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In episode six, “Freakin’ Whack-A-Mole,” How To Get Away With Murder picks right back up in the past with a couple more little clues concerning Sam’s murder, Annalise trying to plant evidence to save her cheating husband from any suspicion in Lila’s murder, and everyone trying to find new evidence to save a man from death row after being wrongfully convicted for his girlfriend. Let’s get right to it.
The Case
Annalise drafts the kids or “The Keating 5” as she dubs them, to help her with a case that has haunted her for the last twenty years since law school. The case concerns David Allen accused of murdering his girlfriend, Trisha Stanley. He’s been in prison for years, and Annalise was finally granted a chance to introduce new evidence. I have no idea if this is true in real life law, but it made for a pretty interesting episode as the kids tracked down old leads and demonstrated Annalise takes the law so personally. This is a glimpse at the passionate, believe-in-justice-for-all-people Annalise, who knows firsthand that the system can sometime get it wrong.
Most importantly, Asher learned that his father was up to eyeballs in shady business as a judge presiding over this trial, and he wasn’t afraid to call him out on his behavior. It was nice to see some depth to the original “doucheface” of the group. He may be a privileged white guy, but he does have enough self-awareness to realize that it’s true, in that moment anyway. Also, he’s not the only privileged one of the Keating 5
Viola absolutely rocks the scene where Annalise examines the witness who lied at the original trial for the prosecution. I’m 99 percent positive that her speech would not be allowed in a real court, but scene itself was badass. Annalise takes down senator, an old white guy, who profited big time when he used David Allen as a chess piece to gentrify the inner city area.
The Kids (aka The Keating 5) and Sam’s murder
In flashforwards, Asher realizes that the trophy is missing from his apartment, and goes to Annalise’s house while all the other kids and Rebecca are inside trying to figure out what to do with Sam’s body. He eventually gives up after Michaela texts him from inside that house that she’s in the library. Apparently Asher gets sidetracked, because he goes off to bang Bonnie. By the way, Connor almost nailed Asher with the car carrying Sam’s body as he crossed the street, but once again Asher is oblivious to anything but himself at that moment. Also, Asher can’t dance, not even for a white guy.
The Coed’s Murder
Annalise is overly concerned about Wes’ feelings and seeks him out to make sure he’s not headed to the police station to share Sam’s naked selfie. The inappropriate chemistry between Annalise and Wes is real and reached new levels of “WTF is going” when she sat on his bed while he was half naked. These two are headed for bed at some point, but I still don’t know if Annalise is going to tie him up first or not.
To appease Wes and maintain some semblance of control over Lila’s murder, Annalise has Frank plant the cleaned cellphone in Lila’s boyfriend’s car. She does this after Wes keeps threatening to go to the police with what he knows. This kid is slowly working his way to Rebecca-level hatred for me. Why is he so smug? Annalise could knock his smugness all the way down his throat, she just chooses not to for some reason. WHY doesn’t he understand that?? Wes gets Rebecca to come back to town after convincing her that Annalise does have her best interest at heart.
Meanwhile, Annalise goes out of her way to protect Sam by changing the wallpaper in their bedroom, the backdrop for his naked selfie. So now there’s nothing tying him to Lila. The complicated relationship between Sam and Annalise is hard to nail down. Sam doesn’t understand why Annalise has gone to all this trouble for him, and frankly, it is confusing to see her protect someone she knows was unfaithful to her. Her desperation when she says, “I NEED YOU” leads me to believe that there’s so much more about their marriage that we don’t know. She already hinted at the mess she was when Sam met her, so while they have a dysfunctional, affair-riddled, and angry marriage, it seems there’s something holding them together – for now anyway. Sam is rapidly approaching an up close and personal relationship with a rug and Annalise has absolutely no idea.
Another great episode. The slow layering of details of the kids covering up Sam’s murder is a great build for what will undoubtedly be a cluster of things gone wrong and I need to know how Bonnie ties into it. Annalise may not know where Sam is, but I’m not convinced she’s squeaky clean either. Also, I can’t praise the chemistry between Viola and Tom Verica enough. These two continue to pull off a very complicated relationship with not only their words, but their subtle body language of people who walk the fine line of love and hate. Lastly, a big shoutout to Matt McGory for giving Asher these layers that make him the dumb, loveable, privileged, funny, smart law student. He stepped up this episode to make Asher’s backstory seamless as it weaved through Annalise’s past and their current case.
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