Previously: It was bonfire night and we saw a little more of Lila. Before the murder, obvs.
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Kill Me, Kill Me, Kill Me
Marines: Bonfire night again! Annalise is hastily throwing a bunch of Sam’s stuff in a suitcase. She asks how stupid he is, since clearly, Bonnie was going to tell her everything. Sam lied because he was worried that Annalise would think he killed Lila. One sure fire way to look like the murderer is to also be a liar, Sam. You’re bad at this.
Annalise throws the suitcase out into the foyer. She says she’s done with his lies, she’s done covering for him and she’s done loving him. Sam pulls the “I’m your husband” card and Annalise is threatens to call the police. In further, “I sure look like a murderer” developments, Sam grabs the phone and throws it against the wall, saying he’s not leaving until Annalise talks to him.
Democracy Diva: We’re like ten minutes away from Sam just purchasing Keating & Associates, the law school, and probably the whole damn university, just so he can manipulate Annalise even more.
Sweeney: This whole scene definitely had a horrifying Christian Grey vibe to it.
Mari: Connor, Wes and Lila are headed toward 12 Grimmauld and Connor basically asks, “uh, how are we involved in this again?” I mean he almost asks that very good question. Wes says that Sam killed Lila and that is why Rebecca headed over there, to prove it.
Sam is still saying he didn’t kill Lila, but Annalise doesn’t buy it, saying he isn’t the guy she married. I mean… she married the guy who would cheat on his wife, so. Maybe she shouldn’t be that surprised. (D: She should have known Sam was the worst, because he’s clearly THE WORST. But I don’t think his cheatery tendencies should have made his murdery tendencies less surprising.) (M: No, not at all. I meant more about the duplicity.) In one of those dramatic moments given so that we can all just appreciate Viola Davis, Annalise says that she’s been his window dressing for 20 years, standing by his side so that people could believe he was a Good Guy. Sam snaps and asks why, if she’s so convinced he killed Lila, she doesn’t just go to police. She ordered the DNA testing to cover her own ass. He calls her weak and scared and pretending to be strong. Annalise yells that she did everything she could to protect him and Sam counters that all she’s ever done is make his life miserable. Annalise pushes her hair out of her face and decides this is the best time to confess that she too is a cheatery cheater.
Connor laughs incredulously at the idea that Wes blackmailed Annalise into representing Rebecca. Laurel seems to believe a little more but Connor won’t stop his LOL’ing.
Sweeney: That’s some shooting star crazy laughing right there, Connor.
Mari: Annalise pushes Sam, saying that Nate knows her well, knows how to get her off and Sam walks away while he calls her a hypocrite. Annalise says she would think of Nate anytime she had sex with Sam and he snaps again, uh, even snappier, because he pushes Annalise against the wall by the throat and yells that he used to think of Lila during sex. So much for not being a violent man. Annalise keeps pushing, asking about how it felt to kill Lila and begging him to kill her too. Sam’s anger ebbs and he drops his hands. In a small voice, looking dead in Annalise’s eyes, he says that all he saw when he first met her was someone who would put out. He continues that she’s only good for dirty, rough sex and he calls her foul and a disgusting slut.
Well, if they are trying to really vilify him so we don’t feel bad when he gets murdered in this episode, it’s working. (D: Cosign.) (S: Ditto.)
Annalise says at least they are finally telling the truth. She storms out of the house and drives away while the bonfire ruckus continues outside. Rebecca is across the street, looking at her thumb drive significantly.
MURDER CHALKBOARD.
Sam is drinking when he hears someone enter the house. He goes to investigate and finds Michaela, triumphantly holding the Murder Weapon Trophy. Sam tells her Annalise isn’t there, and not picking up on the social signals like a darkened house and the alcohol I’m sure is on his breath, Michaela invites herself to stay and wait for Annalise. She has to give her the trophy to get out of the exam. As they are talking, Rebecca is trying to creep in with nothing but that thumb drive and THE WORST PLAN EVER. Michaela sees her and calls out her name. Sam looks between the two girls and asks what’s going on. Michaela says she’s just there to turn in the trophy. Rebecca waits a few seconds, tells Michaela to call Wes and runs up the stairs. She gets to the bedroom and locks it before Sam can catch her. And… how is she going to get out? Worst. Plan. Ever.
Diva: Dear show: this is why no one cares about Rebecca. Her actions just never make any fucking sense.
Mari: The sense of self-preservation is low with this one.
Wes gets that call from Michaela and she’s trying to explain that Sam is drunk and Rebecca is in the bedroom, but she’s freaking out. It only gets worse when Wes tells her that Sam killed Lila. The rest of the scene is Sam yelling, Michaela going, “oh my God, oh my God, oh my God,” and Wes trying to calm her down, all until Sam breaks the door of the bedroom down. Rebecca runs into the bathroom and Michaela begs Wes to get to 12 Grimmauld right away.
After a not!break, those three arrive at 12 Grimmauld where Michaela is asking Sam to calm down. Wes runs up and tells him to stop. I think it’s supposed to be forceful, but Dean Thomas can’t really sell it, man. Sam takes a breath and a step back. Wes gets close to the bathroom door and tells Rebecca it’s okay to come on out. She waits a second, while the information she’s stealing finishes downloading and then exits, giving Wes big, puppy dog eyes. (D: A taste of his own medicine!) Rebecca says she didn’t find anything on the laptop and there is a tense moment before Sam says he isn’t going to do anything. As Wes and Rebecca are walking waaay too slowly out of there, Sam tackles Rebecca and tries to grab the disk drive. Connor tries to pull him off Rebecca and gets elbowed in the face. Wes screams for Laurel’s help and she grabs the drive and runs. Sam starts after her, but Michaela blocks his way down the stairs. In the resulting commotion, Michaela pushes Sam and he goes flying over the banister and hits the floor. I knew this guy was going to die and that moment still got some Big Eyes from me.
Sweeney: In part because after all this build it was basically, “An accident / Sam’s own shadiness,” that killed him. And, you know, tense moment was tense.
Mari: Viola Davis is parked outside of an LOLPD station, emoting.
Diva: All of the best scenes on this show can be summed up as, “Viola Davis is [insert activity/location here], emoting.” It’s when other, non-Paris Geller people show up that things start to fall apart.
Mari: 12 Grimmauld. Michaela says they need to call an ambulance, and Connor asks why. Sam’s dead and Michaela killed him. She insists she was trying to protect Laurel and so the blame gets passed about. Laurel says that they are all involved because Rebecca was stealing private information off Sam’s computer, which is a felony, so they could all be charged with felony murder. (D: This is true! The show got something right about the law!) Connor says that they were protecting themselves and Laurel reminds them that they all broke in, so really, he was protecting himself. I’d add that the numbers don’t look good for them either.
Michaela still wants to call an ambulance or the cops or something, but Wes wants to run. Sam could’ve fallen after too much drinking. Wes is giving such an impassioned speech about Sam being a murderer and letting Rebecca go down for it that they realize too late that Sam is actually ALIVE and decided his best course of action was to start choking Rebecca. While surrounded by four other people. Damn, I really hope the alcohol and disorientation from falling a flight of stairs made him suddenly bad at decision because this? Is dumb.
Sweeney: INCOMPREHENSIBLY STUPID.
Mari: They all just kind of stand around so we can ask ourselves who’s going to kill him. From Rebecca’s POV we see a blood splatter and hear the killing blow. Sam falls over, I guess for real dead now. We pan across the present members of Dumbledore’s Army until we land on Wes. He has the Murder Weapon Trophy in his hand and he lets it fall to the floor dramatically. Of course it was Wes, in the contrivance living room/law firm, with the trophy, defending Rebecca.
Diva: BEST.
Sweeney: 1430.
Mari: We come back from another not!break, with flashes of things we’ve already seen, from Michaela freaking out and Wes saying they need to clean up Rebecca and get out of there. Connor gets sick and the romantic sponge bath is sealed with a kiss. Laurel tries to soothe Michaela, Wes says he needs to get Rebecca out of there and Connor says they are so screwed, all things I’m pretty sure we’ve already seen before. In further developments that have already developed, Asher arrives and yells at them to let him in. He leaves eventually.
We watch Asher walk dejectedly, but decides to say screw it and go to the bonfire anyway.
Paris Gellar is at a bar, drinking and watching the news about how the police are going to collect DNA from all the men in Lila’s life. The guy next to her at the bar small talks about being grateful he didn’t know Lila and how everyone has secrets. Great, bro. Thanks for stopping by.
Improbable Bonfire or, if you’d like, the right kind of riot. (D: A+) Asher gets down with his bad self.
Murder Motel. We’ve already seen this scene. Rebecca suggest taking the fall for the murder but Wes is all, “NO.” He tells her to stay put.
En route to 12 Grimmauld, Wes has a flashback to the murder that stops him dead in the street. Some guy yells at him from inside of a car, and maybe that’ll be significant later. Wes lets himself into 12 Grimmauld, picks up the Murder Weapon Trophy and apologizes to Sam. They focus on Sam’s unseeing face, so kind of like a corpse version of, “bitch, please.”
Bonfire. Michaela is freaking out in the woods, thinking Wes might’ve double crossed them. He comes running up shortly after, saying he went back for the murder weapon. Laurel thinks it’s smart and tells them about a case the prosecution lost because there was no murder weapon. She suggests cleaning it and hiding it in plain sight, after they bury the body. Michaela and Connor are all, “hell no,” and maybe we’ve seen this scene already too, but I may have forgotten it. Connor and Michaela say it’s crazy to carry a body across campus on the busiest night of the year and the ground is frozen. Laurel says then can dig all night. She doesn’t know that shovels are a sure way to get caught.
Sweeney: Or that simply being near/around one is itself a punishable offense in Traumaland! Maybe they learn about that in their second year.
Mari: They definitely should.
Annalise shows up at Detective Abs’ apartment (abpartment?) and in a scene we haven’t actually seen before, but also we’ve seen at least 3 like it before, she tells him that she knows she shouldn’t be there but had nowhere else to go. Annalise asks him to come outside and he says that Nia is back in the hospital, and invites her in.
Woods. In a scene we’ve already seen, Wes does a coin toss and lies about the results. They are going back for the body.
Abpartment. Annalise tells Detective Abs that she thinks Sam killed Lila because he lied about everything. He knew Lila was pregnant. Detective Abs asks if she told anyone else, and she lies to his face and says no. Detective Abs says she did the right thing by asking for the DNA testing. Annalise worries because she did illegal things trying to cover for Sam. Detective Abs says they all would’ve and Annalise has at least enough sense to realize that no, that isn’t true.
Woods. In a scene we’ve already seen, Connor says burning the body is the perfect plan and Laurel says they should use the bonfire as their alibi. Shots of forced gaiety.
Diva: The repeated scenes didn’t bother me as much when I was watching the episode, but when you see it written down like that, it sounds (and very well might be) really dumb.
Sweeney: It’s a mix. Some of them serve a purpose – the first time we saw the Wes/Rebecca scene, for example, the show was leading us to believe she killed Sam (granted, I also don’t care for any of their scenes, let alone repeated ones) – but there are a few that are clearly just about placing everything in the timeline, and it’s annoying that they couldn’t have been put to better use.
Mari: Mostly, I just think the would’ve worked better if I cared about what I was watching…
Dumbledore’s Murdering Army. Wes and Connor handle rolling the body in a rug while Laurel gets a bunch of paper to clean up the blood. She also catches Michaela looking shifty in the kitchen with her cellphone. Laurel grabs it away and sees there are a bunch of missed calls from Aiden. She explains that cell phone tower ping could place her in this house (OR IT COULD PLACE HER MILES AWAY…) (S: BRAIN SHARE SAME THOUGHT). Michaela says she isn’t stupid. Laurel tells her to turn off her brain and go with the plan and Michaela says she doesn’t need to be talked down to, even though she was just having a nervous breakdown in a corner not too long ago. She storms out and Laurel gets to murder weapon washing, hands shaking as they get covered in blood.
Annalise tries to go, but Detective Abs tells her to stay until she calms down.
The Murdering Army struggles with the body and Michaela, who was previously just glaring at them, gives in and decides to help.
In a scene we’ve kind of already seen, Bonnie is making out with Good Job Bro from the bar but it’s clearly awkward and uncomfortable and he’s probably slobbering on her. He looks like a slobberer. We cut to Asher getting a phone call from Bonnie, her saying she wants to swing by and Asher being so delighted he doesn’t notice when he passes by the Murdering Army’s car.
Annalise calls Sam and it goes to voicemail so she hangs up. She asks Detective Abs if they are terrible people. He grabs her hand and says it depends on who they ask. (D: Unofficial Snark Lady polling data says YES, YOU ARE ALL TERRIBLE PEOPLE.) She says this isn’t something, but doesn’t finish because it certainly is the time for Abs. So, there you go. She came to say her husband was probably a murderer and it ended with up against the wall sex! WOO.
Boonie is at Asher’s place kind of stumbling around. He’s being awkward and she invites him to sit down next to her. He hesitates, because she’s clearly drunk and he doesn’t want to take advantage of the situation. She tells him she’s a grown ass woman who knows what she wants, drunk or not. After he sits, she climbs onto his lap and the kissing commences. Things are okay until he lays her down on a pile of books and then there is some trying to get the pants off awkwardness.
Detective Abs is sleeping it off and Annalise grabs her stuff and leaves. She gets to 12 Grimmauld and finds it empty. She calls her husband and gets his voicemail again. As she leaves him a message and the music swells, we cut to the Murdering Army in the woods, burning the body. Annalise tells the machine that there is a lot to say in person but this will have to do. She says they have built a life together and despite the horrible things they’ve said, they’ve also seen each other through so much. Wes lights the body on fire. Laurel talks to Frank and tells him it’s too late for him to make anything up to her. Connor goes kind of crazy as he smashes up the pieces of the body. Annalise begs Sam to forgive him to forgive him for what she said. Michaela realizes her ring is missing and Laurel volunteers to take the trophy back to Asher’s. Annalise tells Sam that she wants them to be together. The Murdering Army take Sam’s remains to a dumpster while Michaela tries to search the bags to see if her ring is in one of them. Wes tells them that this is a terrible idea but Connor shuts him down. He’s out voted on this one.
Everyone gets in the car and Wes just looks at them like, “this isn’t going to end well.” Annalise finishes that she loves and needs Sam and he should come home so they can be together.
After the break, Wes wakes up in the Murder Motel and freaks out because Rebecca isn’t there. She enters with coffee and breakfast for him. He’s got no time for bagels, though, and asks for the thumbdrive. (D: Wes is stupid. I don’t care if you’re in the middle of a murder coverup – THERE IS ALWAYS TIME FOR BAGELS.) He destroys it because it may prove that Sam killed Lila, but it also places them at 12 Grimmauld that night. Rebecca looks angry-ish. The actress tries real hard.
Michaela gets home and sees her wedding dress hanging up.
Connor goes to Oliver’s apartment and has a freakout about how badly he screwed up. Precious Oliver tells him to calm down, come inside and tell him all about it.
Laurel goes to see Frank. She cries that she was under a lot of stress and then found out about his girlfriend (“ex-girlfriend,” Frank corrects) so she did a stupid thing and stole the trophy. She doesn’t want anyone to know that she has it, so they won’t say she’s the shooting star. Frank looks at her like this is kind of precious and offers to return it to Asher’s place.
Asher is going through Faux-stagram, looking at the Smile or Go To Jail pictures the Murdering Army all took. In a scene we’ve already seen, Paris Gellar tells him their love making must remain secret. Paris gets a call from Annalise, crying because she thinks something bad has happened. The scene goes beyond what we’ve seen and Annalise says that Sam left after a fight and she’s afraid he’s going to do something stupid. Paris Gellar to the rescue tells Annalise to stay put, because she’ll be right over. Paris hangs up and tells Asher she has to go into the office. He offers her a ride and some breakfast and he gets super sad when she says no.
Michaela finds Momma Aiden and apologizes for the failed slap the previous night. She says she’s been under a lot of stress, but something like that will never happen again. To prove it, she’s signed the pre-nup.
Oliver asks if Connor feels better. He does, so Oliver asks what the heck happened to him the previous night. Connor lies that he was high and mixed a bunch of pills. He really commits to the lie (if it is that) saying he has a drug addiction.
Mari: Or maybe I am? WE SHALL SEE.
Connor gets called into the office and Oliver thinks it’s crazy that he’s going to work after he just confessed his drug addiction. Connor promises that they’ll talk about it, but he has to go.
At 12 Grimmauld, the Murdering Army is talking about their murdering and why they might all be gathered there in tones that are way, way too loud. Asher arrives and calls them crappy liars, but he’s referring to the Improbable Bonfire no one invited him to. He turns to Michaela and asks her for his trophy back. Frank enters and has the trophy, saying he found it on the porch when he got in, meaning it’s up for grabs now. Asher better start studying for the final.
Diva: The rules of the trophy make no sense to me. All you have to do is possess it – even if you jacked it from someone else – in order to use it? You don’t have to earn it by being Annalise’s bitch a good student? Then what is the point of the damn thing?
Mari: Contrivance.
Bonnie tells everyone that Annalise wants to talk to them about something and there is knock on the door. Annalise exits her office in a bathrobe, without her wig and make-up, and tells them that the police have arrived and they are going to ask them a bunch of questions about her husband. Annalise explains that Sam was having an affair with Lila and she confronted him about it. He isn’t answering his calls now and might’ve fled. The police are going to question them because they’ve been working on Rebecca’s case. She asks them to be honest and looks over at Wes. He gives her a very significant look and assures her that they’ll do whatever she needs.
We rewind back to Wes having a flashback in the middle of the street and the guy who yells at him. I guess he was just around so we could identify this part of the timeline. Wes rushes back to 12 Grimmauld, picks up the Murder Weapon Trophy and apologizes to Dead Sam. Annalise is there, sitting at her desk. “Don’t be,” she says both angry and a little crazy.
The thing I like the most about this episode is that it’s the last one before the mid-season break! I feel like the big reveals were pretty obvious. Wes did it and Annalise knows about it. Nothing out of the ordinary there. The scenes in between were made up of all this footage we’ve already seen before! Maybe, when this show comes back in January, I’ll be well rested, or something. (D: A Snark Lady can dream.) Maybe after a break I’ll suddenly find I actually care about one of these characters!
(Probably not.) (S: Aim a little lower.)
How to Get Away with Murder will be back from winter break on January 29th. Join us then for a fresh round of #howtosnark and then tune in that week for a brand new recap. Then we can all decide if we suddenly care about any of these characters.
See you next time on How to Get Away with Murder S01 E10!
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.
Nicole is the co-captain of Snark Squad and these days she spends most of her time editing podcasts. She spends too much time on Twitter and very occasionally vlogs and blogs. In her day job she's a producer, editor, director, and sometimes host of educational YouTube channels. She loves travel, maps, panda gifs, and semicolons. Writing biographies stresses her out; she crowd sourced this one years ago and has been using a version of it ever since. She would like to thank Twitter for their help.
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.
