Who killed Wes? It’s the question that has plagued us all season, and we finally got the answer in last night’s finale. And it was an answer no one could have predicted.
If you guessed that Laurel’s father paid a goon to kill Wes and blow up Annalise’s house, you are a genius. You are an actual genius and you should be using your powers to solve bigger problems than the ever-expanding web of lies and deception that is How to Get Away With Murder.
Annalise starts the episode in her Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, railing against the concept of Alcoholics Anonymous while Connor sprints in the streets. Connor is running and that represents how he wishes he could run from his problems. See? I’ve read a poem and this show is a poem. Connor briefly tries to lean in front of a bus, but turns away at the last minute. When he gets back to his apartment, Oliver tells him that they’re having a hearing to get the charges dismissed. Oliver thinks it’s time Connor reveals his BIG SECRET.
Because Annalise is finally getting her groove back, she directs Bonnie in the hearing by scribbling notes and whispering exactly which objection to make. The ADA is on the stand and tries to explain away how she had Wes’s body moved. The Keating Gang believes that Atwood perjured herself, but they can’t get too caught up in that because Charles Mahoney is being released from jail. Life comes at you fast, gang. After the hearing, the DA calls in Nate to asks him to carve “I HEART THE DA†into his arm to prove his loyalty to the justice system. Too bad Nate has already given Annalise the ADA’s Wi-Fi password. Annalise hands the Wi-Fi password over to Oliver to get hackin’! The gang gets together to find any evidence about literally anything. Somehow in this massive pile of evidence, Laurel gets the folder with the 4x6 photos of Wes’s burned face.
Connor takes Michaela into the bathroom to finally spill his secret. On the night of the fire, Connor got Annalise’s voice-mail, went over to the house, and found Wes’s body lying on the floor in the basement. He tried to do CPR on Wes and got a little too aggressive and snapped Wes’s bones. He freaked out and … quietly left? He didn’t have his phone! Laurel takes this information waaaay too hard and tells Connor to fucking kill himself. If I’ve asked it once, I’ve asked it 200 times: When did Laurel fall this in love with Wes? So much that she’s telling people to kill themselves. She needs to settle the hell down.
Annalise takes Connor aside because he’s demanding to know if she really killed Wes. Annalise tries to talk Connor through the stages of grief and calmly tell him that he’s just confused and if he would just listen — “ALL YOUR SONS ARE DEAD AND YOU CAN’T REPLACE ME WITH THEM.†Okay, so Connor isn’t calmed down by Annalise, not even when she speak in a quiet tone. They come out of the bedroom and Annalise asks Laurel to forgive Connor, but she doesn’t care because Wes is still dead. Take a drink every time Laurel reminds everyone that Wes is dead or says “WHO KILLED WES.†Laurel goes to the hospital to get an ultrasound and get some information from her OB-GYN. Afterward, she runs into Meggie and who cares. Who actually cares about Meggie?
Connor decides that the only way to get the case thrown out is to introduce his wild, game-changing testimony because it would invalidate the ME’s report and destroy the case. Somehow the more realistic compromise is to put Laurel on the stand because it was already established that Laurel was at the scene of the crime. Unfortunately, the DA has a thick red folder full of secrets about Laurel — turns out she was kidnapped as a teen but signed an affidavit saying it was all a lie. So, she’s a big ol’ liar who commits perjury all the dang time and her testimony almost has the opposite effect. The motion to dismiss the case is denied. Connor goes to the DA and wants to take Wes’s immunity deal and tell the truth.
The gang can’t find Connor, so they storm over to his apartment to see if Oliver knows where he is. Earlier in the episode, Oliver found that a certain number kept calling the ADA’s phone right after major events in the case. If they can trace that number, they might be able to find out who is behind this whole thing. Is it the Mahoneys? An evil Annalise from a parallel universe? Because Connor refuses to leave the DA’s office, Asher snaps and decides to call the number! Connor hears a phone vibrating in the DA’s office. I genuinely gasped ALOUD. Connor finds the phone ringing in the DA’s desk just as the DA comes in the office with his deal. We flashback to the night of the fire and we see Connor running out of the house and a goon is sitting in a car parked nearby. UH-OH.
Okay, now it’s time for part two of this megafinale. Nate is leaving Wes in the house again and there’s a shadowy figure lurking nearby. Wes calls Annalise and leaves her a voice-mail, confessing to the murder of Rebecca and Sam, when that shadowy figure suddenly grabs and strangles him. Back in the present, the Keating Gang is searching all over for Connor. By “search,†I mean busting into the courthouse and the police station and DEMANDING that Connor be produced. Asher sees the DA go into the bathroom at the courthouse and Bonnie teleports into the bathroom to confront him.
Elsewhere, Nate drops Annalise off at a fancy restaurant and she’s wearing an adorable new wig and outfit. It’s time for Annalise to confront what she’s been running from for years. She’s sitting down with the matriarch of the Mahoney family. Annalise wants to declare a truce with Sylvia Mahoney.
Meanwhile, the DA heads into a dirty basement because he’s locked Connor up. This is too outrageous! How will this stand? This is just the most illegal thing I’ve ever seen a DA do (on a television show). Annalise and Sylvia are speaking at the same time, but somehow in the din, it’s revealed that Wes wasn’t Wallace’s son. He was Charles’s son! Charles raped Wes’s mother, who worked as a housekeeper for the Mahoneys. Annalise accuses Sylvia of supporting a rapist over her grandson and says she failed at raising a good son. Sylvia snaps back, “I’m the only real mother here.†JAW DROPPED. FACE CRACKED. These episodes are really doubling down on the “Annalise had a son who died†thing.
The DA shows Wes’s phone to Connor and says that he’ll find a way to prove that he was responsible for Wes’s death. Connor keeps resisting the DA, but for how much longer? In the middle of all of this craziness, Asher decides this is the best time to confess his true feelings for Michaela. Read the room, Asher. Michaela tells Laurel that she isn’t sure if she knows how to love someone or how to be loved in return.
Connor doesn’t take the DA’s deal quickly enough, so he’s being arrested. To get immunity, he tells the DA that Oliver made a copy of Annalise’s phone. Annalise realizes that the DA is probably after the voice-mail that Wes left for her, so she decides the only reasonable course of action is to make it seem like Wes blew up the house as an act of suicide. Laurel, of course, hates this idea and claims that Annalise is selling Wes out to save her own ass — and the asses of everyone in the room, including Laurel’s pregnant ass. She proposes a difference plan to get vengeance for Wes.
At last, the big moment. We get to find out exactly what happened to Wes. The lurking goon stuck Wes in the neck with a needle (after he left a voice-mail for Annalise), which slows his reflexes and causes him to stumble to the ground. The lurking goon strangles Wes, arranges his body in the basement, then breaks the gas line to set the house on fire. I guess this guy is part of the show now?
In the present, Annalise goes to the DA to ask for a truce. She paints Wes as a violent criminal, a man who was secretly a monster. If the DA doesn’t take the confession that Wes left on her phone, she will come after him. She will take down the DA’s office piece by piece. I would definitely watch that show. Unfortunately, we won’t get that show because the DA takes the voice-mail to the judge and tells her that Nate brought it to him. He wants to drop all charges. SOMEONE HERE IS LITERALLY GETTING AWAY WITH MURDER!
Connor returns home to Oliver, who asks him to marry him. Annalise heads to her Alcoholics Anonymous meeting and finally opens up. She tells the group about how she brought Wes into her life and then destroyed it because she couldn’t stay away from him when she knew she would be a terrible influence. She breaks down sobbing and says that Wes was her son. So, like, a son to her?
Oh? Laurel’s plan? She’s going to get Michaela to seduce Charles Mahoney in a bar so she can confront him. Laurel and Asher watch while Michaela puts her best moves on the father of their friend, who is a rapist. I don’t want to yuck anyone’s yum but … yikes. Fortunately, Michaela has a change of heart because she’s able to tell Asher that she loves him. Laurel reveals that the last part of her plan was to shoot Charles Mahoney in the face. She rushes out of the club to finish the job herself and is stopped by Dominic. The lurking goon! He’s an old family friend. Dominic was hired by Laurel’s father to take out Wes.
This means we’re gonna get more Laurel next season, doesn’t it?