Welcome to another How to Get Away With Murder recap! HTGAWM also known as the show where sometimes people aren’t getting away with murder, they’re being heavily considered as the suspects instead.
This week on the show, Annalise puts her game face on and the police continue to bust her for a murder that she didn’t actually commit.
As always, the recap is split into The Plot, The Gay and The Ugly so read on to find out what went down this week.
The Plot
If you’ve been watching the series from the start, then you’ll know that Annalise’s number one rule of lawyering is not to ask your client whether or not they did it or not. Well you can expect that one to be in full force this episode when Annalise is investigated for the murder of Sam (her husband, whose cremated, mashed up remains were discovered last episode) and she takes on the case of a mob boss embroiled in a drug trafficking scandal.
“I have never lost you a case [in 15 years]” is the line she pulls up when mob boss Leo tries to drop her when he grows concerned about Annalise’s (rumoured) murderous antics. She’s good at convincing him and his nephew (the one on trial) though and so she rallies the troops (her students, y’know, the ones who actually killed Sam) to get him off the hook.
Step one, go through every bit of info that explains why the container (the one with the drugs in) was chosen for a weigh in as part of a ‘random’ check. Funnily enough, only one container was chosen that day although the officials usually check 15! There’s a turn up for the books when Frank and Asher realise that the officers who showed up to weigh the container actually showed up before the container was weighed…sort of like they’d been tipped off? Yup, and as Laurel discovers that a man named Pedro was working the yard that day but quit his job two days later to look after a sick relative, we know that there was a mole.
Fast forward to Annalise in court and the federal agent responsible for the mole starts threatening her, tells her not to pursue the criminal informant angle or she’ll find herself in more hot water with regards to the murder of her husband. But this is Annalise, she can’t back down! She probably doesn’t even know how to! After discovering that Pedro had actually been partying it up in New Jersey when he was supposedly looking after his relative, Annalise decides to press the issue anyway. She pulls him onto the stand, interrogating him until he confesses that not only was he told to weigh the container but that he was promised a green card (an important citizenship document) for doing so as well. But whoever told him to such a thing? Prosecutor Hobbs! Also known as the federal agent who threatened Annalise earlier.
Like Annalise herself said, she’s never lost a case for the mob and she wasn’t about to start now.
As for those murder charges against her. Things are looking bad (to say the least) when Annalise sends Bonnie to have a search warrant thrown out but she’s literally laughed out of court and so the search will take place anyway. The police come; they search every inch of the house and find the scales off of the trophy (the thing used to kill Sam) but don’t deem it suspicious. Unfortunately, the nervous look on Annalise’s face and the way she’s staring at a section of the floor make the police start swabbing the floor for DNA traces. They don’t find a single thing – Annalise scrubbed it to within an inch of its life after Sam’s blood spilled all over it.
Things still aren’t done yet though, as the police are examining the fibres found amongst Sam’s frazzled remains. Featured in the case file of Sam’s murder is the fact that there were carpet fibres mixed up with his corpse and the fact that he was killed with a blunt object; most likely a metal one. Bonnie puts two and two together and makes four, noting that not only was the carpet in Annalise’s hallway missing when she showed up the day after Sam disappeared but that she knew it was odd when the police found the scale from the trophy too. She gives Annalise an ultimatum and says that the police will soon realise Sam’s body was dumped in the woods and that she won’t get away with covering for her students. “Don’t let them ruin you” she advises.
But what can she do? Annalise promised her students that she’d protect them.
Soon enough, the police determine that Sam’s body had been burnt in a woods somewhere, so of course they investigate the conveniently located woods near the college campus. And what should turn up? A ring! Could it be the ring that Michaela lost on the night they disposed of Sam’s body? After a panicky few moments from viewers and students alike, the police dust the ring for prints and find one from Nate (Annalise’s lover) as she had Frank plant the print and the ring the previous night. Nate gets arrested for murder and while Sam’s sister is still angry at Annalise, saying that he’s the reason her brother is dead, the fact that it’s being written off as a crime of passion gets her (and her students) off the hook.
The episode closes with Annalise crying in her bed, on the phone to her mum asking her for help.
The Gay
There was little gay this week as Connor was too busy being a nervous wreck to go and she his sort-of boyfriend Oliver. But! There was new info in the ‘bisexual Bonnie Winterbottom’ stakes!
Apparently, no one told Bonnie that Sam’s body had been found and she had to find out for herself the following morning. She’s in tears in the kitchen but we already know that she disliked Sam and wasn’t interested in him like that (he kissed her but she was not about that life). The reason she keeps sobbing is because she thinks that Annalise doesn’t trust her any more. So that, along with the fact that Bonnie desperately wants to protect Annalise from the police (even if it means she has to dump her students in it) makes it seems as though Bonnie’s concern stems from more than just platonic, friendly feelings.
Also this tweet from Oscar nominated actress Gabourey Sidibe proves that I’m not the only one on the good ship #BisexualBonnie so there’s that!
The Ugly
Other than some ugly morals? There was nothing ugly about How to Get Away With Murder this week, it was a perfect episode.
