'How To Get Away With Murder' Recap: Psychopath To Enlightenment

If you tend to spend all of your time with a small group of friends who are always occupied with dark, high-stakes drama, every now and again it might be a good idea to ask yourself, “Am I in a cult?” Not enough people do this, it turns out! Sure, it’s fun to have a circle of pals to meet up with at the bar, or to play fantasy football with, or to, I don’t know, throw a taco potluck. But too often these kinds of meet-ups can quickly devolve into the stockpiling of weapons, ritualistic sacrifices, and complete surrender to a charismatic guru. Happens to the best of us! But the risk of accidentally joining a cult runs much higher with law students, at least if How To Get Away With Murder is any indication.

In this week’s delightfully titled episode, “Skanks Get Shanked,” all the signs pointed to the Keating 5 being an active cult. As Connor helpfully pointed out, their circle is maintained by a powerful leader who manipulates each of them using a series of rewards and punishments. Further, they have now straight-up murdered together and have attempted to keep it covered up out of peer pressure and wanting to protect Annalise. The fact that the case of the week also involved a ritualistic murder by teen girls only served a strong reminder that there’s a fine line between what Annalise’s gang is doing and just your basic Manson Family gang.

Related: ‘HTGAWM’ Recap: The Unbearable Lightness of Being Horny

Though not nearly as horny an episode as last week’s sexual fiesta, “Skanks Get Shanked” was a fun, uncomfortably dark episode. Let’s talk about it!

We began in some kind of nightmarish, red-and-blue M.C. Escher painting!

Just kidding, it was just the flash-forward castle… But this time the cops and ambulances had arrived! We learned that Prosecutor Emily was definitely dead, and that Annalise was fading fast. But just when the EMTs were about to bust out the electroshock paddles, we cut to these bozos:

It was quite a gaggle of guilt-stricken weirdos in that car!

Meanwhile, in modern times, Annalise was just trying to relax:

But not even her bath time was sacred anymore, as her phone started buzzing… and it was Nate!

Except j/k it was not Nate. It was NATE’S WIFE. And she wanted to meet Annalise in person for an interesting reason.

So, in a show about moral dilemmas, this was pretty next-level. Nate’s terminally ill wife wanted Annalise to kill her, as she felt Annalise owed her the common courtesy after Annalise had slept with her husband and then framed him for murder. But something tells me Nate’s wife ALSO got the sense that Annalise might seem pretty comfortable with human demise? Still though, Annalise was going to have to think about it. Mercy killing is not something anyone wants to jump into.

The murder of the week involved a teenage girl who stabbed her friend to death, possibly at the behest of two mean girls. The idea that a group of friends could go all mob-justice on one of their own definitely hit a bit too close to home with the Keating 5 (well, 4, not including Asher), especially Connor.

While stopping short of calling Annalise 2015′s answer to David Koresh, this was still the first time he’d exhibited any kind of reluctance to obey Annalise. And, as I mentioned earlier, he DID make tons of good points.

Meanwhile Michaela’s journey into being chill about sex involved shouting “Spank me, Daddy!” to her new boyfriend Levi over the phone. But then of course the accused murderer sibling walked up behind her when she did it, which was awkward because as we’d later find out she has a major ladyboner for him. Oh, Michaela.

But what Michaela didn’t know was that Wes and Levi had a secret pact to work together and uncover whatever it was Annalise had done to Rebecca. And adding the later involvement of Nate, this was one hunky team of amateur sleuths!

Then Laurel spoke Spanish on the phone, probably to just remind us that she speaks Spanish sometimes.

A big piece of evidence in the case against the teenage girl was a video she and her friends had made in which they gloated about murdering their friend, and at first Annalise noticed that the accused girl was just aping whatever her friends said, but that line of defense backfired in the courtroom when the girl took offense to the idea of being a follower.

And then she stood up in court and wished death upon her former besties. I am not a lawyer, but in my opinion that is not a great way to win a case! In fact, she immediately lost the case and was dragged out of the courtroom like an agitated possum.

It was later revealed that Connor himself had supplied this video to the opposing council, mostly because he believed their client really WAS a murderer and he was suddenly feeling like he wanted to start preventing murders rather than simply cover for them. Annalise was obviously livid, pointing out that it didn’t matter if the girl was guilty or not… “We swore an oath to mount a vigorous defense, and yes, that includes winning.” But I think because Connor had been correct about the girl being a secret psychopath — “psychopath” was the word of the episode, as an expert witness earlier defined it in a way that described everyone in Annalise’s life — she ended up going easy on him for sabotaging the case.

When it came to this murderous siblings case, Michaela was enlisted to kinda-sorta flirt with the brother in order to find out if he was sleeping with his sister or nah. As it turned out, he wasn’t — they were saving themselves for their inheritance party or something — and to prove it, Annalise subjected the sister to a gynecological exam. Yep, that’s where Annalise’s defense was at these days: Slut-shame prevention.

But now it was time for her to decide whether she was going to help kill Nate’s wife or not. She had Frank procure her some sleeping pills, but ultimately she decided that in this specific scenario she was not super into seeing someone’s life end. But hilariously enough, it wasn’t out of moral obligation, it was because Annalise herself had talked herself out of suicide, and therefore Nate’s wife was also unworthy of euthanasia: “You’re a better woman than me, and if I don’t deserve to die, then you really don’t.” So uh, yeah. A terminally ill woman experiencing nonstop excruciating pain and zero optimism was one person Annalise would be troubled to see die. Or something? It was probably the right choice, but as with most of Annalise’s decisions, it was complicated. Anyway, better luck next time, Nate’s wife!

Towards the end of the episode Asher suddenly became important to the plot again!

After Bonnie traced his phone calls, she discovered that he’d been secretly scheming with prosecutor Emily about bringing Annalise down. It turned out he’d been very aware of his fellow peers’ whispers and cover-ups, and was determined to throw every last one of them under the bus. So, thinking quickly, Bonnie did what she had to do:

She took the credit for Sam’s murder! Not sure where this plotline is going, but at least Asher will have more to do than crack bro jokes.

Meanwhile, Wes and Levi figured out that Rebecca’s body was probably buried at a local cemetery, as Frank had thrice phoned a buddy who worked there on the day Rebecca disappeared. (Assuming this cemetery was where Frank took ALL his murder victims, there must be a mass grave somewhere in there.) But when Nate showed up to consult with Wes on this new info, guess who spotted them cavorting together? That’s right, Annalise! Because they were meeting directly in front of the hospital where she’d visited Nate’s wife! Would you believe it? Of all the luck.

The final flash-forward moment involved Annalise still sorta dying in the ambulance while Nate and the kids struggled to figure out their next move. At this point Michaela finally got a hold of herself and then walked into her apartment to find the murder brother standing there looking scared and possibly blood-soaked. Okay, so he’s involved too. Shocker!

“Skanks Get Shanked” was, as you might expect, fast, dark, and jam-packed with plotlines. But it was a great example of how well this show incorporates cases of the week. The teen girl murder party caused the main characters to question their own relationships and standing with Annalise, while also giving us the chance to do the same. I admit to getting sliiightly impatient with the flash forwards — simply revealing the involvement of another character isn’t the same as pushing a story forward — but that’s a compliment to the show. I’m impatient because I’m interested! I want answers, I want darkness, I want pathos. Thrilled to see this show is still serious about bringing all three.

What did YOU think about “Skanks Get Shanked”?

How To Get Away With Murder airs Thursdays at 10 p.m. on ABC.