'How To Get Away With Murder' Recap: Blood Work and No Play

Warning: This recap for the “I Want You to Die” episode of How To Get Away With Murder contains spoilers.

“I want you to die” is not a phrase we use in conversation very often. For one thing, it is considered rude, but for another, there aren’t too many people that we want to die, let alone would be willing to say so to their faces. I could see someone saying "I want you to die” to an opponent at the start of their first round in a Mortal Kombat-style supernatural street fight. Personally I haven’t said "I want you to die” since the time I came face to face with the bobcat that killed my parents. But in this week’s episode of How To Get Away With Murder, Bonnie borderline HISSED that phrase directly in Annalise’s face just after Annalise told her she loved her. It was one of the harshest, rawest, and most disturbing bits of verbal terror this show has displayed yet. Just another classic, heartwarming moment from our friends at How To Get Away With Murder!

“I Want You to Die” was also the title of this week’s episode, and it featured many of this show’s most beloved and crowd-pleasing topics, including but not limited to: euthanasia, gang rape, child porn, Grindr killers, splatted corpses, and slander against the late Mother Teresa. In other words, not the most pleasant episode. Yet still plenty entertaining? Let’s talk about it!

We began with the usual green-tinged flash-forward, but it was just another shot of people leaving the scene of the crime, no big deal. In my opinion the episode TRULY began when Annalise flashed a picture of Mother Teresa onscreen and asked her class to talk SO MUCH s–t on her.

The idea was that any person could be painted as a guilty sociopath with sufficient motive for murder, and that included the notorious villain Mother Teresa. But this scene was especially relevant now that Annalise and the gang had discovered the identity of the secret Hapstall child and immediately set about proving that he was probably a psycho killer. As it would turn out, that was an easier task than they’d expected.

Meanwhile Bonnie was extremely ticked at Asher for having been involved in a gang rape back in college. Even though he pleaded that he’d merely been the party planner that night and had not actually done anything with regard to the gang rape, she pointed out that he had not actually done anything with regard to the rape, and that right there was the problem. TOLD.

Emily Sinclair’s favorite hobby is just leaning against a wall throwing mean mugs at Annalise in the courthouse, so it was extremely enjoyable when Annalise walked up and told her “You’re messing with the wrong bitch.” This was in regards to the fact that Emily was now pursuing charges against Nate for having provided his deceased wife sleeping pills prior to her death. It was an annoying turn of events for Annalise, but on the upside? The return of Famke Janssen to defend Nate in court! Yes, a woman died of cancer and Nate had broken anti-euthanasia laws possibly, but whatever it takes to get Famke Janssen back in the mix is a great thing!

Then Laurel and Frank started humping in the hallway while the rest of the team was sitting four feet away, and Annalise was extremely grossed out when she walked in the door and caught them. I agreed with her here; sometimes after a long day of work you just want to come home and NOT see two weirdos humping in your foyer, you know? Take it to Travelodge.

The case of the week involved a woman whose husband committed suicide, and charges were brought against the woman’s ex-husband for allegedly talking the new husband into it. Or whatever, didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was that the widow was played by the great Susan Walters of Teen Wolf fame (and also The Vampire Diaries and Seinfeld and most other shows in general)! This scene was also great because Annalise basically made up a lie about the widow’s dead husband being a drunk, then shouted at her about it, then just sat down like her work was done here. Have you ever noticed that sometimes Annalise is the worst? I definitely noticed it in this scene.

I’m surprised this didn’t happen sooner: Oliver just straight-up decided to start hanging out at Annalise’s office full time. Considering he’s a de facto member of the team, it was only a matter of time. I liked when Annalise sort of gave him a grateful head nod about it, that was nice. But I guess Connor did NOT approve of Oliver agreeing to this, probably because the more he hangs out there the more chance he has of either being murdered or somehow getting caught up in a murder. Both things could put a strain on their relationship.

At one point Eve was at the hearing to decide whether Nate’s dead wife’s blood should be tested for drugs, and she straight-up threw the hearing by refusing to cross-examine the main nurse lady. This was very eyebrow raising, but it turned out she had a plan!

Then the gang discovered an extremely douchey and embarrassing video Asher had made on the weekend of the gang rape, and let’s just say that the gang rape was the only thing worse than that video. I loved when Bonnie ran in the room and shamed everyone into stop watching it. Nobody needed that in their lives. “White people should NEVER rap” is not a thing that Bonnie said, but I wish she had.

Laurel was tired of Annalise thinking she was junk, so she made a point of figuring out if anybody else had been involved in the widow’s husband’s suicide. She did this by donning her best Sofia Vergara impersonation and acting confused around a doorman. This was how she discovered that the widow had been SLEEPING with the prosecutor!

Meaning, HE had been the one to convince the dead dude to commit suicide, and he had then tried to pin it on the widow’s ex-husband. Anyway, he pleaded the Fifth and it was all over. Laurel then sidled up to Annalise to try to get credit for saving the day, but Annalise told her to stop being needy and go back to work. There was a compliment buried in there somewhere about how when Annalise ignores an intern it’s because she trusts that they’re doing good work. Definitely a heartwarming work environment they’ve got.

Even though Eve had lost the hearing about whether Nate’s dead wife’s blood could be tested for drugs, she had a reason to do so: It kept them in the good graces of the main nurse witness, which worked out pretty well when Nate asked her for a solid. Lo and behold, that blood test came up negative! Nate was exonerated and Emily Sinclair looked like a loser once again. Moral of the story: Eve is easily as crafty and amoral as Annalise, and they truly make quite a pair.

I loved when they openly fantasized about quitting this terrible world and running away together, before sadly realizing that will never happen. But at least they made out passionately? Good for you, ladies.

Asher was still trying to convince Bonnie that he wasn’t a bad person, but he made the mistake of bringing up that he knew about her childhood sexual abuse. Do you want to know how well that went over? Not very well at all! Next thing we knew Bonnie was sitting in Annalise’s office drinking straight vodka and waiting for her to return.

Their conversation was just a brutal, drunken mess. Annalise of course tried to explain that she’d taken advantage of Bonnie’s nightmarish past for the common good, and that it was just yet another thing that they’d had to do to survive. But all Bonnie could do was wish DEATH upon Annalise.

Yes, this was partly due to the vodka, but her point was that in trying to save Bonnie’s life Annalise may have ruined it, and that Sam would’ve never done that to her. Hence, Annalise should be the dead one, not Sam. Ouch! This conversation will probably make their work relationship a little more awkward, but only a little. You know how it is with these people.

So the gang decided they needed to obtain the DNA of the new Hapstall child in order to compare it to a DNA sample found at the scene of the crime. So Oliver impersonated Connor and set them up on a coffee date via DudeForDude.com. (I CANNOT with those screen names though). This was not a great idea considering there was a very real chance that this guy was an actual murderer, so at the last second Connor backed out and fled the scene. But as it turned out, the guy was nowhere near that coffee place…

He was in Oliver’s apartment!

Yeah, that is not a good sign. As we’d learned, he had been hacking Oliver right back, so clearly there was some kind of hacker summit going on. Or maybe he was just a murderer? Murderers tend to show up on this show from time to time, so anything’s possible.

The final flash-forward involved Wes (with a gun!) and Laurel chasing Michaela and Connor, seemingly with hostile intent, but their chase was interrupted by Emily Sinclair’s body splatting on the ground behind them like a human-shaped water balloon! And then when they looked up onto the balcony above, guess who they all saw?

Bonnie, what you doing up there, girl? Do we really think Bonnie is turning into a bit of a mass murderer lately? And honestly, how complicated can this flash-forward possibly get? The important thing is that Annalise gets shot, and then everyone else just runs around the house for a couple minutes. Who knows? Apparently we’ll learn what exactly will happen in two weeks, so that’ll be a relief. We can only puzzle over these green clips for so long, you know?

Overall “I Want You to Die” was a dark, compelling episode completely in line with what this show does best. Famke Janssen remains an utter MVP, as she’s not only got great charisma, she’s also a wonderful foil for Annalise. Bonnie’s increasingly a bummer of a character, but Liza Weil is a truly gifted actress and it remains compelling to see her cycle through one million emotions in each episode. Do we think this flash-forward will elegantly tie the season together? Or will it just prove to be the cluster-F it’s always seemed? Stay tuned, everyone.

What did YOU think of “I Want You to Die”?

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