‘How To Get Away With Murder’ Season Finale Raises Still More Questions
The season finale of ABC’s How To Get Away With Murder had a central question swirling among fans: would anyone die?
The answer arrived late in the episode, titled Please Say No One Else Is Dead, closing out season five of the series with enough twists, surprises and cliffhangers to indicate it’s highly likely there will be a season six, even though no official word on a renewal has been given.
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*** SPOILER ALERT: If you have not seen the finale of season five, don’t read beyond this point. ***
To get right to the central question, it appears that Caplan & Gold managing partner Emmett Crawford (Timothy Hutton) is the episode’s designated victim of foul play. Crawford is about to have a drink with Tegan (Amirah Vann), who already suspects him in the death of Nate Sr. and is pretending to be interested in him in order to get to the truth.
Crawford pours her a drink, but Tegan finds a convenient excuse to take a momentary powder, telling him that she’s “a gin girl” when he offers some scotch.
She then gets a phone call from Annalise (Viola Davis) and simultaneously discovers that Crawford has just been fingered on live television by Governor Birkhead – herself under FBI investigation – as the person behind the deaths of Nathaniel Leahy Sr. and district attorney Ronald Miller.
We then cut back to Crawford, writhing on the office floor and apparently dying from drinking some poisoned scotch, no doubt supplied by Xavier Castillo (Laurel’s brother, played by Gerard Celasco), who we’ve seen is the actual manipulative bad guy behind everything. It was Castillo who visited Nate Sr. in jail shortly before his death, and he was also the man who manipulated DA Miller into participating in the night-time transfer scheme that led to Nate Sr.’s murder.
But is Castillo actually the person who spearheaded the killing of Nate Sr., or is he acting as the go-between on behalf of someone else? He refers to a mysterious “Plan B” in a conversation with Gov. Birkhead shortly before Crawford’s apparent poisoning.
Meanwhile, it’s unclear whether Crawford is really dead, although he’s not looking good.
The other big twist of the episode is the disappearance of Laurel Castillo’s baby at the very end of the episode, along with Laurel herself, who is on the street with Annalise (Viola Davis) shortly after visiting her brother. One minute she’s there, then disappears like Keyser Soze while Annalise is distracted by a phone call. Was she part of an intricate Castilllo family plot? She’s already under suspicion by the others, who feel she’s cutting a deal with the FBI to save herself.
The episode’s teaser noted that “Annalise and her team need to get to the truth before the truth gets them.” They’re closer to reaching that goal, but the finale left them a bit short. Season six is likely when the answers arrive.
“Please Say No One Else Is Dead” was written by Joe Fazzio, and directed by Stephen Cragg.
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