Welcome to another How To Get Away With Murder recap! How To Get Away With Murder also known as the show where the title is about both the lawyers and the defendants. Gotta love those murky waters.
This week in the show we see Annalise and her flock of law students continue to hoodwink the authorities but they’re skating on such thin ice that they put the new iPhone to shame.
As always, this recap is split into The Plot, The Gay and The Ugly, so read on to find out what went down in the show this week.
The Plot
As you’ll recall, the previous episode of HTGAWM was balls to the wall insane. We finally witnessed Sam’s murder as a scuffle with Annalise’s students (Wes, Laurel, Connor and Michaela) and Rebecca (Wes’ girlfriend, Annalise’s client and one of the main suspects in the murder of Sam’s lover Lila) saw Annalise’s husband being flipped over a balcony, knocked unconscious and then clunked in the head with a trophy by Wes when he woke up and tried to kill Rebecca. The students then moved his body, burnt him and threw away the remains but not before Annalise came home, saw him lying in a pool of blood in the living room and was joined by Wes soon after as he showed up to retrieve the murder weapon. To be fair, Sam probably deserved it (Cell Block Tango and all that) but admitting that the students did it and that Annalise knew it had happened would put them all in jail.
Cut to this week’s episode where Annalise is lying through her teeth to the police, telling them that Sam has probably fled since she left the house after threatening to have a DNA test done, proving that he is the father of his mistress’ unborn foetus which would suggest that he is also the person who killed her. In order to save their skin, she’ll have to lie to her students too and have Wes convince them all that she knows nothing about Sam being killed.
Things are already off to a bad start though as while Wes explains to the police that he and his studious pals were at a study group (and then at the school bonfire) the night Sam disappeared, Annalise has called Rebecca into her office to say sorry for previously trying to cover up Sam’s affair (his mistress was one of Rebecca’s friends). Consider the seed of doubt planted and considerably watered in Rebecca’s mind then as she later asks Wes if Annalise knows, telling him that the apology was weird and that’s it even weirder that he’s not freaking out about it. Uh-oh.
While they wait for the rest of the police interviews take place, the plan of action is to get the charges dropped against Rebecca and drop Sam right in it. Granted, the police will have a hard time arresting a dead man but this is important nonetheless. Laurel and Frank (one of Annalise’s aides) stick Sam’s hair in a bag to get a DNA test for Lila’s foetus and after a computer search (done by Connor’s ex-boyfriend) pulls up no travel evidence Bonnie (another aid) and Asher (another student and also the person Bonnie slept with the night Sam was killed) have to go and get Sam’s laptop out of evidence so that they can use his phone’s data to prove he travelled. Complicated? Yes and it’s fruitless too when they discover that the prosecutor is keeping it from them as she aims to get Rebecca thrown in prison.
More problems and more lies when the judge won’t let Annalise look at the records of the abortion clinic that Lila went to prior to her death and then she’s forced to lie to her lover, Nate, when he asks her point blank if she knows something about Sam’s disappearance. And then, we have lies from Laurel too who tells the police that Sam used to look at her in a sexual manner and then we see her pumping Frank for questions just to find out what Annalise knows. These students sure are good at planting the seed of suspicion.
It’s a dangerous game and Connor wants out, he wants to work with Michaela to turn Wes and Rebecca in for Sam’s murder. They are technically in the right! Well, forgetting the fact that they saw their friends kill a guy and then lied to the police about it, but it’s not like a technicality matters, right? While those two are considering throwing everybody under the bus, some solid wins get secured for the team – Michaela figures out that security footage of the clinic Lila went to could be used as evidence while Frank delivers news that Lila’s foetus was indeed Sam’s.
Could it have all been for nothing though? After looking relieved when Frank tells her, Annalise is forced to explain to him what happened. Meanwhile, during Asher’s police interview he tells them that he saw Connor’s car outside of the Keating’s house when he showed up to retrieve the trophy that Michaela had stolen from him earlier in the evening. Though, during Bonnie’s interview she tells the police that Sam knew Lila was pregnant and that he made a pass at her to stop her from telling that fact to Annalise. Whether the police believe her story however, is yet to be seen.
Cut to a bit of good news and the footage from the clinic not only shows that Lila was there, but that Sam had shown up too and was clearly quite unhappy with her. In the courtroom, the woman on the desk in the clinic heaps more dirt on Sam’s name when she explains that not only did he seem angry at Lila, but that he was trying to force her to get an abortion that she most definitely did not want. The whole things allows Annalise to get the court to appoint a forensic expert to check out Sam’s laptop too. Oh, and Michaela explains away Connor’s parking spot by saying that they got out at the Keating’s and walked to the bonfire from there!
Flash forward to the next day in court and it’s all kicking off. Connor is still pushing the ‘let’s sell them out!’ thing to Michaela, saying that they’ll need Laurel to do it and Frank has just dumped Annalise right in it by yelling at Laurel (who’s playing coy) for keeping Sam’s murder a secret. With the court bustling and Michaela and Connor stepping in to convince her to join their plan, Laurel doesn’t have a chance to tell Wes about anything. Court is in session and the verdict says…that Sam was at the murder location at the time of the murder, alright! The verdict is also that Rebecca is now free, hall-flippin-lujah.
As for the rest of that drama, it seems that Laurel is going ahead with Connor and Michaela’s plan. Well, sort of. They pull up to the police station only to be greeted by Wes and Annalise, as tipped off by Laurel. Annalise convinces them to drop it because she knows everything, even if she won’t tell them how she knows it. They agree and she says they’ll help them get away with it too.
So yay! Our many musketeers can live a happy life (until the next episode airs, anyway). Their class has the final assignment for the year (to figure out how four people can get away with murder in unusual circumstances), Rebecca and Wes celebrate Christmas around an adorable little tree, Laurel reconnects with her sort of on/off boyfriend and Annalise goes home.
Wait, did I say that they’ll live a happy life until the next episode? Just kidding! Sam’s sister shows up right at the police station (after Connor has finished his interview) and tells them that everything his wife says is a lie. Connor lets Annalise know, but this one is going to get ugly.
The Gay
There was limited gay in this episode, sadly. Connor and his ex boyfriend had a stern word or three, as Connor’s lie of being a drug addict was brought up, so it seems unlikely that they’ll be getting back together anytime soon.
Also, in terms of subtext we had Bonnie offering Annalise a shoulder to cry on if she needs it. That hardly means that Bonnie is queer for certain but I’ll be holding out for #BisexualBonnieWinterbottom until it happens.
The Ugly
There’s nothing to be said about HTGAWM on the ugly front. As usual, this was a good episode and if you aren’t watching the show already then you really should fix that.
