'How To Get Away With Murder' Recap: Mommy Complex

Warning: This recap for the “It’s a Trap” episode of How To Get Away With Murder contains spoilers.

What is the proper amount of time to wait to tell a new romantic partner that you’re a murderer? It’s certainly not a first date conversation, and we all know that second or third dates are already fraught with other stresses and concerns, like what to order at Red Lobster. Fourth date? Seventh date? Let’s be real, the fact that you have committed murder WILL come up at some point, so there’s a certain logic in divulging this information as early into the relationship as possible, mostly because for a lot of people murder is still a deal-breaker. But again, what is the etiquette here? I am not Miss Manners and haven’t claimed to be since the identity theft acquittal, but in my opinion the best time to tell your new romantic partner that you’ve committed murder is in that time frame after you’ve introduced this person to your friends, but before your family. You know? And here’s one cute possibility to keep in mind: Maybe BOTH of you have committed murder? If that’s the case then good for you! You are probably a character on How To Get Away With Murder.

In this week’s episode titled “It’s a Trap,” Laurel found out the hard way that Frank wasn’t perfect, and by that I mean he was an admitted murderer. Of course, Laurel had been involved in a couple murders herself, so her tearful rejection of his murder hobby verged on hypocrisy. And this wasn’t the only romance threatened by the participants’ previous murders. Bonnie fully dumped Asher, possibly owing to the fact that he had murdered a district attorney once. And Annalise had to really make the case for Nate to get back together with her despite all her murders. It’s all pretty dizzying, but “It’s a Trap” really impressed upon us that murder can be a real boner-killer sometimes. Also it was a pretty good episode in general. Let’s talk about it!

We began with Wes attempting to make sense of that green folder Annalise had left on his welcome mat last week.

It was just a big stack of exposition, but none of it made sense! Would it have killed her to leave a Post-It note explaining what exactly had happened ten years ago?

It turned out that the big drama that had surrounded Wes’ mother’s suicide had to do with a handsome, wealthy man who’d been accused of murdering his wife. The man was played by Wilson Bethel from Hart of Dixie, but he was nearly unrecognizable with a shirt on. Anyway, the gist was that Wes’ mother had been a witness to the crime somehow, and her testimony was going to provide an alibi for this rich guy, but she was reluctant to testify. So far so good!

Meanwhile the video that Philip Jessup had emailed to Connor was starting to stress everyone out. For one thing, it proved that they’d all been liars when it came to their most recent murder. But Annalise realized that since he hadn’t yet sent it to the police, he probably wasn’t going to ever do it (so as to not implicate himself). Or whatever, I don’t know. But then Philip Jessup decided to blackmail the gang for $1 Million! That is a lot of money to you and me, but still, Annalise did not really give a sh*t. She was still sorta mad at everybody for quitting last week, and she did not have time for this.

Frank admitted to Laurel that he had murdered Lila Stanhope, and the main thing that ticked Laurel off was that maybe Frank had slept with Lila first before murdering her? Frank obviously had not done that, but it was fairly amazing that Laurel was so concerned about him being a cheater. The only thing worse than murder is being unfaithful, duh. Anyway, despite Frank seeming really sorry and also shedding real tears, Laurel stormed out and proceeded to screen his calls so much. Sorry, Frank! Murder is very unchill sometimes.

To distract herself, Laurel decided to help Wes get to the bottom of his mother’s suicide. Next thing we knew, they had hopped a flight to Ohio (!) and were bugging an old lady to let them read all the files and transcripts for the murder trial back in the day.

As it turned out, Annalise had been the rich dude’s attorney and she had recruited Wes’ mom to be a witness in the case, and had kind of manipulated her into thinking they were besties.

Also Frank’s flashback wig needs to be highlighted again this week, because come on.

Back in modern times, the gang decided that they needed to get at Philip Jessup via Catherine Hapstall, and they needed to get at her via Caleb Hapstall. Just when we thought this Hapstall junk was finally finished! To be honest, he was not happy to see Annalise or Michaela when they showed up at his mansion. But they were able to convince him that Catherine had been framed by Philip and maybe this was a good way to get her acquitted, so he decided to go chat with her at the jail.

Unfortunately, she was plenty ticked about her situation and did not seem to want to betray Philip Jessup. Oh well!

Then we were presented with a dizzying, action-packed sequence in which Wes and Laurel read a lot of court transcripts. Fortunately it was intercut with the actual trial, so we got to see the fateful moment when Wes’ mom ditched out on the witness stand.

This obviously screwed up Annalise’s case, and the rich man who had hired her was NOT thrilled.

At this point he used the opportunity to tell her that he only hired her because she was black and pregnant, and also if she failed to acquit his son he would hold it against “your people.” You know, just in case you were wondering whether this wealthy racist misogynist was total garbage or not. (But considering he’s played by Adam Arkin and his son is played by Wilson Bethel, I’m guessing this is not the last we’ve seen of them.)

I loved when Annalise soothed her nerves by going back to her hotel room and eating all the candy. BEEN THERE. Just kidding, I cannot afford to eat mini-bar candy, but it’s always been a dream of mine to eat it someday.

Then Caleb and Michaela sat on the stairs and commiserated about whatever miserable lives they were living these days, then they kissed on the mouth. Love endures!

Unfortunately love does not endure for Asher and Bonnie, the latter of which decided to dump Asher so hard in this episode. She told him she did not want to help him solve his father’s alleged murder, she did not want to be his lawyer, she did not want to be his girlfriend. Then she closed the door and started crying because she was feeling EMOTIONS. But honestly, he did once smear a parking garage with a district attorney, so maybe that’s still on her mind, who knows.

For about five minutes Connor considered transferring to Stanford Law School. Which, that is actually not a bad idea! There is presumably less murder there, and also “Stanford” looks better on a resume than “Middleton.” But then Oliver talked Connor out of transferring and they changed the topic of conversation to being horny and massaging each other’s #butts and junk. Love endures!

I don’t think anybody wants to receive these kinds of text messages, and especially not Laurel. She grumbled in Spanish and did NOT respond. We learned that a lot of this murder stuff lately has been getting on her nerves because she was raised around bad people (is her father El Chapo?) and she was really done with murder in general.

Then this happened:

I don’t even know what to tell you about this. Only that at the end of this moment, they both looked at each other like “Whooops, nope!” and went their separate ways. It’s probably best that we never discuss it again.

Fortunately for Annalise, Nate was finally ready to start getting naked in her bed again, and it was just in time. She’d been so lonely and vulnerable and there’s something slightly sad about sleeping alone on satin sheets. So anyway, yeah, Nate was back in the picture, and the next morning Annalise took advantage of him by asking him to get on her laptop and do some pro bono detective work on a pro boner basis. (I regret that line but I can’t delete it, don’t know how.)

So at first it seemed like Philip Jessup was not going to turn them into the police after they did not send him $1 Million, so Asher started dancing like a real idiot for a second. But then Connor got another email and it was ANOTHER video. But this one was of Annalise and Nate hugging the night before, which meant they were all now being stalked by a serial killer. Stay safe out there, everyone.

The final twist involved a piece of paper that Laurel had secretly found in Ohio… A detective report indicating that Wes’ mother maybe didn’t commit suicide at all… She had possibly been murdered by Wes! This above shot of him standing over her with a knife would seem to confirm it, but come on. Gotta be misdirection, right? Anyway, at this point either Wes’ mom was murdered by the rich dude who was mad at her for not backing up his alibi, or she was murdered by a child who then immediately forgot about it. Something tells me we’re about to find out the real story very soon!

“It’s a Trap” was wise to focus on two of the outstanding plotlines rather than throwing in any new ones, but I honestly am not sure how much I care about flashback plotlines at this point. By their nature flashbacks unfold over several episodes even though the main players are already fully equipped with memories of what happened. Why make viewers wait to learn the truth when these characters already know? It’s kind of frustrating. Also we’re in the weird part of the season where the EXIT sign is slowly glowing into view and we’re more concerned about what the presumably insane season finale twist is going to be than clearing up all this old business. But maybe that’s just me! I enjoyed “It’s a Trap,” but I’m starting to get antsy. How about you? Also, quick question, have you ever murdered?

What did YOU think of “It’s a Trap”?

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