Previously: Some of Dumbledore’s Army was better at lying to the cops than others.
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Best Christmas Ever
Marines: Annalise is in a hotel room somewhere, crying in bed. She gets up to grab some alcohol from the mini-bar, then we cut to her eating some delicious pasta, ignoring a call from Nate and hopping back into bed. We see this happen again and again- eat, drink, sleep drink- as title cards let us know that this is all taking place from Christmas to New Years. Plus, the show plays to its strengths and we get a few quality shots of Viola Davis’s Tears.
Democracy Diva: First of all, there are worse ways to spend a holiday season. Second, I would wear the shit out of a perfume called Viola Davis’s Tears.
Mari: I like that we’re racking up different Character Tears. During Fifty Shades, we decided we could market Ana’s Tears as a weight loss tool.
At the end of the Booziest Christmas Ever, Annalise, game face on, shows back up to 12 Grimmauld Place. Bonnie is there and asks how Annalise’s “trip” went. Annalise ignores that and just asks where “she” is. Bonnie directs her upstairs.
“She” is Annalise’s sister-in-law, played by Marcia Gay Harden. Marcia In-Law (D: A+ nickname) is looking out the window, having thinky thoughts about the swing set the neighbors still have that she used to play on as a child. So this is (was) Sam’s house? Huh. Marcia In-Law says that Annalise has been avoiding her. Annalise denies it saying she was just busy visiting her mom all day, every day. Marcia In-Law obviously doesn’t buy it and doesn’t want to play this game. If a person goes missing, you stay and put up posters and wait around in case they show up. Annalise tries to play like she’s not looking for him because he’s a run-away murderer, not missing. And those posters would awkward:
Annalise says Sam isn’t coming back because he’s a big murderer. Marcia In-Law thinks if that were true, Sam would’ve confessed that to his awesome defense attorney wife. Annalise stands and heads downstairs as Marcia In-Law follows, saying that she was with Sam the day after Lila was murdered and everything was perfectly normal. Annalise puts a bunch of files in a box. It’s all the evidence she presented in court against Sam. Annalise says Sam isn’t the man they thought he was. Marcia In-Law hesitantly takes the box and leaves.
MURDER CHALKBOARD.
Dean Thomas (sorry, whenever we go a bit without recapping this show, I totally forget his name) walks into class. Connor is behind him and greets him, “hey killer!” because Connor isn’t actually interested in getting away with murder, I guess.
Laurel is next and gives Wes a big hug, relieved that he actually showed up for class. Michaela joins them last and she’s overly bright and cheery. She’s also got a ring on her finger and is displaying it rather obviously. It’s a fake she bought in Chinatown. Connor interrupts her prattle by asking if everyone thinks Annalise was able to scare Marcia In-Law away. No one knows what he’s talking about, though, because Annalise didn’t tell them. Annalise walks in and welcomes the class to the second semester of How to Get Away with Murder.
Diva: Criminal Law is only one semester, not two. They should at least move on to Criminal Procedure and call it “How to Get Away With Unlawful Searches and Seizures.”
Mari: It isn’t as snazzy, though!
We cut to Wes asking why Annalise didn’t tell him about Marcia In-Law. She basically tells him it was need-to-know and he didn’t. They are interrupted when Bonnie comes in to announce that there is a walk-in who claims to need a lawyer for a DUI. Annalise asks if it’s press, but Bonnie thinks it’s more likely a rubbernecker. Annalise says that’s cool, because she could use a little fun in her day. The Bad Bitch Baseline starts up as she marches out to the living room and straight up to the potential client. She demands to know the precinct that issued the DUI. Potential Client looks super caught off guard. Annalise accuses her of being there to rubberneck, but Potential Client says she doesn’t care about all that. Annalise isn’t trying to hear her, and tries to stomp away to her Baseline, but Potential Client stops her dead in her tracks when she announces that her husband is holding two girls captive in their basement.
Welp. That’s a little different than a DUI.
Flash a little back to Christmas Day. Rebecca earns the gold star by saying it’s the best Christmas ever and that really sucks. I don’t like her.
Rebecca’s saying some crap both Wes and I are tuning out. (D: Late season update: We all still hate Rebecca.) He’s looking at a Christmas card that arrived for the previous tenant, like it’s a bomb. He’s really distraught over the arrival of these holiday well wishes. Rebecca grabs the card away and opens it. It’s from Previous Tenant’s grandma and she included $20. Wes grabs the card because he wants to send it back. HE’S GOT MORALS, DAMMIT. IT ISN’T LIKE HE kills… people…
IDK what the point of this scene was. Let’s move on.
We get a stylistic flash to Wes in his apartment looking at the scratch marks on his wall and then to the present, at 12 Grimmauld Place. Potential Client (Totally A Client, now) tells Dumbledore’s Army that she ran away from home when she was 16. Her now-husband promised to look out for her. She couldn’t get pregnant and then he showed up with Rachel. Totally A Client didn’t know what to do because she didn’t want her Evil Husband to hurt Rachel. Then he showed up with another girl and she was pregnant and just general awfulness is happening right now. I’m a better lawyer than all of them, though, because I’m calling RIGHT NOW that Totally A Client is also totally a liar.
Diva: Do not fuck with Mari, y’all. She will out-lawyer every lawyer around.
Mari: Woah, woah, woah. Just the TV ones. Let’s not get crazy.
In her office, Annalise tells Bonnie to call the DA for a plea deal. Asher can’t believe they are going to defend this woman and Laurel and Wes are quick to hop onto the judgey train. Annalise asks them if they’ve never done anything they needed a lawyer for. Ha ha ha. See, it’s funny, because murder.
Class. Annalise says that sometimes their clients want to plead guilty. It doesn’t happen often but when it does, they have to focus on getting the client the best plea deal possible.
Cut to her meeting with someone from the DA’s office. She wants no jail time and treatment for psychological and emotional problems. The DA says he wants more information, but Annalise says they need to act fast and without stuff like details and information, I guess.
Class. Annalise tells them that if the DA agrees to the plea deal, they need to use every word out of the client’s mouth in their own defense.
The Totally A Client [TAC] meets with the DA and tells him that she did what she could to protect the women, including cook for them and love them. Weird.
Diva: Yeah, there’s a lot of super-terrifying Stockholm Syndrome-y stuff happening here that gave me the wiggins.
Mari: Class. Annalise goes on that there is no guarantee that the DA will hold up their end of the bargain, so that’s why you record everything your client says in the interview.
TAC says she can’t let another baby be stillborn in her basement again. Because that would be super awful as opposed to the basic awful of having two women living in her basement. Bonnie is recording everything on her cellphone, hidden just under the table. Surely, the DA would expect things like this? This seems weird. (D: Agreed. And also probs illegal.)
As TAC keeps talking about the girls finally being safe, we see a SWAT team raid her house, arrest her Evil Husband and find the girls in the basement.
Marcia In-Law finds Annalise at the police station. Seems the police have a lead on Sam somewhere in upstate New York but no one told Annalise. Marcia In-Law snits that it’s probably because she has her hands full with her case. Bonnie offers to follow-up on the new information and Annalise says, “sure.”
Flash back to West Palm Beach, Christmas Day. Laurel is having a meal with her family. Her dad is telling a story about how he wanted to hit someone with his golf club. Laurel looks very uncomfortable and makes things worse for everyone else when she shares the story about how she’s working for a lady whose husband killed a girl and then disappeared. And then she digs at her mother for never asking or taking interest in her life, except to ask if she’s dating anyone. Laurel says she is. Two guys at once. Her dad yells at her in Spanish and she replies also in Spanish that horrible things happen every day and they are more interested in talking about golf and maids. Her father tells her to leave and she does with a “feliz navidad” and a smile.
Diva: This scene did the impossible: it made me love Laurel. It also made me angry at Shonda for making us wait eleven episodes to finally have a reason to give a shit about any of the non-Annalise/non-Bonnie characters.
Mari: Same, same, same.
Flash, flash to Laurel running away from Sam and to the present in a courthouse. Laurel finds Frank and says that Connor’s car is full of DNA evidence and they need to get rid of it. Frank whisper-yells at her that you definitely do not get away with murder by talking about murder in public, in a courthouse. He tells her to let the grown-ups handle it.
Inside the courtroom, Annalise tells the judge that they are pleading no contest but have entered into a plea deal with the DA. The judge says no way, no how until they hear from the victims themselves. I like this judge. TAC is shocked as she’s lead away in handcuffs. Annalise tells the Army to draw up questions for the cross-examinations of the victims, focusing on anything that makes them seem like Evil Husband’s victims. Everyone gives Annalise THE EYES and she tells them to stop being judgey and do their jobs. When she walks away, Asher says he objects to working on this case on moral grounds. Bonnie tells him to go work elsewhere and that’s the rest of the Army’s cue to leave. Asher asks if Bonnie would really fire him when he can file a sexual harassment case. Ew.
Annalise is driving and she notices that someone is following her. It’s Marcia In-Law. She says that since Annalise isn’t being forthcoming, she’s resorting to stalking. Okay. Annalise invites her inside but Marcia In-Law says she’s fine where she is.
Diva: Marcia In-Law: Excellent at raging against Annalise; not so excellent at stalking.
Mari: We cut to Annalise and Detective Abs, post-coital. They have feelings chat about Detective Abs’ presumably dying wife.
Wes is having a nightmare and Rebecca shakes him awake. He was dreaming about being locked in a basement. Rebecca says something to him but she swallows every single one of the lines so I’m hoping it wasn’t anything important. Wes looks up at the scratch marks on his wall. Is there anyway to maybe buff those out? Probably worth it if they are going to bother him this way.
Flashback to Grand Rapids, Christmas Day. Connor is chasing around his niece and nephew. Connor’s sister invited a hot guy to the party for him. That’s a good sister. Connor says that he’s trying to be good and reluctantly admits that he has a boyfriend. Good Sister smiles at him as she wistfully notes that her slutty little bother is growing up.
Flash, flash to Connor throwing Sam’s remains in the dumpster and then to present, Oliver’s apartment. Connor gives Oliver a fugly knit hat and then tells him they have dinner reservations.
Diva: Oliver, this bitch is SO GODDAMN MANIPULATIVE. Run away and find someone worthy of your beauty and brains.
Mari: Amen.
Later, Connor goes outside to find that his car is missing.
The next day, Connor tells the rest of the DA about his car. He didn’t report it missing because, you know, dead Sam traces. Laurel suggests asking Frank what to do. Frank is walking in, chatting amicably with Asher. Connor thinks it’s weird that those two are suddenly “butt buddies.”
Connor tells Frank about his stolen car. Frank is totally chill about it and says he might want to report it stolen for the insurance money.
In the courtroom, Annalise questions the victims who say generally okay things about TAC, including the fact that she was nice to them. One of them, however, says that she used to bring them milk before Evil Husband would visit them at night. TAC said it would help them sleep so they wouldn’t have to know what Evil Husband was doing. Annalise looks livid.
We cut to Annalise yell-asking if TAC drugged those girls so her husband could rape them. She calmly replies that she did because she’s been raped before and the memories of the rape are worse than what happens to you. She said she helped put them to sleep so they wouldn’t have those memories. This is all making me feel really icky.
Diva: I am so many different kinds of uncomfortable right now.
Mari: Back at 12 Grimmauld, Asher is asking why they haven’t dropped TAC if she lied to them. Bonnie says this isn’t a democracy. (D: It’s a cheerocracy!) He says something else, but seriously, is everyone eating their lines today? I have no idea what he said. Bonnie tells them all to look back over the evidence.
Laurel finds Frank in the kitchen and tells him he did a good job with Connor’s car. Frank plays dumb, about that and Laurel’s assumption that he’s hanging out with Asher in case he starts to get suspicious. Annalise tells him it’s whatever. He can take her ideas, but he shouldn’t pretend like she can’t sit at the grown-up table.
Wes is reviewing the tape of TAC’s first interview. He notes that TAC says that “our little girl” was still born and Lynn deserves to keep “this one.” Wes thinks someone kept the first one.
Annalise confronts TAC. She thinks that baby is alive and that’s why TAC wanted a deal where she served no jail time. TAC admits that she’s been raising this baby, but won’t tell Annalise where the baby is unless she gets her plea deal.
Flashback to Christmas Eve again. Asher and Frank are at a bar. They talk about Bonnie briefly before Asher starts perving on some girl.
Flash, flash to Asher/Bonnie sex and we land in the present, at the police station. Asher says he’s staging a walkout but tells Bonnie she doesn’t have the balls to follow. She pulls him aside and tells him that she may have crossed a line with him, but they are both professionals and he needs to grow up. Asher tells her she hurt his feelings. He should be used to it because everyone is mean to him, but Bonnie was not, and then she was, and for no reason. She looks thoughtful. It’s interesting to me how I can go from thinking Asher is a total douche one scene and in the next scene think he’s… less of douche. Like, a misunderstood douche.
Diva: Asher’s a douche (at least some of the time), but everyone is aware of that, including him. I think that’s what makes him enjoyable to watch, unlike all the other douches in Dumbledore’s Army. It also helps that he can actually act, which… you know, not everyone in the gang can. Anyway, I loved all the #asherfeels in this scene.
Mari: TAC tells Annalise that her baby just turned 4 and she saw the way Evil Husband was looking at her. So, TAC lied to her husband and said the baby died. Annalise wonders why she went through the trouble of turning Evil Husband in, then. TAC says it’s all because of Lynn. She wants Lynn to know how amazing it is to be a mother. Annalise asks for the baby’s name (Heather) and then if Heather is being watched. TAC basically says Heather is being watched by a stuffed giraffe because she thought she’d be out of jail by now.
Outside of the interview room, Annalise quickly tells the others that TAC won’t tell them where Heather is without the plea deal. She stomps off to find the DA.
We cut to Annalise telling TAC the DA has agreed to the deal. TAC says that she’ll never see Heather again, though. Girlfriend, you are never going to see her again either way. (D: True, but TaC’s logic is not like our earth logic.) Annalise appeals to TAC, telling her not to be as evil as Evil Husband. This gets to TAC and she gives Annalise the address of the cabin where she’s keeping Heather.
We watch Annalise emote alone, waiting in the police department until some cops turn up with the little girl.
Diva: That little girl was so dirty and ragged-looking that I’m getting hay fever just thinking about it.
Mari: 12 Grimmauld. Laurel is leading some sort of group therapy session. She tells them that a key ingredient in getting away with murder is to talk about your feelings or something. She starts by saying that she got back together with Kan, she’s trying to get over Frank, she saw her family over break and it was awful. Wes says he can’t sleep without having nightmares. Connor doesn’t want to share and in fact suspects that Laurel and Wes are playing him and Michaela. Laurel is all “ugh, this is why we need to use our words!”
Share Time is interrupted by Marcia In-Law, who introduces herself as Sam’s sister, and asks in the creepiest way possible who they all are.
Flashback to Gracie Mansion on New Year’s Eve. Michaela is getting drunk and she sees her fiancé laughing chummily with another man. She marches up to Aiden and asks if he’s screwing that guy. Aides introduces that guy as someone he’s working with on the mayor’s campaign. Awkward. Aiden pulls Michaela aside and asks what the heck is wrong with her. Apparently, she’s been acting crazy all break. Aiden tells her he wants to postpone the wedding because he doesn’t want to marry her when she’s crazy.
Flash, flash to Sam bumping into Michaela before his fall and then her in the woods, realizing her ring is gone. Present, 12 Grimmauld. Marcia In-Law says that none of the evidence Annalise gave her is convincing. (D: Really? None of it? C’mon, Marcia In-Law, that was a pretty big box.) She asks Bonnie to help her figure out what happened to Sam, because Bonnie was very special to him. They look at each other for a weird amount of time before Frank walks by. Bonnie tells Marcia In-Law she should go.
Police Department. Annalise tells TAC that they found Heather, who is with Lynn now. TAC says that maybe when Heather is 18, she’ll understand why TAC did what she did. BUT! Plot twist! Annalise lied about the plea deal and has withdrawn as TAC’s lawyer, so she’s probably going to jail for a long time.
Diva: I wasn’t totally satisfied with this ending, because TAC, while totally deserving of a prison sentence, also desperately needs significant amounts of mental health care. Good luck getting that behind bars.
Mari: And the uncomfortable times keep on rolling.
Connor is at Oliver’s place. Oliver is washing dishes when suddenly he’s overcome by the need to kiss Connor. He pulls away and is all, “NO. YOU DON’T GET TO DO THAT.” It’s hilarious. I wonder if I can like bump into people or take the last brownie and just tell others, “NO. YOU DON’T GET TO DO THAT.” Notice how my examples surround clumsiness and chocolate and not kissing someone, because I know my life. Anyway, Oliver says he more-than-likes Connor, but he’s kind of like a drug. Connor says they can take things slow, because Oliver is the only person in his life he trusts right now.
Frank fills Annalise on some stuff, including that he was behind that report that Sam was spotted in upstate New York. Frank says that Marcia In-Law’s sneaking around is freaking everyone out. Annalise just kind of chugs her alcohol. Frank asks if she wants him to handle Marcia In-Law, but Annalise says she can handle it herself.
Diva: Oh, shit. Is Annalise going to handle it, or “handle it”?
Mari: All this show is really missing is Annalise going on a sniper mission.
That night, Annalise cooks for Marcia In-Law, who doesn’t want Brussels sprouts, she wants the truth. (D: This is my new mantra.) She asks when Annalise started seeing Nate. She asks when Annalise found out about Lila. Annalise tells her the truth on both those fronts, including the fact that she found out about Lila three months ago and lied to the police about it. She tried to cover up Sam’s tracks. Marcia In-Law was hoping that Annalise was hiding Sam, but no. He’s gone.
Wes gets home that night and with a noise machine, but his nightmares are probably going to get worse: the police have found Sam’s remains in the dumpster. Well, at least you have one wicked, “I told you so!” to deliver.
Check out our favorite #howtosnark Tweets for this episode:
Vodka at breakfast? Annalise, I like your style. #HowToSnark #HTGAWM
— GFM (@girlfrmmars) February 6, 2015
I could watch Viola Davis get wasted and eat Kit Kat bars and cry all fucking day long. #howtosnark #htgawm
— Democracy Diva (@democracydiva) February 7, 2015
“This is How To Get Away With Murder 2: Electric Boogaloo.” #HTGAWM #howtosnark
— Democracy Diva (@democracydiva) February 7, 2015
I’m loving Laurel more and more, and yes this is how you cast actual Spanish speakers to play Spanish speakers! #howtosnark #HTGAWM
— Eyes Only (@AnagnorisisM) February 11, 2015
Is Sam’s sister going to hook up with Bonnie? Because I’m in for that. #howtosnark #HTGAWM — Eyes Only (@AnagnorisisM) February 11, 2015
Damn that is the most angry reaction to Brussels sprouts I’ve seen in a long time. #howtosnark — Jessica Smith (@antiscian) February 6, 2015
Uh seriously do we know why Frank is so freaking loyal? To be helping cover a murder? What does she have on you do? #howtosnark — Samantha Ania (@SamanthaSpice91) February 6, 2015
I'm a 30-something south Floridan who loves the beach but cannot swim. Such is my life, full of small contradictions and little trivialities. My main life goals are never to take life too seriously, but to do everything I attempt seriously well. After that, my life goals devolve into things like not wearing pants and eating all of the Zebra Cakes in the world. THE WORLD.
I'm a J.D. by day/blogger by night who directs her snark and judgment primarily towards celebrities and their many red carpet mishaps. Blogging from the style capital of the world (just kidding - I live in DC), I rant and rave over the best and worst in fashion and pop culture.
