Everything is coming into focus.
by Andrea Braxton
As the show nears the finale, the episodes are starting to have more focus, which is why this week’s episode was one of my favorites.
Usually the future scenes, a random court case, Annalise’s personal life, the lives of the students, and Rebecca’s court case all thrown into one episode makes it hard for me to latch on to an episode.
But Rebecca is this episode’s anchor. The future scene takes place just after Sam has been murdered. Rebecca is covered in blood, which would make her the obvious murderer, except that it seems that she is merely willing to take the fall for the actual killer. She already thinks she is going to jail for Lila’s murder, so she is willing to cover for whoever killed Sam. Wesley then makes it his mission to protect her, while Rebecca, the damsel in distress, sits in a hotel room and waits for her knight in plaid and khakis to figure out a way to save her.
In the present, Rebecca’s court case is the main focus. The news comes out that Rebecca slept with Griffin, Lila’s boyfriend, and now everyone thinks that Rebecca killed Lila because she was jealous of their relationship. The main drama surrounding the case involves the prosecution’s request to exhume Lila’s body because they found what they think are fingernail scratches around her neck. Because Griffin cuts his nails (football, duh), this would be more bad news for Rebecca.
From the beginning, it seems that there are some sketchy dealings going on with the district attorney’s office. The district attorney helps Annalise discredit Griffin’s lawyer’s expert witness who is trying to prove that the wounds on Lila’s neck are nail scratches, and then she turns around and starts working with Griffin’s lawyer on a deal if Griffin testifies against Rebecca. Annalise does her best to keep Lila from being exhumed. She has to resort to having Rebecca violate a gag order in order to keep Griffin’s deal from going through. Earlier in the episode, Annalise gets a gag order to keep details about Rebecca’s affair with Griffin out of the news. Rebecca violates that order (with Annalise’s knowledge) and does an interview in which she claims that Griffin raped her. The DA backs out of Griffin’s deal after this, but the plan backfires as the judge decides to allow the exhumation.
The good news? The wounds on Lila’s neck are ant bites, not nail scratches. The bad news? Lila is pregnant, and it’s probably Sam’s baby. It’s so obvious that Sam killed Lila. It’s not presented as fact on the show, but in light of this new piece of information, I think Annalise has to be pretty sure that Sam is the killer. If the other students knew about Sam and Lila, I think they would be accusing him, too.
With Rebecca’s case as the one focus, I learned a few new things about some of the students without feeling like I was being pulled in a million directions.
First of all, Rebecca and Wesley finally answer the “Will they? Won’t they?” question with a definitive, “Yes, we will.” It didn’t surprise me. They pulled a classic TV moment getting all hot and bothered during a fight and then finally succumbing to the sexual tension in an explosive moment of passion.
Next, Connor is still pining for Oliver after saying that he didn’t want to label him as his boyfriend. Connor stalks him online, talks about him when he’s drunk, and he even shows up at his apartment with flowers. Oliver has moved on, but the new guy hints that Oliver is still trying to get over Conor. Connor isn’t a shallow sex addict anymore, but I would like to know more about other aspects of his life besides his romantic exploits. To me, he’s the student that we know the least about.
Finally, after she considers leaving Keating’s firm to work with her boyfriend, Laurel decides instead to hook up with Frank after he tells her that he will try to get over her. I’m starting to think she likes keeping him as a back-up, despite Bonnie’s warning to her in the last episode.
Meanwhile, Nate adds to the drama as he warns Annalise that he is trying to find more evidence that Sam is the killer. He tells her to distance herself, but she refuses. It’s understandable because I could see Sam and Annalise’s relationship starting to mend until they find out that Lila was pregnant. Nate then proceeds to confront Rebecca about Sam, and it seems like Rebecca is going to work with him to prove that Sam is the killer.
In the next episode, we’re supposed to find out what happened to Lila, which only pulls us closer to the question so big that it has its own hashtag now: #whokilledSam?
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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.
