for everything, not just the case). I'm confident there won't be any twist that will be a shock. You'll be able to go back and see that they set it up (this is a carefully told show, if nothing else). You might not like it, but it should be there. There's no way the director or writer of the show is incompetent in regards to either storytelling or writing. Research might be a bit of a problem, but it's hard to know yet how big of a problem that is. Still, it's a TV show, so everything shouldn't be perfect except in regard to dramatic tension.

That's the point of the show, in my opinion. This whole case has turned into confirmation bias. The prosecutor has a theory of the crime that is absolutely wrong from what we actually know, and has no intent of investigating further. The cop's not investigating, but it doesn't feel right to him. It's a slam dunk that makes no sense. Lack of blood on Naz and the knife are huge problems, that are meant to make the audience question whether he did it. A big point of the show is that what you see is not necessarily what you get, but that you can frame any narrative the way you see it based on the type of evidence they have (in the house, carrying the knife at time of arrest, all the surveillance cameras, the kicking the guys out of the cab, etc.). That doesn't mean it's the truth or even close. Naz just wanted to go to a party really badly, and made approximately 10 terrible judgment errors along the way, all of which make it very easy to connect him to a murder.

in the first episode when duane and trevor say the racist things you get to see a diff. side of naz and it seemed like he was ready to fight if it came down to it so seeing him **** up baby oil is not that unrealistic

The Other Side of Midnight presented a huge problem last week, based on the events in that episode. Now it's lined right up with the plot, if Freddie is somehow involved, and did actually give the book.

The two things they set up in this episode are that it is very likely that Naz is capable of having done it (bad drug interaction combined with his pent up rage), and that it might have been a bad idea for Naz to have trusted Freddie after all.

any theories on nas having amphetamine in his system but not the chick? I guess the obvious guess would be she gave him something she didn't take herself? Or maybe he did take aderrol but why wouldn't he just tell Stone that?

He confirmed to Stone that he used Adderall. Everything else was on top of that.

He nodded to Stone that he took Adderall while he was swallowing the drugs.

ok i missed that, thanks.

still disappointed in the end scene. I can buy turturro going and trying to talk to criminal pharmacy-named dude, but once he runs you have what you want, he's incriminated himself. Why on Earth would he run after him?