The Sinner: 10 Plot and Character Inconsistencies That Make No Sense About Nick

One of the most mysterious characters, and the one who set off the whole story on the anticipated third season of The Sinner, was Nick Haas. While he was only alive for a short time, he returned several times in flashbacks and Jamie’s visions.

Nick was a bad influence on Jamie, although it’s unclear whether Jamie might have gone down the same path in life anyway had he never met Nick.

Whatever the case between the two friends, Nick was a troubled young man who turned into an even more troubled adult. And there were a lot of inconsistencies with his character development or portrayal throughout the season.

10 Why Did He Take Philosophy In College So Seriously?

Nick seemed to take philosophy very seriously while in college, twisting the teachings of various historical philosophers to fuel his belief that life was meaningless and all about random events that shape who each person is and where their life heads.

Why did he treat this class like gospel? If he was skeptical about life itself, why did he believe that these people from history, and his college philosophy professor, had all the answers?

9 Making So Much Money

Nick had become successful in his adult life, but the idea that he focused so much on being financially successful seems contrary to his primary beliefs. If he felt like life was meaningless and things like material possessions and money meant nothing, why did he pursue a career where he made so much of it?

One might think that someone like Nick would not have focused so much on developing his own fruitful business. He would have been too preoccupied with random choices and fueling his warped views of the world.

8 No One Suspected Something Was Off With Him

Nick mentioned in one of the flashback episodes from college that he had a good family and parents who were there for him. Why didn’t anyone suspect something was off with him, especially once he reached adulthood and it was implied that he had become a sort of serial killer?

It’s possible that Nick lost touch with his family or that his parents passed on sometime in the 15-year period between when he last saw Jamie and they reunited. But if not, wouldn’t his behavior and clear detachment from human connection have raised red flags?

7 Claiming Looking Death In The Face Is The Way Out

Nick claimed that looking death in the face was the way out, yet he was still alive. Despite playing random games of chicken with his own life for so long, how is it that he survived unharmed for so many years?

Was he just always lucky, or did he only play these games for Jamie’s benefit, to toy with his impressionable young friend? Was he just manipulating Jamie all along?

6 Psychopaths Don’t Care For Others

Nick’s selfless act of letting himself die – in fact, insisting that Jamie let him die – was completely contrary to the idea that he had no morals or inner humanity. A true unfeeling serial killer would not sacrifice himself in order to help someone else.

He would view himself to be too valuable as a teacher, and needed by his student. Yet his act of urging Jamie not to call an ambulance and simply watch him die seemed far too selfless for someone like Nick.

5 He Acted Like He Might Have Known Or Seen Sonya Before

In one scene, Nick mentioned that a woman lived alone in the house where they had stopped to dig the grave, and he implied that he wanted to kill her and bury her there with Jamie. Yet Jamie said the grave, complete with the breathing tube, was meant for he and Nick, to replicate a game they once played in college.

Was the grave actually for them or for Sonya? And most importantly, how did Nick know Sonya lived there, or even more generally that it was a woman who lived there by herself? Had he been scoping out the place beforehand? Stalking Sonya as part of his game? This was never explored, leaving the theory unexplained.

4 The Young Actor

Usually, shows are pretty good at casting actors to play a younger version of a character because they have a resemblance to them. Chris Messina, the actor who played Nick (who is arguably best known as the villain Victor Zsasz in the Harley Quinn movie Birds of Prey), has a very distinctive look. But the young actor they cast to play a college version of him wasn’t convincing as being the same person.

He did not share many features of Nick, which made the flashback scenes less believable.

3 His Awkward Behavior In Front Of Leela

Why was Nick so awkward in front of Leela? If he wanted to coax Jamie into coming with him, wouldn’t he have wanted to come across as more normal to avoid Leela having any suspicions?

Nick seemed to want Leela to know exactly who her husband was and what he had done in the past, which would have not only caused chaos that night, but would have foiled any plans he had of keeping Jamie secretly under his wing.

2 That Knife To The Hand Scene

Surely, someone who stabs a knife right through their own hand with such force that it comes out the other side would be in far more pain than Nick was, and would have required a hospital visit, or at least antibiotics.

Nick might have been fearless, but he was not superhuman. Unless he had a specific condition, he could not have been immune to pain, nor infection. Did he go to a hospital to get stitched up? And if so, why would he do something like that if he had no fear of death?

1 Losing Touch With Jamie

It seemed like Jamie fed off Nick’s energy and Nick needed Jamie as a sort of morbid student. How is it possible that they lost touch for so many years, especially in the age of social media, and neither tried to reach out?

Why didn’t Jamie ever look into Nick to see what he was up to? Nick seemed like the type of person who would have shown up in Jamie’s life far sooner, in an attempt to convince him not to court Leela, and definitely to avoid getting married. It seemed unlikely that if Jamie was so attached to Nick and vice versa that they would not have been able to simply end their friendship so easily.

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