How to Get Away with Murder – The Reckoning

By: Dustin Bradley

We open with an Annalise (Viola Davis) in jail with a crying baby outside her cell. She tries to get to it but can’t seem to and just then she wakes up. It turns out it was all a dream and that she is currently on house arrest. The AUSA (Lauren Bowles) is only charging her for passport forgery despite the fact that she fled after the news leak from the FBI. Her and Tegan (Amirah Vann) have a late night phone call discussing her options including a “Bill of Particulars,” which is a list of all possible charges that the FBI and the government wants to present against her. It also turns out that Miss Ophelia (Cicely Tyson), Annalise’s mom, is in town to help keep an eye on her because of all this trouble. Mama fades in and out of dementia, but for the most part retains her clarity throughout this episode. More on her and Annalise in a bit. 

We then shift to Michaela (Aja Niaomi King), Connor (Jack Falahee) and Oliver (Conrad Ricamora) who are all trying to mourn Asher’s death while staying clear of Annalise so she doesn’t know that they turned against her and signed a deal with the FBI and AUSA. Oli, of course, seems to be taking Asher’s death the hardest since he feels guilty for some of the injuries that happened that night. 

Back to Tegan and Annalise! Tegan is trying to convince her to let her  be co-counsel from now on and help Annalise fight this war as not only a friend but a great lawyer. That was helped proven with Tegan being instrumental in the “particulars” hearing. Annalise agrees to the co-counsel!

Annalise finally comes out to Mama Ophelia. This is a big step for Anna Mae and a big plot point for Miss Ophelia who feels a bit guilty for Annalise’s trust issues with men because of her childhood trauma. She also feels like Annalise just turned to women because of her past, not realizing that Annalise is just truly bisexual. In the end, she comes to accept Anna Mae no matter who she ends up with because all that matters is that they love her. 

Tegan and Annalise win their request for a bill of particulars and they see all the charges, including Sam’s murder, which means she now knows that the kids flipped on her and signed a deal. So, she calls them over to her place to feel them out and apologize for running away. Right now this relationship is fractured, but you can bet they will be back to working together in no time. Tegan also finds out that the arson they are charging Annalise for isn’t her old house with Sam but instead her childhood home. This means that not only did the kids flip on her but so did Nate (by potentially giving the FBI the Denver files. 

Now, we haven’t discussed Gabriel (Rome Flynn) or Asher (Matt McGorry) yet and that’s because most of that interaction was in the flashbacks to the night of Asher’s demise. Gabriel did allow Asher to use his phone but didn’t want Asher’s check because he was still seemingly “high” from the mushrooms. Asher uses Gabe’s phone to call his sister and record a message for his fellow Keating 5 group. He tells them that he truly loves them just as much as his family and that in the end they are still good people no matter what has happened in the past. He then gets visited by his ride, his handler from the FBI, who also turns out to be the woman working for Xavier. And she’s not exactly gonna give him that ride to his mom’s. Instead, she bashes him over the head with the fire poker she stole from the kids’ house at some point after deleting the security footage of that night. At the moment we don’t know if she did this for the FBI, for Xavier or if they could all be working with the Governor to take Annalise down. That’s something I can’t wait to find out.

But what about Gabe? Well, he happened to see the whole brutal murder from under his door. At first he believes the woman who killed Asher was Laurel because of her dark hair and stature, but as soon as he goes to the FBI to amend his statement and Langford (William R. Moses) brings in Asher’s point person he recognizes her earrings and knows that it was her who truly killed his classmate. 

We end this episode with Gabriel rushing over to Michaela and Connor’s place to tell them and Oliver the news that he knows who killed Asher…the FBI. This means the kids officially signed a deal with the wrong side. How will they get out of this? But more importantly, how will they all get away with it?