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What Happened to You, Annalise?
Original Air Date: Feb 11, 2016
Caitlin- Senior Staff Writer
caitlin@thetwocentscorp.com
When we left off with How to Get Away with Murder, we went out with the crack of a gunshot. We come back with the non-stop cacophony of everything that comes after. And if you’re not a fan of clinging to the edge of your television in abject horror, I suggest you turn away now.
First, the most important details to recall: after Asher killed Sinclair, Annalise decided to set Catherine up for everything. She wanted her students to shoot her so she could say Catherine did it, but, in persuading them, told Wes Rebecca was dead, causing him to shoot her in the stomach, not the leg.
The Good News: Annalise Isn’t Dead. The Bad News: Well…
There is no question that Annalise could easily have died from her injuries, especially when her panicking students fled for their lives. We don’t see how she was saved, but we do know that she wasn’t able to go home until two weeks later- in Bonnie’s awkwardly tender care. She asks about the students, especially Wes. More on that later. (Spoiler alert: it’s not good.) Bonnie is vague on the matter and only leaves grudgingly on Annalise’s request, leaving instructions for when and how to take pain medication.
You can already see where this is going, right? Sure enough, Annalise is soon downing far more Vicodin than she should to cope with the pain of her wound. She then hallucinates a woman coming to her door, shoving a baby into her hands, and running off. She calls Bonnie over in a state of shock, shoving an empty blanket into the other woman’s hands. What makes this especially bad is that she’s due to testify in Catherine’s trial, which the shooting set up in the first place.
The students, Bonnie, and Frank do their best to create a fake written testimony they can submit. Annalise is not happy about the situation, nor about Bonnie deciding the best solution is to drug her further (“Like last time” says. Say what?). Eventually, though, she realizes how far she’s sunk, and tells Bonnie to throw out the pills. Unfortunately, before she fully recovers, her written testimony is disallowed, requiring that she show up to give it herself. So, having been contacted by Laurel, she does.
At first, things seem reasonably okay. But Annalise is still in a daze. And the defense is attacking her. And, by the way, her wound is OPENLY BLEEDING again. And then she says that Catherine didn’t really…shoot her parents. That violates privilege, and the whole case devolves. We learn that Annalise persuaded a very pissed off Caleb that the only way to save his sister was to say that she did everything she was accused of- but only because Phillip drugged her.
Catherine does not take kindly to this approach, but eventually relents, going against her lawyer’s will to say that she did shoot Annalise. She is given a deal for testifying against Phillip. Meanwhile, Annalise decides the best thing to do about her bleeding stomach is to drive herself to the hospital – this immediately after Bonnie accuses her of having wanted to die before Wes shot her. Oh, and I did I mention her painfully awkward conversation with Nate earlier? Because that happened, too- and was the source of the ep title.
Everyone is Not Good
Despite Bonnie’s attempts to hold everything together and Frank’s terrifying unshakableness (That’s totally a word now, shut up.), the students are falling apart at least as much as when we last saw them. Michaela is dealing with the fallout with Caleb, and Conner and Oliver are dealing with Asher, who now fully believes his father was murdered (That was the statement he made to police). Could he be right? It certainly wouldn’t surprise me.
And then there’s Laurel. Out of everyone, she was the one who made the biggest effort to stay with Annalise during her recovery. Annalise asked why Laurel didn’t shoot her, and Laurel says she was too afraid. Laurel asks Annalise if Rebecca is really dead, and Annalise goes back to lying, and says no. She then set Laurel up with the task of monitoring the person she is most concerned about right now. And that brings us to the subject of…
But Wes is Very, Very Not Good
Assigned with watching over Wes, Laurel decides to help him get out of the funk created by that whole little matter of him attempting to kill Annalise by bringing him to an overly cheery study group with the other students. It’s totally shocking that this backfires. I mean, they had tacos! But seriously, it’s clear very early on that Wes should not be on his own, and becomes even more horrifyingly clear when we see him sitting on his bed with a gun just before Laurel shows up at his door.
He maintains his steely cold demeanor throughout the episode, but when he goes to Annalise’s house and sees a bottle of pills, we all think the worst- as does she. He doesn’t take them, but he does confess to being suicidal before demanding to know the truth about his mother. Annalise’s panics and kicks him out. By the time she realizes that was the worst thing she could have done, he’s gone. But she’s imagining the baby again. The imaginary baby, who’s imaginary mother is also Wes’s mother, who Annalise met ten years ago.
Next Week: She Hates Us