'How To Get Away With Murder' Winter Finale Recap: Bullet Time

Warning: This recap for the “What Did We Do?” episode of How To Get Away With Murder contains spoilers.

Puzzles don’t get fun until you have all the pieces, but occasionally How To Get Away With Murder feels like someone just emptied a 5,000 piece jigsaw into your lap. But just when you’re ready to sigh in defeat, you look down and see that every piece fell directly into place? At which point you realize this puzzle wasn’t simply a satisfying activity, it was actual magic.

“What Did We Do?” counted on us to recall every scrap of green-tinged flash-forward from the previous eight episodes and it rewarded us with one of the most complicated yet satisfying episodes so far. No, really, how on earth did the writers even outline this episode? There was a dizzying array of moving parts; the entire thing was told out of order with an almost avant garde editing sensibility; and it all culminated in an exciting and emotional climax followed by another mind-blower of a final tease. This episode embodied the thrill of what happens when everything comes together even better than you’d hoped. (If only the characters’ plans could be so tidy.) Let’s talk about it!

We began at the green haunted mansion where Annalise has been getting shot at the beginning of every episode.

But would THIS be the episode in which we finally discovered who shot Annalise and why? Question is rhetorical, because of course this was that episode. Relax, it’s coming.

We then zoomed backward in time 14 hours to when Annalise chewed everyone out for handling the murder weapon that Michaela had found in the air conditioning vent. Questions of morality aside, Annalise was not thrilled about representing an actual murderer, if only because it would be more difficult to get the charges dropped. But honestly, the main thing was the gun that we would later see used to shoot Annalise was now just chilling on the coffee table. (“I know what’s gonna happen.” — Chekhov)

Then Emily Sinclair showed up at Nate’s job and accused him of having tampered with a suspect’s criminal record (he had) and so he blew up at her in front of the whole room!

Nate was now in trouble with his bosses and even more importantly, we were in danger of no longer getting to see him wear that powder blue patrolman uniform anymore! The stakes they were a raisin’.

Then Asher’s dad committed suicide and it was very sad. I guess? I mean, the guy was a monster, but the situation was sad for Asher, whom we like. So yeah, sad overall.

Asher’s mom had a right to grieve in her own way, but her version of grief was being a real jerk about it. Like for example, she accused Asher of basically having murdered his father by being a bad son. Somebody give this lady a homemade casserole or something so she can be quiet.

See what I’m saying? Asher’s holiday season just got a lot less joyful.

So, for anybody keeping score, Asher’s father’s suicide was basically the catalyst for all the madness to follow, and from here on out the episode became a sort of frantic, confusing, but exhilarating montage of things coming together and falling apart.

Most of the gang was already gathered at the Hapstall mansion in order to sort out the fact that Annalise was going to have to drop one of the siblings as a client, and that’s when Annalise received a distressing phone call. We didn’t know what exactly it was, but it caused her to fall into a silent panic while the camera spun around her one thousand times. We’ve all been there, but not all of us were then confronted with THIS reality:

The call was from Bonnie: She was arriving at the mansion with a dead Emily Sinclair wrapped up in a cozy tartan blanket in her trunk! But how did Emily die BEFORE she’d arrived at the place where we’d assumed she’d been killed? Annalise’s panicked spinning was her way of attempting to get control of an insane situation and fast.

But first, a flashback:

After a busy day of harassing Nate at his job and then attempting to goad him into turning snitch on Annalise, Emily was confronted in the parking structure by Asher, who seemed very displeased that Emily’s actions against his father may have led to the man’s suicide. Even though Emily was definitely an annoying nuisance this season, credit where credit’s due: She was right about Asher’s dad being a horrible guy who kind of deserved what he got. Again, Asher’s dad had used his power to silence a woman who’d been gang-raped by Asher’s buddies. So as sad as Asher was to lose a father, Emily was correct in not feeling super guilty about it.

But that’s when Asher threw his car into reverse and ran over Emily Sinclair like a ragdoll in the road! Just a lot of disgusting crunching noises, so many that Asher just parked his car right on top of her and sat frozen behind the steering wheel until Bonnie could arrive and inspect the damage.

But Emily Sinclair was now 100 percent dead and Asher had been the one who killed her! One mystery down, several dozen to go.

So, the plot that Annalise came up with on the spot was that she was going to frame Catherine Hapstall for Emily Sinclair’s murder. And the reason they needed to do this was to save Nate, who, because of his outburst earlier in the day, would be the prime suspect in Emily’s murder. So to accomplish all this, Frank went out to kidnap Catherine, and the gang needed to carry Emily’s body to the roof and make it look like she’d been pushed off. But if we’re being honest, the interns did not love the idea of having to cover up YET ANOTHER murder.

That’s when Annalise straight-up spilled the beans to Asher that all his friends had helped cover up SAM’s murder. Now they were ALL in this together.

Meanwhile, Frank went out to find Catherine so that he could drug her with the barbiturates originally intended for Nate’s wife. I guess the idea was, if she was passed out in the woods she wouldn’t have an alibi for having murdered Emily Sinclair? At this point it was just a lot of dizzying editing and I was enjoying the ride more than fully comprehending anything.

Also Bonnie and Asher went to the gas station where Bonnie took a paper towel shower in the bathroom and Asher bought a ticket to the car wash. In an earlier episode we were meant to believe that he’d ditched her and reported everyone to the police, but I guess that didn’t happen.

But Annalise’s biggest and craziest idea was the answer to the season’s biggest question. Who shot her? It turned out she WANTED to be shot, if only so that the crime scene was way more chaotic, and if she’d been wounded she’d look like more of a victim than a perpetrator. The only problem was, nobody volunteered to shoot Annalise. One by one she read everyone, poking at their darkest secrets and back stories in order to get them to shoot her. But nobody took the bait… Until she told Wes that Rebecca was dead. Yep, the pay-off that was the truth about Rebecca finally happened here when Wes grabbed the gun and took aim. Except, he wasn’t just aiming for Annalise’s leg, like she’d asked. And he looked MAD.

Wes shot her right in the torso! (And we know from a previous episode that she’ll wind up flatlining at the hospital.) But even scarier, Wes then approached her body and seemed ready to put her out of her misery completely…

Until she began murmuring the name “Christophe” over and over. The look on his face said it all… That had been HIS name, and Annalise clearly knew him from a previous life.

We then flashed back to ten years prior, on the day that Wes’ mother apparently died. He’d discovered the body and called 911, and now here he was being questioned by a lady detective. But standing on the other side of that two-way mirror?

Annalise! With an amazing flashback wig! Famke Janssen was there also, which explained why she’d known of Wes’ significance to Annalise earlier. But while we still don’t know the full relationship between Annalise and Wes, we do know they go back further than anybody thought. Knowing Annalise, Wes’ mother’s death was probably a side-effect of one of her various murder coverups from back in the day, so expect some kind of revelation about that soon.

“What Did We Do?” was exactly as satisfying and surprising as we’ve come to expect of this frequently brilliant show. Artful and nightmarish in equal measure, this episode nicely paid off months of teases and still managed to make us care about the aftermath even more. It’s hard to believe we have to wait until February to find out what happens next, but if this season has proved anything it’s that patience pays off. Nailed it.

What did YOU think of “What Did We Do?”

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