'How To Get Away With Murder' Season Finale Recap: Mother of Mercy

Warning: This recap for the “Anna Mae” episode of How To Get Away With Murder contains spoilers.

“Not as good as Season 1” is one of the more bankrupt critical opinions out there. First of all, with a few notable exceptions, DUH. That was the season in which you originally fell in love with a show. Nobody’s prettier than your first crush, you know? But too many people mistake the thrill of discovery for actual quality, so it can be very easy to feel underwhelmed even by something that’s demonstrably better than what came before. “Good” is never quite as fun as “new.”

In many ways the second season of How To Get Away With Murder has been better and stronger than what came before. All the characters have been enriched, their relationships to each other deepened; the show’s procedural plotlines have been better integrated or tied-in thematically. Its wit has been sharpened, its emotions enhanced. But if we are being honest, one thing the second season did not do as well as the first was its overall serialized plotline. At the risk of reminding you of Season 1′s constant flashes of a flipping cheerleader, there was just something so much more compelling about the disposal of a body during a pep rally than there was with… well, all the chaos surrounding that green-lit mansion. The Hapstall drama has been maddeningly watery, and an over-reliance on flashbacks to provide plot twists has felt not only implausible but a momentum killer. Ideally we the viewer should be learning new information at the same time as the characters, but for the second half of this season (and continuing on into this finale) we were being shown information certain characters have ALWAYS known. No fair!

That being said, it’s like “Anna Mae” knew all this? Despite being a season finale, this episode scaled way back on whatever insane twists and set-ups we’ve come to expect of HTGAWM and instead focused on emotional fallout and character reveals. And despite the finale’s comparatively low-key nature, it was all pretty wonderful. Let’s talk about it!

We began the morning after Annalise had learned the truth behind Lila Stanhope’s murder and had suddenly flown the coop, so everyone was worried. Also Laurel was hungover.

Sure, Laurel might not be able to keep any secrets when she’s wasted, but credit where credit’s due: Her hangover hair is very A+.

So remember that brief non-sequitur of a scene last week in which Frank and his floppy flashback wig did sex with a random lady at the hotel? Well, we didn’t see how that entire scene played out… They didn’t have sex at all! Instead she handed him a duffel bag full of money and told him to get real. As it turned out, she was working with that rich dude and needed Frank to be their inside man with regard to Annalise. Basically she turned Frank into a gigolo spy.

Then Annalise woke up in her childhood bedroom, which was filled to the brim with debate trophies and Whitney Houston posters. Also Annalise’s sister woke her up by crawling into bed with her like a creep. If Annalise had returned to Memphis in order to find peace and quiet, she would not be getting it here.

Probably the biggest morsel of family drama that Annalise encountered was the arrival of her father — who’d abused Annalise and her mother many years ago — and the discovery that he and Annalise’s mother were BACK TOGETHER.

It’s obviously upsetting to see anyone rekindle a romance with their abuser, but, as Annalise’s mother protested, “I call it nice!” Okay, fine, we’ve all been there I guess. But Annalise was not stoked. Even worse, Annalise’s other had thrown a family reunion party in her honor and everyone was badgering Annalise about being too famous to come home anymore. To add insult to awkwardness, one man at the party was wearing one of Sam’s old suits. No amount of fried food or Kool-Aid was going to make this day better.

Back at the law firm, everyone was still freaking out about Annalise’s absence, especially because it had come to their attention that there was a warrant out for her arrest! There was an arbitrary group decision made that Oliver should NOT hack into the police department and find out what the warrant was for, so this left plenty of time for everyone to sit around and either hook up or almost hook up. For example, Wes and Laurel had another “moment” (which was fortunately interrupted by Frank). No me gusta.

And then Michaela and Asher nearly had another quickie while attempting to discuss their initial quickie. The main takeaway here? Law students are horny and they WILL bone down under any circumstance.

Then Frank and Bonnie got drunk in the basement and had a heart to heart about working for Annalise and, I don’t know, sleeping with 22-year-olds? They both had a lot in common in this regard.

Because Annalise hadn’t been answering her phone, Nate decided to fly to Memphis to tell her about the warrant. (People on this show love to fly across the country like it’s no big deal.) I loved that Annalise’s mother referred to him as “a gentleman caller” and also how she and Annalise’s sister openly lusted after him. Fair enough! Unfortunately the ensuing family dinner didn’t go well, particularly when Annalise’s mother began badgering Annalise about never having had kids. Whoooops!

I loved when Annalise got up from the table and danced with her family while having the saddest expression on her face. But as it turned out, Annalise’s mother wasn’t saying brutal things just for the heck of it… She hadn’t actually known about Annalise’s pregnancy and accident.

This was obviously pretty far-fetched, but whatever. This family does love its secrets. After Annalise finally admitted to her mother what had happened, she explained that she simply didn’t want to tell her mother about her son until he’d been born. Cool way to keep your family in the dark about one of the biggest moments of your life! But I loved when Annalise’s mother heard the news and immediately began badgering Annalise about it, specifically claiming that Annalise was now being haunted by a dead baby ghost and it was just bad juju. Hard to disagree with science.

That’s when we learned (via flashback) the dark truth behind how exactly Frank had betrayed Annalise all those years ago. He’d planted a listening device in Annalise’s room, and that’s how the rich dude had discovered that Annalise was planning to warn Wes’ mother away from helping in the case. Next thing we knew, the man had ordered a red Jeep Cherokee to CRASH into Annalise. That’s right, it hadn’t been an “accident” at all, but a concentrated effort to murder Annalise. Uncool, Frank! He was gonna have some ‘splaining to do if Annalise ever found this out.

The gang eventually learned that the warrant for Annalise’s arrest had been kept confidential because the police were using a secret informant to build a case against her. So then Oliver got all punk rock and decided to hack into the mainframe without Connor’s permission, and they all discovered that the secret informant had been… Caleb Hapstall! Because of course it was. The Hapstall case will never die. It will outlive us all and will never bother to be interesting.

In a stunner of a scene, Annalise’s mother roused Annalise from a deep sleep and brought her outside for some emotional catharsis. By that I mean she instructed Annalise to write a note to her dead child and then bury it in the yard. It was a simple gesture (and we didn’t actually get to see what Annalise had written), but we learned that the baby’s name was to be Sam. Also, this was one of Viola Davis’ very best scenes of her entire career and she is a gift that we as viewers maybe don’t truly deserve and dang I’m crying again. So good.

The next morning Annalise finally charged her phone and terrifyingly enough it said “You have 23 voicemails.” NOBODY wants to see those words, ever. And those voicemails weren’t just from automated telemarketers, they were from co-workers and interns warning her about the sh*t-storm to come. But to her credit, the instant she found out that Caleb Hapstall was attempting to get her thrown in prison, she immediately hopped a flight back to Philadelphia and TOOK CARE OF BIZ.

And while what Annalise did next could be considered “quick thinking” it could ALSO be considered “convenient information hidden from us that suddenly could be used to Annalise’s advantage.”

Like, remember that time Philip Jessup jumped out from under the bed like a horror movie villain and then tackled Annalise and she kicked him in the face but then she didn’t seem all that rattled afterward? Well it turned out it was because he merely wanted to have a conversation with her and give her a flash drive containing footage of Caleb Hapstall murdering his mother. So yeah, this new twist held that Caleb Hapstall was a serial killer and Annalise had just sorta been sitting on this information in case the district attorney came for her.

The strategy to reveal true facts at an opportune time ended up working, and Annalise was not charged with anything. Unfortunately for Caleb Hapstall, he then made a mess of the hotel bathroom and the cleanup would probably be charged to his credit card as an incidental.

Then Oliver got shady. While Connor was in the bathroom scrubbing his body in preparation for a homosensual romp, Oliver hacked into Connor’s Hotmail and deleted an acceptance letter from Stanford law school. To make matters even shadier, he then accepted a blowie from Connor right afterward! Something tells me this relationship is not as healthy as we once thought.

Back in the day, Frank had been so overcome with guilt over his involvement in Annalise’s miscarriage that he felt compelled to tearfully admit this involvement to Sam. Now, Sam was pretty steamed when he heard about this, so he made Frank pinkie-swear to be his right-hand man or whatever forever, and THAT’S why Frank ended up murdering Lila Stanhope last season. Which, okay? I didn’t know that plotline was still being thought about or cared about, but there it is. More explanations. Whatever the case, even now Frank still felt terrible about everything and he hadn’t even spent any of the money he’d earned by selling Annalise out. (Hence the giant suitcase of cash he carts around but never does anything with). Next thing we knew, Laurel came knockin’ and discovered that Frank and that cash were GONE. But where did they go? I’m hoping he went to the Sandals resort in Jamaica, it seems nice.

Finally, Wes decided to go confront his likely biological father. It did not go great.

It’s always awkward when you have to inform someone that you’re their bastard son, but that awkwardness is compounded when one of you is suddenly shot in the head by an unseen gunman.

Wes’ father was not looking great lying there on the sidewalk with much of his head missing, and Wes’ entire outfit was now ruined as well. But let’s just hope that in those very fraught 20 seconds, Wes had been able to get all the closure he needed from his father. Just kidding, it’s just another murder for everyone to stay stressed about for next season. But who did it? Was it Frank attempting to right his wrongs? Was it Eve attempting to impress Annalise again? Was it the other Hapstall sibling, because why not? Doesn’t matter. Let’s revisit this question in the fall, okay?

“Anna Mae” was Annalise’s original birth name, so to name this episode after her was a huge clue that the show has had deeper, more emotional priorities this season. And while it definitely did seek to wrap up several plotlines, it did so very swiftly so as to allow us more time with Annalise’s various dysfunctional families, both the one at home and the one in her home office. While this show will always have a sort of whiz-bang sensationalism, this finale (and season) proved that the only way it can continue to raise the stakes is by making us care more deeply for its characters. For that reason alone, Season 2 has been a major success. But quick question: How DOES one get away with murder, anyway? Because after two seasons I am still flummoxed.

What did YOU think of “Anna Mae”?

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