There is no such thing as “good.”
by Andrea Braxton
This episode of How To Get Away With Murder continues to impress upon us the hard truth—nothing is truly good, not spouses, not friends, not parents, and certainly not the United States legal system.
Asher experiences this firsthand through this episode’s court case. A man named David was found guilty of killing his girlfriend decades ago, but Annalise always believed that he was wrongfully convicted. After years in prison, David is getting the chance for a last appeal before he receives the death penalty. This was the case that taught Annalise that the law can be manipulated, and although she is normally detached from her clients, she displays an astonishing amount of emotion in the courtroom.
Asher’s father was the presiding judge during the initial case and ignored a report of perjury. When Asher confronts his father about this, he kicks him out of the house. I was hoping that somehow it was a misunderstanding, but I guess there’s no drama in having Asher’s father be a good person.
I appreciate that the writers attempted to shine a spotlight on Asher. Unfortunately, the focus only served to highlight him as an outsider. He is the only one of the “Keating 5” who isn’t involved in hiding Sam’s body in the future. In fact, Asher seems completely clueless about anything not involving himself. To his credit, Asher is the reason that Annalise proves that David is innocent, but even his discovery portrays him as a klutz. By crashing into boxes of evidence, he conveniently uncovers the one piece of evidence that leads to solving the case. There are elements of this show that seem a little unrealistic, but this plot point was just lazy.
The only thing interesting about Asher now is that at the end of the episode, he sleeps with Bonnie, which I did not see coming. Bonnie still has feelings for Sam, so I’m not sure what her motive is for sleeping with Asher.
In the teacher/student romance, Laurel and Frank’s roles in the relationship have reversed abruptly. In the first episodes, Frank was the one flirting, and everyone referred to sweet, innocent Laurel as Frank’s girl. Somehow, Laurel is now the one “using” Frank, and he’s exhibiting the love-struck characteristics typically reserved for female characters in drama series. She’s suddenly the bad guy when she tells Frank that she isn’t interested in him. It would be a nice deviation from the norm if the relationship had been like this from the start, but now I’m just confused.
In keeping with the theme of romance, Wesley is willing to do whatever it takes to find Rebecca after she disappears in the last episode. He tells Annalise that he will tell the police everything about Sam and Lila if she doesn’t bring Rebecca back, so Annalise has Frank plant Lila’s phone in her boyfriend Griffin’s car. Now Griffin is the main suspect. Wesley tries to justify this action when Rebecca returns, and although Rebecca knows that Annalise is doing all of this to protect Sam, she agrees to work with Annalise because Wesley believes she’s innocent.
I’ve been wondering why Annalise is protecting Sam for a few episodes, and I’ve been waiting for them to explain.Perhaps Annalise is more willing to accept Sam’s infidelity because she started out as his mistress, which was revealed last episode. The unconventional history of their romantic relationship might explain why Annalise can look past all that Sam has done and focus on how much she needs him. Or perhaps she doesn’t simply kick him to the curb because she knows that she has also been unfaithful.
The very last scene takes place in the future when Annalise calls Bonnie and says, “Something terrible has happened!” We don’t know what that terrible thing is, but now I’m pretty sure that Annalise isn’t the one who killed Sam. I am going to expect the unexpected as I wait for this big reveal in two episodes.
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Andrea Braxton graduated from the University of Missouri in 2013 with a bachelor’s degree in journalism and an English writing minor. She lives in Baltimore, MD and works as an editorial assistant for an educational publishing company. Andrea wrote recaps for TV shows for the VoxTalk blog, and if she could, she would watch TV all day. She’s addicted to Netflix and any show with a good cast and tons of drama. She has a publishing blog at http://abraxtonwriter.wordpress.com.
