‘How to Get Away With Murder’ Recap: Framed and Ashamed
Warning: This recap of the “No More Blood” episode of How to Get Away With Murder contains spoilers.
We all know we shouldn’t eat our feelings, but here’s the thing. What if our feelings are made of delicious Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and Sour Skittles? Eat those irresistible feelings! If my feelings were Blue Razz Berry Blow Pops or White Mystery Airheads, you’d better BELIEVE I’d be eating them. Yes, that was me you saw crouched over a pile of empty Nerds boxes like a malnourished coyote. Those boxes contained my feelings! Now I am full of them. Listen. There was a scene in this week’s How to Get Away With Murder in which Annalise bought SO MUCH candy at a liquor store, and it was like this show truly gets me finally? Needed it. What a week.
“No More Blood” was the final episode before next week’s “winter finale,” so its main purpose was to build up momentum and get everyone nice and stressed before whatever game changer comes along and changes the game. But this episode did more than that: It continued weaving an intricate web of codependency and betrayal between its characters while also containing one of the most disturbing scenes in the series to date. Plus Annalise bought a lot of candy. Let’s talk about it!
We began a week from now, when Annalise was spending some quality time in jail.
Her house had been burned to the ground, and one of her gentleman friends was now a pile of charred bones. To make matters worse, one of her friends told the cops that Annalise was responsible! But after Bonnie assured her that she wasn’t no snitch, the two of them turned their attention to whomsoever else it could be. (The scoundrel Wes.)
Going back in time now, we then saw Frank confront Laurel about who the heck she’d just told “I love you” to on the phone while he was breaking into her apartment. But their awkward convo was interrupted when Bonnie and Annalise called and demanded to know what the “h” was going on. Annalise refused to speak to Frank over the phone, but Laurel was somewhat kinder and let him stay the night. Because — duh — it’s Frank!
The next day, Bonnie showed up to give Frank a task but interrupted him when he was changing clothes. Fun fact about Frank: He spends most of his spare time changing clothes on the off chance someone walks into a room to see him changing clothes. It’s kind of his thing.
Annalise paid President LaGuerta a visit, and the two of them agreed to figure out LaGuerta’s family law situation. Yes, she had pleaded guilty to being too drunk to legally parent her children, but Annalise will find a loophole! And, at one point, Annalise shouted at her to be a “beast” in this legal dispute, which, knowing Annalise, means tons of lying and deception. Whatever works! They were now reluctant alcoholic besties.
The biggest plot line in this episode involved Wes’s attempt to frame his biological half brother for a murder that Frank committed. Which meant that, yes, this show was asking us to root for the framing of an innocent man. ANYWAY, the gang could only pull this off if they could dismantle the half brother’s (true) alibi, and it turned out his alibi was that he had been doing sex with the same lady that had done sex with Frank last season when he was wearing his best flashback wig! Frank was not happy to encounter this woman again; she had been the one who paid Frank to cause Annalise’s car accident, which was not Frank’s best moment. But he was happy to get revenge, if at all possible.
Laurel and Wes were still going strong for some reason. No, she had NOT done sex with Frank when he crashed there the night before, and Laurel was eager to prove her affection for Wes, even if it meant PDA at the ER where Wes’s ex worked.
Meggie is almost TOO tragic of a character at this point. On the other hand, she’s straight-up LUCKY she’s not getting too mixed up with these people. Although, knowing this show, she’ll be dead or framed for murder within weeks.
This episode came with several blaring “ADULT CONTENT” advisories, and I’m guessing that was mostly to do with this scene, which found two grown men speaking expository dialogue while rubbing each other down with sponges. It was very sensual and very informational, which is the ideal for any scene. But, yes, as you can tell, Connor and Oliver were now kinda-sorta back together. Not officially. Just kinda-sorta.
Here’s that $400 duvet that Connor and Oliver had soiled by doing sex on it. Michaela wanted them to replace it! Which, dang. Maybe just purchase a Shout Stick? Anyway, Asher and Michaela’s big conflict in this episode was over why she kept sending her mom’s phone calls to voicemail. The answer was that Michaela just didn’t like her mom very much, which, fair enough. But later Asher went and answered a call while Michaela was out of the room, and I’m guessing that’s why Brett Butler will be showing up next week. In other words, Asher did the right thing. Get that lady over here!
So Frank broke into that evil lady’s house, and it was weird how Bonnie and Annalise had to beg him not to murder her or her child. Considering Frank was on some kind of atonement tour, he sure was trigger-happy. Aside from hiding in the closet like a psychopath while the lady read her daughter a bedtime story, Frank just sort of quietly left. Murder averted!
Probably my favorite moment of the episode was when Annalise stared at a wall of wine bottles for an hour (and even popped off a cap in order to get a whiff!) but then remembered her sobriety and bought $45 worth of candy instead. I’m fortunate enough to not be an alcoholic, but I have definitely had a shameful candy dinner or two (hundred). But this daunting, existential journey through a liquor store afforded Annalise the chance to buy a brand-new — you guessed it — FLIP PHONE! Annalise loves a flip phone even more than chips. But she wasn’t buying it for herself. She was buying it to sneak it into the jail cell of the guy she is currently trying to frame for murder!
At first he was thrilled to be receiving a surprise gift in jail, but then, when he realized it was a flip phone, he looked borderline crestfallen. (Also, how sad were you for Wilson Bethel, who used to be the lead on a primetime series and now appears in the background of this show without any lines of dialogue? I mean, it’s more visibility than several years on the CW, but still.) But the point was, Frank broke into that evil lady’s house again and called the phone, which made it look like Hart of Dixie was communicating with her illegally, which caused the alibi to fall apart in the courtroom. Great work, everybody! Really sent that innocent, grieving son to jail where he belongs!
I loved when his mother gave a dramatic reading to the press about how hard her life is now, as the widow to a widely despised billionaire. Stop tryin’ to pretend you didn’t win the lottery, lady.
Then Connor and Oliver broke up again for reasons I’m not even exactly sure of. Because Connor keeps secrets? And Oliver called him damaged? I don’t know. At first I was saddened by their breakup, but now I truly don’t care. Stay broken up, guys! Move on!
It was also lame of Connor to kick over Michaela’s glass of Chardonnay out of anger. She needs to kick him out ASAP. We don’t tolerate Chardonnay kicking around these parts.
The episode ended with one of the most disturbing scenes in this show’s history (which is saying something). Annalise FINALLY came face to face with Frank since discovering he was responsible for her murdered unborn son. And after spending a few minutes reading him, he sobbed about making things right and then raised a gun to his chin. The truly disturbing part was, Annalise begged him to pull the trigger.
Yiiiiiikes! And the scene just grew more harrowing when Bonnie ran in sobbing and begging him not to, and the editing between all three of them just grew so dizzying. But if you were wondering if THIS was the incident that would result in a body #UnderTheSheet, remember that THAT wasn’t going to happen for another week. So the issue of Frank possibly blowing his brains out was given the cliffhanger treatment, and we were whisked into the future for a quick flash-forward.
That’s where we learned that Connor was indeed alive! And even more scandalously, he was doing sex with Thomas, the dude who’d rejected Oliver last week! What tangled webs we weave (sexually).
I enjoyed “No More Blood” mostly because it felt ALL-in on the main storylines. No cases of the week or extraneous subplots. Any episode that places Frank front and center is going to be a good one, and my hope is that placing his fate in such peril this week means he’ll be safe for next week’s reveal. Which would mean, what? Nate’s gonna kick the bucket? That’s my guess, what’s yours? But, yeah, overall this was a solid episode that was equal parts amusing, compelling, and disturbing.
What did YOU think about “No More Blood”?
How to Get Away With Murder airs Thursdays at 10 p.m. on ABC.
