Friendships, I was in such good spirits before I started this episode. Just hours before it aired, I had just returned from a work/vacation trip to Budapest. I mean, I ate my weight in pastries, looked at all the cool architecture, and checked out all the Slavic dudes who basically have evil villain Taken face. It’s not their fault, but, oof, that is quite the cross to bear. The point is, I was happy, and then I turn on How to Get Away With Murder and remember my poor baby Oliver is in danger!! He’s nowhere to be found and Connor is bugging out. This is breaking my heart because us Shondaland fans have been though this before when Cyrus’s husband James was killed on Scandal. And I’m not in the mood to cry that hard again, y’all. It really sucks when the only non-trifling character on a show gets killed off. I guess there’s no use in belaboring the point — let’s find out what happened to Oliver and let’s get closer to finding out who shot Annalise. But before we do, let’s make a pact: If Oliver lives, we’re all going to do better in our lives. And by “do better,†I mean listen to our parents’ long voicemails to completion instead of deleting them. And if Oliver dies, we are all going to sit shiva over his death at my place. Bring lots of starches. Mama likes her carbs when she’s sad. Also, bring lots of shirtless pictures of Nate and Frank. Now, on with the show!
We start with the flash-forward. All the interns (minus Asher) are arguing, and Bonnie has Wes turn over the gun to her. Hmm, it’s probably too obvious that Bonnie shot Annalise, but something is not right here. Homegirl is way too used to killing folk, so I can see her being calm like nothing happened. But at the same time, she tends to come unhinged so maybe she doesn’t have the mental capacity to kill again. Speaking of unhinged, we go back in time three days and see Bonnie sitting naked in the shower, crying. I mean, I get it. Annalise completely betrayed her by telling Asher that Bon had been molested by her father. This is tough stuff and I really feel as though Bonnie needs to go on a solo Eat Pray Love trip, except it’s See Dr. Phil, See Dr. Iyanla Vanzant, See Dr. Doug Ross from ER. Poor lady’s life is in shambles.
Across town, Annalise is taking her wig off and taking a selfie to send to her mom. It’s really cute that we gonna pretend her mom, played by Cicely Tyson who is 90 years old, has a cell phone let alone is about that selfie life. My mom is in her mid 50s and is still repping hard with a QWERTY keyboard, so, Mama Keating, at best, is probably using a rotary phone that jacks up her arthritis every time she calls people. #TheStruggleIsReal. Anyway, right after she sends that text to her mom, she gets a text from Nate. He’s outside her house. Huh? She goes to let them him. He’s drunk, he’s angry at the world and he also says Annalise should be dead. Who hasn’t wanted Annalise dead? That’s the question we should all be asking at this point. So the tension is awkward and kind of scary at this point until it’s clear that Frank just wants to bone his rage out. Annalise gets all #YesAllWomen on him and says that she’s apologized for how she has messed up his life, but she’s not going to have sex with him to even the score. Damn straight!
At the same time, we see Oliver and Phillip! Phillip continues to be creepy and Ollie is saying whatever will save his life including that HE AND CONNOR WANT TO HAVE A THREESOME WITH PHILLIP! WHAT?! Um, Ollie better hope that Phillip doesn’t want him to follow through on that because I think I speak for everyone when I say that our collective boners will commit samurai suicide if that ends up on our TV screens. Phillip is like, “I didn’t come here to kill you.†Then we cut to Connor arriving home and it’s empty. There’s no blood, so that’s a good sign, but Phillip gives me major murderer vibes, so I’m going to be in the cut practicing “Candle in the Wind†because I’m pretty sure I’m going to be singing that at Oliver’s funeral. Anyway, Connor goes to Anna’s and is understandably freaking out. He convinces Nate to put out an APB while Anna yells at Frank for even putting Oliver in such a dangerous position. Just then, as Nate is on the phone with the police, in walks Oliver and Phillip. THANK YOU, LAWDT! Turns out Phillip just wanted to talk, so they went to the Soup Palace and that’s it.
OK, I’m happy my lil’ Ollie is safe, but also, this is so anticlimatic. I was expecting something more. All of our blood pressures were raised for a week only to have HTGAWM be like “JK. Phillip was just hungry, so they got Oodles of Noodles.†Womp, womp. Anyway, Oliver tells them that he mentioned the Hapstall case, but wanted them to elaborate for Phillip. So Annalise does a little and Phillip automatically denies being related to Caleb and Catherine’s adopted parents. He claims that he has the proof and I’m like:
Then Phillip tells them they were inappropriate for hacking into his computer and spying on him so he’s going to go to the police and/or also sue them. Annalise asks him what he really wants, and she’ll see if she can get it for him. He says, “I don’t know.†Which means he probably does. He leaves and then the interns decide to look for any hair strands he left on the couch to see if they can do a DNA test. Oliver, being a lil’ intern in training, says that he has one of Phillip’s straws and they can just use that. Nice!
The next day, the interns get a lot of boxes delivered to Annalise’s office. More stuff for the Hapstall case. Meanwhile, Asher is bummed about missing all the shenanigans that went down last night and he’s also bugging Annalise about Bonnie. Bonnie is out “sick†and poor Asher thinks it’s all his fault. And Annalise lets him go right along thinking that. Asher goes with Frank to get the straw tested while Laurel and Annalise go to her office. Anna is making her the new Bonnie. Uh-oh. So Anna needs to ruin another person’s life with this bull. Laurel, of course, thinks she is special because of this new job title.
Connor breaks Oliver’s computer with a hammer in hopes of getting Phillip out of their lives. LOL. Dude knows where y’all live and knows all the groceries you have in your cabinets. Breaking this laptop is pointless and also very expensive. Can’t they just wipe the hard drive clean or something? Michaela alerts Anna and Laurel that Caleb keeps calling so the ladies have him and Catherine come by. The siblings claim they don’t know Phillip, and again I say: SHOW. ME. THE. GIFT. RECEIPT. They’re also worried about Phillip’s DNA matching. Just then, Annalise gets a phone call from Sinclair.
UGH! I hate this woman! She is the physical representation of the word “fetch.†She keeps trying to happen, but she is a failure. Anyway, she offers a plea deal of 15 years for each of the sibs. Caleb wants to take it, Catherine doesn’t, so they leave to think about the offer. That’s when Sinclair says her offer is only until 5 p.m. Shut up, Sinclair! You are not a restaurant who stops serving breakfast at 11 a.m. Do not go around handing out time constraints. Anyway, the meeting ends and the siblings meet with one of the interns. Michaela tells Caleb to not take the deal. Wes tells Catherine to take it. He lets Anna know that he did this because it’s what he should have done. He should’ve turned himself in for killing Sam. Annalise says that she’s protecting him now and then she stares at him all creepily. I’m wondering if she is his mom or if she wants him to call her “mom†in bed. Either way, their relationship is gross. She then tells him he’s off the case until she says otherwise.
Frank and Asher are taking forever to get the DNA test, which is uncharacteristic of Frank. But the doctor says she can’t do this kind of stuff for Frank anymore. He’s like, “We’re friends, do me a solid.†The men leave and then return again and she says her office is backed up with case loads from Sinclair. Then Asher pieces it together that Sinclair is not only messing with them, but that she must be wiretapping the house and that’s why she offered the plea deal because she knows Annalise and the Keating Five don’t have a case, so at the very least, Sinclair can get the sibs to go to jail for a little bit of time. That’s messed up. Then things get royally jacked up because they learn that Caleb called Sinclair and took a plea deal of 30 years so that Catherine doesn’t have to serve any time. Le sigh. My friends, welcome to The Caleb Hapstall Story: When Light Skin & Light Eyes Make You Wanna Be A Hero. Seriously, this is the dumbest plan! And to agree to this plan without his lawyers present is beyond asinine.
Anna wants him to undo the deal. He refuses, so she heads back to the house and that’s when Asher shows her the bug. Wow, Frank is not bringing it at all today, but it’s OK because being effortlessly sexy like he is every day is very draining, so I forgive him. So it turns out the bug was inside the pen they were given when they signed off on the case files that were delivered to their office earlier in the episode. Knowing this, they sit around the bug and whip up a tale in which they say Caleb took the deal because he did kill the parents and the gun is in the basement.
Sinclair and the po-po show up to the Hapstall siblings’ crib like Sinclair just found out that Macy’s is doing Black Friday deals on the day before the day before Thanksgiving. Just one problem: The police can’t find the gun. Sinclair realizes that she’s just been played like a game of Duck Hunt. Annalise is smug and the joy is short-lived because Nate calls her and says that Phillip is at the police station giving a statement! Nate promises to handle this situation, and he does. He goes into the police files in the computer system and changes someone’s record who has schizophrenia to Phillip’s, so the police think he just has a habit of reporting stalking when it’s not actually happening to him. Now, just like Caleb did something ignorant earlier in the episode, it’s apparently Catherine’s turn.
She goes behind Annalise’s back and then makes a plea deal of ten years so that Caleb doesn’t go to jail. LOL. What’s the point of having lawyers if these fools are going to try and lawyer themselves? Sinclair agrees to this deal and tells Annalise that she only has an hour to prepare to fight this agreement before they go before the judge. The interns try to see how they can stall, but they can’t. When it seems like the plea is going to happen, Frank storms in with the DNA results because he bribes the doctor at the DNA facility with $50k. That’s going to come back and bite him in the ass. Just not sure when. Back to the scene. It turns out that Phillip is not only a 99.4 percent match at the scene of the crime but that he is the product of incest. That’s right, guys, that means his parents are actually brother and sister!!!!!!
People are always like, if you smoke a lot of cigarettes, it’s the best way to suppress your appetite. I beg to differ. Just find out two siblings have been playing tickle the pickle and you’ll be off Vlasics and any and all foods reeeeeeeal quick. Thankfully, I can get rid of the incest imagery from my mind fairly quickly because Caleb tells Michaela he likes her, Catherine gives Wes a painting, and then probably the most ridiculous sequence in TV history happens. We literally watch everyone bone.
Flaurel have sex after he cooks them pasta. If that were me, I’d rain-check the sex and go straight to sleeping in sweatpants. Coliver have sex on Annalise’s desk at school. Michaela and Caleb bone. Finally, Nate is at Annalise’s place. He takes off his shirt and it is ridiculous. I mean, RIDICULOUS. He has a He-Man body, I black out from his sheer sexiness only to wake and see him and Anna kissing. I’m conflicted about this because I’m shipping Eve and Annalise, buuuuuuuuuuuuuuut Nate is hot and on her bed and no one can say no to that. So yay for everyone having sex!
We catch up with Caleb and Michaela. He says he needs to tell her something. He thinks that Catherine might have actually killed their parents, and then he shows her the murder weapon. LMAO.gov. Michaela’s love life is a constant losing situation. First, her fiancé was on the down low, then Levi got thrown in jail and Caleb waits until after they have sex for him to be like, “So we might have accidentally let my sister get away with murder.†Meanwhile, Frank, a straight-up killer, is chilling with Laurel like two scoops of sorbet on a rocky-road brownie. What the hell?! How is Frank the only person whom no one ever suspects of murder. This show. Haha.
Then we end on Catherine in a car. She’s waiting for someone to get in. It’s Phillip … and they’ve been talking … this whole freaking time?!?!?
Alrighty, what did you think of last night’s episode? Any final predictions about who actually shot Annalise?