How To Get Away With Touching A Murder Weapon
This episode did that chopping-up-chronology thing that the show loves SO MUCH, but I found it extremely manipulative and annoying. We ALREADY do flashes at the beginning and end of every other hour. We didn't need a misdirect halfway through and then a mystery and a rewind... so basically I'm going to tell it in order and not the way the show told it.
Okay, so: Michaela, Caleb, and Connor are in Catherine's studio, discussing the gun. Dipshit up there decides to pick it up. Nobody seems to mention that this puts his fingerprints all over the weapon that may have murdered his parents, a crime for which he was recently on the hook. While his fingers are making sweet love to the metal, Connor decides Catherine totally did it, and Michaela stars suggesting that they could throw away the gun. Girl, you can have sex with him even if his sister gets locked up for murder. Don't make things worse.
How To Get Away With Walking In On People Discussing You
Catherine walks in on The Dummies all discussing her and the gun, because I guess none of them thought to post a lookout at the door. We then jump to Annalise's office, where the rest of The Dolts are trying to figure out what to do about that photographic proof of Catherine's painting in Philip's house. Laurel takes a call from The Dummies and relays that Catherine ran off. I am guessing this is because Connor didn't care enough to chase her, Michaela stood there gritting her teeth and turning from side to side and hissing, and Caleb hadn't plugged himself in so he was only running on 3 percent battery.
How To Get Away With That Coat OMG
And then Annalise busts out her best coat of the season. I LOVE that sideways buckle thing. THAT is cool. Wearing trouser-belts on the outside of your coats? No, unless you are certain you aren't removing it. Side-buckle? I'm in.
Annalise thinks Catherine did it. And she tells Caleb that she can only represent one of them, and as of now she's no longer Catherine's lawyer. A decision made exponentially easier by the fact that Catherine is at Barnes & Noble looking for a copy of Whoops My Brother Found My Gun: What To Do When You're Bad At Stuff.
How To Get Away With Yelling At Nate
Emily Sinclair is presenting video footage to the Chief of Police, and Nate, that shows Nate typing on his computer when Philip Hapstall was in the station. She has also figured out that Philip's records were faked and belong to someone else. I'm not sure exactly how she knew WHOSE records -- she uses the name -- and if she can sort out THAT needle in the haystack but they can't trace which computer modified them and when, then... I don't even know. Sinclair also hurls out a bunch of nasty business to Nate about his lover maybe killing his wife, and how Nate is Annalise's sad errand boy, and essentially gets him so riled up that he leans RIGHT up in her smug face and shouts that she'd better stop talking OR ELSE. NATE. You need to watch more TV while you're grieving, dude, because it's a textbook maneuver to make a person threaten you publicly so that they will look eeeeevil.
How To Get Away With Prop Newspapers
This one seems mostly accurate, except the headline on the left story doesn't match the text. I really love props. I mostly included this, though, because it tells us that we're in April 2015. Time markers are so terribly rare on this show; we have to clutch them to our bosoms while we can.
ALSO: See that story about Asher's father? Well, I know Annalise turned over the file on Asher's father in exchange for getting charges dropped against... I can't even remember. I even tried to find it, but I can't. Regardless, it's OUT THERE NOW, and Asher's father handles it by hanging himself in his office.
How To Get Away With Asher
And then Asher makes this face. It doesn't matter why. Although you can certainly imagine.
How To Get Away With Crying
And then Asher makes THIS face, because his mother essentially disowns him. She blames him for the entire thing and doesn't ever want to see him again. So Asher's father is dead, his chilly mother might as well be, and his ex-girlfriend killed his boss's husband (so he believes) and won't speak to him because he failed to intervene in a gang rape at his vacation home. It has been a rough nine episodes for Asher Millstone.
How To Get Away With Car Talk
These two confab in Sinclair's car. Basically, they're each filing harassment claims against each other now -- Sinclair for the yelling, Nate for the constant legal harassment -- and Sinclair wants them to forget it and turn on Annalise together. This is never going to work, kid, but I admire your total myopic fixation on VENGEANCE.
How To Get Away With Asher
And then Asher makes this face, and it's because Sinclair is leaning into his car and telling him that his dad's death is karmic revenge for him ruining Tiffany From Trotter Lake's life. She goes on and on. She has a real problem with censoring her own trash talk. High on a hill, there's a lonely gloatherd, and no one is yodeling back to the lonely gloatherd because no one can get a yodel in edgewise.
How To Get Away With Vehicular Homicide
And then, you guys, I can't. Asher makes this face. And it's because his blood is frothing with rage. So he throws his car in reverse as Sinclair walks away, and BACKS IT OVER HER AT FULL SPEED.Yes, he runs over her so hard that she's fully concealed UNDERNEATH HIS CAR, to the point where as he sits there in shock, another driver stops to see if he's okay and does not notice anything suspicious.
How To Get Away With Shock
Asher calls Bonnie, who calls Annalise, whose switch gets flipped. The plotting begins. Bonnie's job is to get Sinclair's body away, and I am vey curious whether there is somehow NO BLOOD SPATTER that anyone can discover, given that she is, again, supremely dead underneath Asher's vehicle. (but not, somehow, crushed at all).
I am... not happy about this. I applaud this show for not backing off Asher's culpability for Trotter Lake simply because he didn't do the actual raping; the fact that he seemed aware shit was shady and just turned a blind eye, and THEN let his dad cover it up, makes him indirectly guilty, and I like that nobody is pulling that punch on him. But I hate that the show massacred Asher, because we are really low on actual good people. AND THEN, they had him go and murder someone. So now he has killed Sinclair, and Bonnie has killed Rebecca -- even though no one knows that, and Asher thinks she killed Sam -- and so I guess they can get back together because they're homicidal equals now. But sincerely, I hate this. I feel like they're using Asher here to excuse everyone else's murdering. By having him remain unsympathetic to Bonnie's contention that good people CAN in fact do bad things when pushed hard enough, the show had taken an appealing hard line against all the shitty behavior here, but now he has to eat those words. LE SIGH.
In sum, in case you missed it: hate this twist.
How To Get Away With Bodies In Rugs
Annalise flips her shit because she thinks this will get pinned on Nate. So she starts plotting: She convinces Caleb that Catherine is coming home, and Sinclair is on her way, and they're going to all come clean. Or something equally ridiculous considering it is TEN O'CLOCK AT NIGHT and no one has even turned on a light in this stupid house. (Yet again, artistic vision trumps how real humans would actually behave.)
Michaela convinces Caleb to go but promises she will stay to make sure Catherine is okay. This accounts for Caleb being elsewhere, which we saw in the flash-forwards earlier in the season. And it explains his question about whether "she" is okay, and Michaela's uncomfortable lie that "she" is. They're talking about Catherine. (We don't revisit that scene, though.)
THEN, Annalise brings in the body from Bonnie's car. She keeps up the pretense that Sinclair is coming right up until the second she, Bonnie, and Asher dump the corpse on the floor. Again, is there no DNA rubbing off anywhere in here? MAYBE TURN ON A LIGHT AND CHECK.
How To Get Away With Chloroform
Frank, meanwhile, found Catherine at a motel. Philip comes looking for her, but Frank has already spirited her away. Annalise makes a series of calls to Catherine, leaving messages that say whatever fits her developing narrative. Then she tells Frank to get the pills she never gave to Nate's wife, and drug Catherine even more with them -- presumably so that she will realistically have no memory when she wakes up, and therefore be a blank slate onto which they can transcribe any behavior. We do not revisit Frank dumping Catherine in the woods, though. We just have to remember he did it. I am here to help.
Also, please let's consider the number of things that happened in relatively public places, which no one witnessed: Sinclair's murder, Bonnie showing up and checking under the car, Bonnie and Asher moving the body. That all happened in a PARKING GARAGE, and yet no one else was walking to their cars (there were some). And Frank has Catherine trapped and squirming in the vending area of a large motel. NOBODY drifted past? Right.
How To Get Away With Screaming
Then things get dramatic. Asher and Bonnie get some help dragging Sinclair to the top of the house, but Connor and Michaela storm downstairs in a huff, so Bonnie and Asher shove her over the wall themselves. Then, Annalise announces she needs someone to shoot her, to put the final piece of this made-up puzzle in place. First, a question: Time is passing. Sinclair died a while ago. Fug Nation Forensics Folks, please do tell: With how much precision can they pinpoint when a person died? Will it be detectible that Sinclair died before all the calls to Catherine, before Annalise's shooting, etc? And will they be able to tell she wasn't killed by a fall from a great height, or is she so mangled at this point that it's impossible to know?
OKAY: No one wants to shoot Annalise, strangely, so she attempts to GOAD them all into it. She plays on what each of them hate about her, but to no avail -- not even when she tells Asher the truth about Sam's death. Everyone's faces are like "WTF IS HAPPENING RIGHT NOW" as Annalise becomes unhinged and wildly spills anything she can think of to incise a gunshot. Finally, the gun ends up with Wes. She asks him to shoot her in the leg. He won't. So Annalise blurts out, "Rebecca's dead," and then taunts him with the fact that every time Wes wept pathetically in her lap looking for comfort, she knew the truth, and repeatedly lied. I suppose this is deniable later, so maybe Annalise feels like she has nothing to risk, but: The cat has left the bag, and doesn't seem particularly interested in going back in.
How To Get Away With Shooting Your Boss
And so it is Wes who shoots Annalise. But he raises the gun at the last second and shoots her in the body, not the leg, then stands over her with a ragey expression. I'd like to point out that Wes has now killed Sam and ATTEMPTED to kill Annalise. Asher is a killer, Frank is a killer, Bonnie is a killer. SO MANY KILLERS. How is the show going to cope with the fact that they're all SO ABSURDLY MURDERY.
Also: It's revealed that when Bonnie goes to the bathroom and returns to an empty car, it's because Asher was buying them a car wash (there is apparently blood on his bumper HOW DID NO ONE NOTICE THAT BEFORE NOW). So, we're left hanging as to why he walked into the police office to make a statement, or what it was about, or whose prong of the plan it represented.
How To Get Away With Backstory
Also, this is Catherine's gun, but they have ALL now touched it. Every single one of them played hot potato with this effing thing, and they're going to have to wipe it down, which means it'll lose Catherine's fingerprints also. Unless they claim they all touched it when they confronted Catherine about it. I don't know. EVIDENCE, YOU GUYS.
As Wes looks angry, Annalise croaks, "Christoph... Christoph..." and Wes's face morphs into total shock.
How To Get Away With Child Actors
This actor they hired to play young Wes/Christoph is a GREAT match. It's harder to tell here, but when they shot him from the other side and it was in partial profile... I don't know, this kid had a LOT of Alfred Enoch's tics. It was cool. So, young Westoph is being interviewed about his mother's suicide, by a social worker...
How To Get Away With A New Wig
... and we see Annalise and Eve observing. "What have we done?" Eve breathes. INDEED.
To recap: Asher killed Sinclair, Annalise staged the new crime scene to protect Nate and frame Catherine -- while also making her look guiltier for potentially murdering her parents, a crime we have yet to confirm she committed, and I still think it might turn out to be Caleb -- and Wes shot Annalise, but shot to kill (or at least wound terribly) rather than in the leg as directed. We don't know why Asher went to the cops, or when exactly. We don't know what Michaela will have told Caleb, back wherever they're hiding him. And we don't know, still, who Wes is.
And we have no idea what this show is going to do about the fact that one of its ostensible heroines now -- Bonnie, who is so nice to Asher, so gentle, so efficient when he has just KILLED A LADY -- murdered Rebecca for stupid reasons, and now the Pretty Little Lawyers know she's dead. SIGH. This show is going to have a hard time tunneling out of some of its own muck.