How to Get Away with Murder – Saying Goodbye

By: Dustin Bradley

ABC’s “How to Get Away with Murder” is back for a KILLER FINAL SEASON. We open on a funeral for Annalise Keating (Viola Davis) with the majority of the Keating Four and Bonnie (Liza Weil), Frank ( Charlie Weber) and Nate (Billy Brown) in tow looking quite happy to be free at last. Then something unexpected happens when an elementary school aged Christopher shows up with a gun and tells Annalise to “stay dead bitch.” This that this was a part of an exercise at a rehab that Annalise is currently attending under the name “Karen.” It seems to of been about a week since Laurel’s (Karla Souza) disappearance and that piled on with Emmett’s untimely death (as revealed in flashbacks by Tegan) pushed Annalise to relapse, except this time it wasn’t just alcohol. It also included a mix of drugs including cocaine, MDMA and Fentanyl. And after she was found at the end of that wild night of Laurel’s disappearance she make sure that Bonnie gets her the help that she needs. Except Anna Lise isn’t supposed to have any more slip ups with alcohol according to her guidelines with the bar which is why she is now going under the name “Karen” in this rehab facility.

We then flash to Michaela (Aja Naomi King), Asher (Matt McGorry), Connor (Jack Falahee), Oliver (Conrad Ricamora) having a heated discussion with Frank and Bonnie about Laurel’s disappearance and Annalise’s rehab stint. Michaela thinks they should go to the FBI and report Laurel and Christopher’s disappearance but, of course, because they are being investigated by the FBI the remaining group members decide that this is a terrible idea.  What else is a terrible idea is Asher thinking that revealing Annalise’s connection to Michaela‘s birth father would be at all beneficial to Michaela at this point after everything that has been happening in the past week. Connor and Oliver (“Colliver”) tries to get him to keep that fact under wraps, at least until Annalise comes back and they can figure out what it what it is all about. We also still have to deal with Gabriel (Rome Flynn) whose relationship with Michaela is quite complicated right now. He shows up at Colliver’s house and tries to talk to Michaela and Asher in order to convince them that he is no longer an informant for the FBI and genuinely just wants to be with Michaela.

Elsewhere, in Teagan‘s (Amirah Vann) world, she is dealing with the loss of Emmett over at Kaplan and Gold. It’s been questioned by not only what looks like an FBI detective, but eventually gets questioned by Nate after it is revealed that she signed off on Emmett’s body being flown over to London for his autopsy.  She tries to explain to Nate that the other partners wanted that and that it is her job to listen, but it seems that Nate doesn’t buy it. They are really trying to throw this red herring to make it look like Teagan was involved in image poisoning, but I’m quite sure that she isn’t (although with the show it is entirely possible that she might be as it stands to reason that she got him his job after all that she was pining for all of last season). Suspicious? We shall see how the storyline unfolds.

Back at the rehab Annalise is having troubles connecting to the exercises and to her fellow patients, which includes her very nosy roommate. Her group leader gives them the exercise of writing down all of the negative thoughts that they have about themselves on index cards and beating those cards with a bat and reaffirming themselves with positive affirmations. It seems though that Annalise isn’t quite sure that this will help and doesn’t participate. Later that night she receives a call from Bonnie updating her about the situation at home. She eventually decides to come clean to her roommate and start getting real about her recovery. The next day she tries to backtrack the truth that she told her roommate, but after getting a positive and affirming response decides to give the word exercise a try and goes back to her room to demolish a pillow while giving herself positive words of encouragement and fulling giving into the exercise.  

It’s after this that Annalise decides it’s time to come home and face the music. After calling Nate to pick her up she phones in an emergency meeting of the remaining Keating Four and have them participate in the very exercise that released so much pent-up emotion in her. Each of our gang takes a swing and a piece of furniture in Annalise‘s apartment in the same way that she did her pillow, except this time they have a fire poker instead of their fist. It’s after this exercise that Asher finally lets loose the information that Annalise once knew Michaela‘s birth father. Michaela, angered as we knew she would be, tells Annalise that if this information is true she will “kill her.” It is then that we end the episode with the flash forward to what looks like Annalise’s funeral. It is possible that her demise may have been at the end of that very fire poker that the kids were just messing with.