'How To Get Away With Murder' Recap: Don't Worry Baby
Warning: This recap for the “What Happened to You, Annalise?” episode of How To Get Away With Murder contains spoilers.
Of all the suspicious, questionable, just generally untrustworthy behavior exhibited by the characters of How To Get Away With Murder, by far the most unsettling is when they’re NICE to each other. Not so much because this niceness hides ulterior motives or deep-rooted deceit, but because these people are never nice to each other. Which stands to reason, I suppose, since they are reluctant co-workers, not best friends rappin’ about life and love down at Central Perk. But as one of TV’s finest feel-bad shows, HTGAWM has always trafficked in a cold meanness between its characters, and we’re only distracted from the nihilism by a metric ton of plot twists scored to an incredible soundtrack. But that just makes the occasional appearance of a smile that much weirder.
As is tradition with this show, the first episode back after a hiatus is very much a “clearing up old business” situation. The first nine episodes all built to a dizzying, densely layered showdown resulting in at least one corpse and a possibly dying leading lady, so HTGAWM was going to need at least one episode to get itself out of THAT corner it’d painted itself into. For anyone looking for hints at what the next set of stresses Annalise and the gang will face in the coming weeks, you were out of luck. But “What Happened to You, Annalise?” was still a lot of fun as well as a delightful reminder of just how insane this show can be. Let’s talk about it!
We began with a 14-minute long “previously on” montage which was edited to feature more content than the brainwashing sequence from A Clockwork Orange. Basically A LOT happened earlier this season, but the most important thing to know was, the lighting was green, and Wes shot Annalise nearly to death! One new tidbit added into the mix was that Laurel grabbed Wes’ gun immediately afterward and told the rest of the gang she’d pulled the trigger. Why? Probably to give Laurel a plotline.
So now it was two weeks later, and Bonnie brought Annalise home from the hospital. But if those lavender silk pajamas were any indication, Annalise’s stay at the hospital wasn’t the WORST thing. Who among us wouldn’t be willing to take a bullet just to lounge in that luxury?
Meanwhile Wes had taken to bed and was refusing to see anyone. He had fallen into just the sort of funk one falls into after nearly murdering one’s mentor after said mentor informs one that one’s girlfriend is dead. Also he had a beard now.
Bonnie hooked Annalise up with untold numbers of painkillers, so it wasn’t long before Annalise was eating ALL OF THEM. Just gobbling up all the pills like it was Hungry Hungry Hippos. Then something strange happened.
A woman showed up at the front door and foisted her baby onto Annalise! She shouted something about how she’d seen Annalise on the news, and Annalise hadn’t died after being shot, so would Annalise please raise her baby for her? Listen, the entire scenario was sketchy. What was this Publisher’s Clearing House but with babies? But you know what else was sketchy?
There was no damn baby! Annalise had hallucinated the whole thing! Incidentally, this reveal (which happened after Annalise handed the baby to Bonnie and then left the room) was one of the more hilarious things to ever happen on this show. One, because before it even registered that there was no baby in that blanket, it really did seem like Bonnie was so over the idea of babies that she was just going to drop it on the floor. But also, yeah, Annalise was so high on medication that she believed women were knocking on the door trying to give her babies. The fact that Annalise kept referring to the baby as “it” was just icing on the cake.
Asher seemed to believe that his awful father had not committed suicide, and had in fact been murdered. Sure, guy. Even if Asher’s dad HAD been murdered, that was legitimately the only death on this show that nobody will ever care about.
Because Annalise was due to testify in court about the green-lit mansion shooting, the rest of the gang decided that she was not mentally fit to take the stand. So Bonnie drugged Annalise’s ice cream (seriously) and the rest of them set out to create a written statement in her absence.
Frank prided himself on not creating any spelling errors, but those red squiggles would beg to differ. Sure, they’re proper names, but they would still come up as errors in the spell check! I just felt like this was important to point out, but I can see now that I was probably wrong about that.
Connor and Oliver tried to cheer up Asher, seeing as Asher’s awful father had committed suicide and all, and in return they got Asher making fun of Oliver’s record collection for being too gay. Asher is the coolest.
Then Annalise wanted to know why Nate hadn’t checked in on her since her shooting, so Bonnie summoned him. He basically said he’d been happy to help with their scheme, but was not really super interested in being romantic with her anymore. Or at least for now. So she told him to get out. Fair enough!
Meanwhile Michaela had a run-in with Caleb Hapstall and he seemed really and truly ticked at everyone for what a mess they’d made, but she still kinda wanted to date him anyway. He mumbled something about how Michaela and all her friends were going to heck (paraphrasing).
After the judge threw out Annalise’s written statement, she had no choice but to dramatically enter the courtroom and testify her own damn self. But she was clearly not in great shape and within minutes of questioning her bullet wound started oozing.
Nothing that a quick trip to the bathroom and a plugging-up with toilet paper couldn’t solve! (Is toilet paper that’s been sitting in open air near a toilet considered sterile?) Also the sound-effect that we were treated to during this moment was extremely disgusting, just FYI.
I really and truly liked this lady, the Hapstalls’ new lawyer. She was a real pitbull! I would hire her for all of my court cases in a heartbeat.
And then, whether it was on purpose or not, Annalise blurted out some details of a conversation she’d once had with Catherine Hapstall back when Annalise was her lawyer… Specifically, the fact that Catherine had NOT murdered her parents. This served to get Annalise’s entire testimony thrown out of court because she’d violated attorney-client privilege, and it also made Catherine re-think just how hostile Annalise was being, especially considering that she had no memory of that night. Maybe she HAD shot Annalise?
Behind the scenes, Annalise went to work on Caleb, convincing him that Catherine had indeed been the shooter, and that if he could convince his sister to admit to shooting Annalise, then the sister could plea bargain to lesser jail term and then let the brunt of their parents’ killings fall to their weird cousin Phillip. I think? Guys, I’m gonna need some thumbtacks and head shots and a whole ball of yarn to keep this stuff straight.
But it worked! Catherine stood up in court and admitted to having shot Annalise. Which, again, she’d been drugged that night and had zero memory of any of it. But at least this plotline was finally over! Right? Please tell me it’s over.
That night, Frank cooked baked ziti for everyone while dressed in a tank top.
Back at Annalise’s house, Wes and Annalise finally had a chance to talk. He wanted to know why, when he was about to murder her on the floor of that green-lit mansion, she had murmured his mother’s name (Christophe).
And then we were treated to a wonderful flashback scene! Wonderful first of all for Annalise’s braids and hoops. Secondly, because the woman who played Wes’ mom was the same woman who’d given Annalise that baby earlier (metaphor alert!), and also, here’s the big one: Annalise was PREGNANT. So while we confirmed that Annalise had been sort of overseeing Wes’ life and accomplishments ever since he was a kid, there was still definitely way more to this story in my opinion. Where’d that baby go?
The episode ended with Annalise staggering downstairs to find her fake baby on the couch, which she then cradled in her arms while smile-crying. Then the baby disappeared and she was merely holding herself. So yeah. Devastating. What was the story here? Something tells me we’ll be finding out soon enough.
“What Happened to You, Annalise?” was the quick, comparatively lighthearted (compared to how aggressively feel-bad this show can be) episode to kick us back into gear for the remainder of the season. And while it’s never been important for the characters to show any kind of humanity towards one another, it still felt borderline heartwarming to see all these people have each others’ backs so much. I’m not expecting this thing to turn into Touched By an Angel anytime soon, but the levity (or, really, insanity) was much appreciated anyway.
What did YOU think of “What Happened to You, Annalise?”
How To Get Away With Murder airs Thursdays at 10 p.m. on ABC
