If you would like to read my review of the last episode of How to Get Away With Murder, click here.
Synopsis: Annalise and Gabriel work tirelessly to convince a jury to grant an insanity plea in Nate Sr.’s murder retrial; Bonnie struggles to rebound after a dark part of her past resurfaces. (TV Guide)
Writer: Michael Russo
Director: Laura Innes
Rating: TV-14
Running Time: 43mins
Airs: Thursdays at 10pm on ABC (United States)/Fridays at 9pm on CTV (Canada)
So Nate was unavailable in the flashforward since Bonnie had his phone for whatever reason. Sorry I missed that. In this episode, the team got a win, the governor is on notice, and Bonnie made a huge first step in finding her missing child.
This episode started with a surprising turn as Annalise held a postmortem of her handling of the Nate Sr. retrial. She wanted her class to tell her what she did wrong, implying that the trial was unsuccessful. Going back and forth between a week earlier now, we see how the trial went.
Connor was being pretentious and a little passive aggressive after losing his second chair position to Gabriel. Annalise sided for a jury trial. Meanwhile, she was concerned about Bonnie who was gone. She was at Nate’s house where he explained himself to her. Bonnie was doing surprisingly well considering but there was still a lot brewing below the surface.
Annalise was blindsided during the trial when Nate was called as a witness for the prosecution so they could confront him about his relationship with his father by bringing up a letter he wrote as a teenager to the parole board about how he didn’t want his father released. Annalise was called out by her class due to her relationship with Nate. It was in fact his relationship with the police at a young age that made him want to be a cop to begin with.
Asher and Michaela have rekindled their relationship by making it more of a physical one devoid of any talk about work or romantic relationships. Asher was also worried about Bonnie as was Miller who went to her house but was greeted by Frank who stopped him at the door. Michaela decided to leverage her relationship with Asher to get some dirt on the prosecution’s psychologist expert. However, he was only willing to help Annalise in exchange for information on Bonnie. He didn’t have to think very long about that one. It was revealed that the psych expert was planted by the governor and Annalise used this to get his testimony struck. Despite this, Nate Sr. was growing weary and wanted to testify.
Laurel and Gabriel grew closer to one another as they worked together on the case much to Frank’s disdain as he watched them. Meanwhile, Bonnie finally decided to look for her missing boy and opened up to Miller about what had happened to her. Nate Sr.’s time in solitary confinement went downhill once the smuggled picture he had of him and his son was taken away. Once he was released, all the pent up feelings exploded, leading him to do what he did. The prosecutor tore into his testimony to disprove Annalise’s insanity defense. With this, Gabriel believed that they should go for a mistrial. Annalise delivered powerful closing arguments. She didn’t go for the mistrial but she knew that it was really Connor’s idea. She regretted taking him off the case.
Nate Sr. was ultimately found not guilty of murder by reason of insanity. While talking to the press afterwards, Annalise called out the governor who just happened to be watching and now wanted a face-to-face. Laurel knew something was going on between Frank and Gabriel. Oliver and Connor were subtly making wedding plans throughout the episode and Oliver invited both their mothers. Meanwhile, Bonnie made a visit to her estranged sister.
In flashforward news, Connor frantically looked for Oliver but only found his mom fooling around with Asher.
Overall, this was another good episode that started off with a slight misdirect for whatever reason before giving the team a win thus setting up a confrontation with the governor. Bonnie pulling herself up was a little too quick but still powerful to watch. Laurel and Gabriel look to be a thing, perhaps setting up another triangle with Frank who seems to know something about Gabriel that we don’t. Though it was nice to see Connor get his due, the flashforward isn’t looking good for him at least for now. While not very much is clear at this point, Bonnie appears to be heavily involved. Please don’t die Oliver!
Score: 8.5/10
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The EIC of the coincidentally-named keithlovesmovies.com. A Canadian who prefers to get out of the cold and into the warmth of a movie theatre.
