The Oct. 23 episode of Shonda Rhimes‘ new smash hit How to Get Away With Murder didn’t give us a lot of answers, but it did provide more insight into what makes Laurel (Karla Souza) tick. Keating & Associates handle a tragic case of young boy and his abused mother, while Annalise deals with the personal ramifications of her husband’s elicit affair with a murdered sorority girl. Us Weekly breaks down the “We’re Not Friends” episode, case by case.
Current Case
This week’s courtroom case deals with the murder of an abusive father at the hands of his son. The media has sensationalized the crime — portraying the son as psychotic for shooting his cop father in the back for continued abuse of his mother. Annalise Keating (Viola Davis) and her students must win the case based on juror selection and emotion. While the team carefully selects a jury they hope will be stacked in their favor, Connor (Jack Falahee) seems distracted by, what else, hookup apps. Michaela (Aja Naomi King) chides him, but it’s about more than just Connor’s personal interests. He exposes a juror with a pro-police attitude and gets him excused. Score one for Keating & Associates!
Not to be one-upped, Laurel decides that the only way for a victory in court is a little back-alley dealing. She secretly informs a juror about jury nullification, the right to vote with one’s heart rather than based on the evidence. The slip-up leads to a mistrial, and the kid gets relegated to juvenile court. A minor victory for Keating & Associates, and the start of a very inappropriate romance between Laurel and Frank (Charlie Weber).
Frank protects Laurel from getting into trouble for jury tampering, and the two share a passionate kiss. She quickly breaks it off and runs off to get down with her boyfriend Ken. Flash-forwards, however, show that this was certainly not the last encounter between Laurel and Frank.
The Sam Keating Murder
Back in the woods, we again see the scene where Frank calls Laurel while the foursome are attempting to hide Sam’s body. Michaela, still mid-meltdown, (where’s the engagement ring!?) insists that cheating Laurel answer her phone. The sounds of the blazing fire in the background will be the perfect addition to their bonfire alibi. While Michaela continues to freak out, Laurel steps up and agrees to return the trophy/murder weapon to a very annoyed Asher (Matt McGorry).
Laurel does the exact opposite, however, and doesn’t head to Asher’s but instead to Frank’s place. “I need your help,” she says.
The Lila Stangard Murder
Last week’s episode ended with Annalise confronting her husband Sam (Tom Verica) about his infidelity after finding a pic of his junk on dead girl Lila Stangard’s cell phone. This week, we finally got to hear Sam’s response. He admits to the affair, telling Annalise that Lila was in his class and started coming to his office hours. He insists that Lila was the one pushing the affair, persistently coming to him about her problems with her family and her boyfriend. The biggest revelation is that Annalise was once in Lila’s place.
“Just like you found me. How you like your mistresses — weak and broken messes you just clean up,” she says. Sam insists that Annalise was much more than a tawdry affair, but she quickly retorts “Tell that to your first wife.” Sam is relegated to the couch that evening, and presumably, many more to come.
Annalise isn’t processing Sam’s confession well, and takes to heavy drinking to cope. She drunkenly tracks down detective Nate (Billy Brown), her now ex-boyfriend, to get some answers. Nate wants nothing to do with her as he believes she’s responsible for getting him fired for investigating Sam (meanwhile, we know that Bonnie is actually the guilty party). He admits he lied about Sam’s alibi, and that Sam wasn’t at Yale the night Lila was murdered. “You want to sleep next to a killer, go for it,” he angrily tells her.
When Annalise confronts Sam about this new information, he doesn’t even try to lie. He admits that he was at Yale, but Lila called him upset and suicidal, so he drove back to see her. Sam insists he couldn’t find her, so he drove back to Yale.
Meanwhile, Wes can’t seem to wrap his head around why Annalise won’t turn over Lila’s phone to the police. She insists that it’s not a good idea, and Wes initially takes this at face value.
Instead, Annalise has Rebecca (Katie Findlay) submit to a psych evaluation conducted by Sam himself. While she sticks to the part of her story about how she met Lila (dealing drugs, duh), her reason for having the phone seems suspect. Rebecca insists that Lila left her phone at her apartment the night of the murder because she was done dealing drugs. But, then, how did Lila call Sam that night?
Sam probes Rebecca for knowledge about her affair with a married man, but it becomes clear that Rebecca doesn’t know it was Sam. Rebecca uses the bathroom quickly before leaving, and Annalise seems relieved that Sam’s role as Lila’s aptly named “Mr. Darcy” hasn’t been revealed.
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Later that evening, however, Wes finds out Rebecca has skipped town. When he calls her, she’s in a panic, asking Wes “Did you know they were in on it together?” Rebecca challenges Wes to look at the wallpaper in Annalise’s bathroom — that she just can’t be trusted. So, as one does, Wes breaks into the Keating’s house in the dead of night. He quickly realizes that the bathroom wallpaper matches the wallpaper in the sext on Lila’s phone. When Annalise catches him snooping around he confronts her — “Your husband is Mr. Darcy.”
Tell Us: Do you think Sam killed Lila?
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