How to Get Away With Murder recap: It's electrifying!
You better shape up — because the Keating Four need a man, or really anyone, who can help them out of this tangled web of lies.
We pick up where we so often do — with Annalise crying on the floor of her bathroom. She’s listening to her old therapy tapes Gabriel confronted her with, realizing that she initiated everything with Sam and the story she’s been telling for herself for years isn’t the entire truth.
But she doesn’t have long to wallow in her sorrow because Nate calls her to the hospital where Frank has been admitted to the ER. And based on the fact that he immediately woke up and vomited blood, things aren’t going well. We begin to get a glimpse of how Frank ended up here. In the warehouse he’d tracked Laurel to, Xavier offered him a deal — help him try to find Laurel. Xavier claims he has no idea where his sister is, that she’s a few steps ahead of all of them. But Frank vows that he’ll kill him before he lets Xavier get near Laurel again — so, Xavier and his henchman decide to tase Frank and tie him up.
Connor and Oliver are managing their feelings after their threesome, while their sexy new boy toy cooks them breakfast. They have no regrets, which given how this show goes is probably a feeling they should briefly cherish.
Michaela is finally trying to get the truth from her biological father, Solomon. He says that his relationship with her mother was a one-night stand, but it still meant something to him. She didn’t tell him she was pregnant and then begged him not to tell anyone. By the time he tracked Michaela down she was valedictorian in high school, and he didn’t have any contact with Annalise until she was already at law school. Or so he says.
It’s unexpected family reunion time all around because Asher’s sister Chloe is also pestering him to re-enter the fold of his family. She’s arrived unannounced at his apartment because their mom is suicidal, and she needs Asher’s help with the situation.
Back at the hospital, Frank is unconscious. Annalise is sure he’ll pull through, so Bonnie uses the opportunity to force Nate to tell her about the FBI — he confesses to Annalise they approached him with a deal but says he turned them down. He’s still consumed with the idea that Tegan is working for the Castillos, but Annalise thinks he’s an idiot. When the police arrive to question them, Annalise goes off, telling them to talk to the FBI about finding Xavier Castillo because they know he’s the one who hurt Frank. But just for an extra red herring, we see Frank’s blurry point-of-view as he murmurs “Laurel” to Bonnie before the nurses take over once again.
Annalise is right though — we see Xavier questioning a tied-up Frank. He reveals that the FBI has an informant working against all of them and Annalise. Perhaps this is the dead informant we’re hearing about in the flashbacks? Xavier says he’ll tell Frank who it is if he helps him find Laurel. Frank defiantly reminds Xavier that Laurel hates him, so they take a baseball bat to his body.
While Frank is in surgery, Nate and Annalise exchange accusations. He tells her the FBI has told him Miller is innocent, but she says he’s a fool to believe them. He retorts he could say the same about Tegan. She accuses him of considering turning on her, and he tells her talking to him like that just makes the FBI’s deal look more appealing to him. Oh Nate, you are playing with fire.
Tegan is at her office on a weekend, rocking a great new hairstyle. She’s there because her ex Cora is coming in — it’s time for them to finally go through their divorce papers. Their conversations quickly derail when Tegan tells Cora she has to cover all their counseling costs because she was the one who left her. As it turns out, for a man named Patrick. Who Cora isn’t even seeing anymore. Tegan accuses Cora of sleeping with Patrick before they broke up, but she promises she didn’t. Though she did have feelings for him. Enraged, Tegan threatens to take Cora for everything’s she worth and Cora leaves in tears.
Michaela continues to probe Solomon, unsure what she even wants from this. He brushes off her questions about how he discovered she was adopted by talking about the brilliance of her Yale thesis. He offers to make her his business partner, helping him decide which women’s businesses his new initiative should invest in for 2 percent of his back-end earnings. The Michaela we know and love haggles him up to 4 percent.
Annalise calls a meeting at the K4 house via text. Asher tries to ditch Chloe even after she tries to guilt him with the revelation that it was their mom, not their dad, who fixed the gang-rape situation hanging over his head in early seasons. But he doesn’t care — he’s found a new family. Aw Asher, we didn’t know you cared that much. At the K4 house, Annalise tells them the bad news — that Frank is in surgery after being beaten up and they think Xavier was behind it. Connor fears they’re next, while Oliver reveals Frank’s secret — that he thought he found Laurel, and Oliver helped him find the taxi driver. Connor is infuriated, and they all accuse Oliver of being partially responsible for Frank’s condition.
Back in flashback mode, Frank tries to get Xavier to reveal that Laurel is the FBI informant and that’s why she’s disappeared and cleared out her safety deposit box. Except it wasn’t Laurel who did that after all — it was Xavier’s older sister. And now he has Wes’ confession, which includes the truth about Sam, their cover-up, how Frank shot Wallace Mahoney, and more. He won’t reveal it if Frank helps them find Laurel. He’s silent, so they get a little more electric in their torture methods.
The nurse tells a grim-faced Annalise and Bonnie that Frank has signs of being electrocuted, which could result in kidney failure, difficulty breathing, issues with motor coordination, and more. Bonnie looks distraught at the news — girl, you smothered someone with a plastic bag. You’re really going to be squeamish about a little electrocution? Later, we see Bonnie holding Frank’s hand as his eyes flutter in pain — he’s struggling to remember what he saw while he was being tortured, which was Xavier and his henchmen discussing a mysterious piece of paper.
Michaela is annoying ignoring calls from Gabriel asking her to call him. Instead, she’s arguing with Solomon about a business she thinks he should invest in. She dismisses his assistant from the room and then accuses him of treating her like her mother, telling her what she wants to hear and then ditching her. She still wants to know why he never bothered to find out if she was okay. He admits he made a mistake and that it’s the biggest regret of his life. She just needs to tell him what he needs to do to fix it. Surprisingly, she says she just wants money and he hands her a blank check with the instructions to take whatever she thinks she deserves.
Of course, that only inspires angst in Michaela — she feels it’s a trap forcing her to answer how much she thinks she’s worth. But in the midst of expressing that angst to the K4, they tell her about Frank and Oliver’s secret. She barely has time to assess it before Chloe barges in wanting to meet these new friends Asher considers his family. Chloe confronts them all, trying to see if they even really know Asher. Connor falters when she asks his middle name, but Michaela jumps in, rattling off facts about Asher and admitting they used to date, which Chloe would know if she cared about Asher at all.
Nate is like a dog with a bone — he has discovered Tegan’s wife is in town, and since she works for Homeland Security, which has a history of torture, he’s not convinced they weren’t involved with what happened to Frank.
Meanwhile, Tegan comes to Annalise’s place with flowers left by Robert in tow. Tegan teases Annalise about dating their colleague, and it’s readily apparent she’s very drunk. She starts crying, admitting she’s still in love with Cora. Annalise says that’s good because it means she’s alive. But Tegan confesses to admiring Annalise for how messy she is and her honesty. It makes her just want to be around Annalise. There’s a brief flicker of tension there. Is it romantic? But before we can find out, Annalise extracts herself to get Tegan some food.
Back at the hospital, Annalise owns up to Bonnie about the Sam therapy tapes. She confesses she’s been wrong all this time, that she came on to Sam and is to blame. But Bonnie won’t have it. She says that’s how abusers and master manipulators work, by getting you to blame yourself. Annalise admits she was afraid to be gay, so instead of staying with Eve she chased what she thought was normalcy and threw herself at Sam. As Bonnie astutely points out, everything bad that ever happened to them started with Sam. It’s time for Annalise to forgive herself. Bonnie, please share the notes with the class. And take them to heart too.
But Annalise at least seems to — she’s listening to a new tape where Sam says hooking up with her is the best decision he’s made in years. Then, she smashes the tape and recorder in one fell swoop. She invites Gabriel over to clear the air. She admits the tape makes her sound like the villain, and that she’s been lying to herself. She went after Sam because she was a mess and wanted so desperately to be loved. She’s changed and doesn’t like that woman on the tape anymore. Gabriel wants to know if that’s the case, why she lied to Michaela about knowing her father?
She’s not cowed though — she invites Gabriel to ask any questions he wants about Sam. He wants to know why she chose Sam over Eve, and she confesses it’s because she craved what he represented — a big house, nice family, all the things she never had. He pushed her to know herself better, admit she wanted a family and kids. But it was never enough for Sam because under it all he wanted Gabriel. It’s hard to tell if this is a moment of clarity for Annalise or just telling Gabriel what he needs to hear so he won’t betray her.
Connor and Michaela have a heart-to-heart. He’s upset about Oliver keeping secrets from him. She’s crestfallen that Gabriel sided with Solomon — enough that she’s seriously considering going back to a man who always had her back, one Asher Millstone. Michaela has a revenge fantasy of suing Solomon for abandonment and making a protracted, messy, public legal battle that will ruin his reputation. But Connor points out that when it happened he was close to their age now — and Michaela would’ve made the same choice — her career over everything else.
Tegan and Cora meet again to sign the papers for real. Tegan confesses she’s not over Cora, that she still misses her. But Cora has heartbreaking news — she doesn’t miss Tegan, and she only went after a new man because she didn’t love Tegan anymore. Cora goes to hug her, but Tegan insists she’s ok. Until she crumbles to the floor in tears after Cora leaves. And it might be bad news for Cora — in the garage, she can’t get her motorcycle to start. Only for Nate to ominously come out of the shadows and offer to help.
Chloe tells Asher the K4 are bad news. Oh Chloe, if only you knew! Your brother backed up over a lady multiple times in a fit of rage. But go off I guess. He defends the K4, insisting they were there for him when no one else was. She accuses him of becoming someone he’s not to fit in and be liked. She says he has sad eyes and begs him to come home. He acquiesces to her wishes and goes home to embrace his mother, who admittedly does look worse for wear.
Connor confronts Oliver about keeping secrets from him — they’re married so he should tell him everything. But Oliver didn’t trust Connor not to tell Annalise. Connor tells Oliver he doesn’t want to get divorced. Oh damn, he’s really mad.
Frank wakes up and immediately begins convulsing, which leads Bonnie to call Annalise in a panic. Only it turns out, it’s because Frank believes Annalise helped Laurel disappear. This is because in his face-off with Xavier, Xavier showed him evidence of Annalise’s financials — $280,000 in a secret Bermuda bank account (the very same account we saw her deposit that money into last episode). Xavier says that money came from Laurel because it’s their family’s offshore bank. But Annalise tells Bonnie it was her bonus from Caplan & Gold she set aside in case she needed to make a run for it.
All of this is suspicious to Annalise, so she calls the bank back to check on her balance. It’s now $2.17 — someone withdrew over $200,000 that morning. So, she immediately calls Solomon and tells him it’s time to pay up. UH, SCUSE ME WHAT?!
Bonnie tends to Frank, who seems to be recuperating decently. He knows Bonnie believes Annalise, and he tells her she’s right because she’s always right. He tears up saying that all that loving Laurel ever got him was hurt. Bonnie is the only person that’s always been there for him. He tells her he loves her and owes her so much. Aw, these two very, very, very crazy kids. We stupidly really hope they make it.
Michaela tries to go after Asher, maybe trying to run into his arms. But of course, he’s not home. And Gabriel runs into her in the hallway, begging her to stop fighting. She admits he was right, that she wants a father, not just money. But when they embrace and he tells her he missed her, she looks very uncomfortable.
We end on a new flash-forward. The K4 house is now a crime scene. For murder, what else? Tegan is trying to get in because she’s there on behalf of her client and fears they might be planting evidence. She wants to know if the body is still upstairs. We pan up the steps and close on the foreboding image of a bloody handprint and a pool of blood.
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Viola Davis stars as a law professor where she teaches, wait for it, how to get away with murder.
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