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Hi, I’m Phillip
Original Air Date: Nov 12, 2015
Caitlin- Senior Staff Writer
caitlin@thetwocentscorp.com
Last week, Oliver abruptly disappeared from his apartment. Next week is the winter finale, with all the answers and panic we’ve been waiting for. So it makes sense that this week would be full of flirting, happy sex, comic backstabbing, and Asher dancing around like an idiot. …Wait, what?
Yes, this was the “calm before the storm”- or at least as calm as HTGAWM gets, which is to say not very. Even still, we get a reveal that leaves us questioning everything we’ve seen this season to date. Could you have really expected anything else? And would you really have wanted to?
Literally the Most Anticlimactic This Show Has Ever Been.
So we all remember Oliver dropping off the face of the Earth after he was paid a visit by Phillip. Connor discovers this himself upon returning to the apartment and finding the fridge door open, a bottle of milk spilled on the floor. He goes to Annalise in a panic, demanding help from anyone and everyone when the door opens behind him and…Oliver walks in. With Phillip, who says he’s just a gamer who was curious. He is going to sue people, though, so I guess that’s something. Also, Connor smashes Oliver’s poor, defenseless laptop to death to stop him getting involved again.
Really, with Nate and Annalise? Really?
Nate spends the majority of this episode showing up randomly at Annalise’s door, doing favors for this woman who screwed him over multiple times, and, oh yeah, trying to get her to have sex because she owes him. I know I’m biased by the good ship Eve/Annalise, but there are many other reasons not to be into this, aren’t there? Doesn’t stop them from winding up in bed together at the end of the episode- after he follows Phillip around for her. Because that just makes sense.
Shut Up, Frank. Or, You Know, Don’t.
Frank starts the episode royally pissed at Laurel for revealing his plans. Annalise isn’t sympathetic in the slightest (nor were Michaela and Connor when stuck in the car with the feuding couple), and reacts by making Laurel her “new Bonnie” and relegating Frank to get DNA with Asher, which he goes about by flirting with a pregnant hospital rep. In utterly shocking news, it doesn’t work. At least until he unearths his stash of money to bribe her and gets the reveal that- but we’ll get to that later. Eventually, he and Laurel make up (I’d have let him dangle a little longer, honey) and eat dinner together.
Speaking of Which, Where is the Old Bonnie?
Spending the whole episode (with the exception of the future scenes) in the shower, thinking about what happened with Annalise and ignoring her calls. Literally, that’s all I got. Asher does worry about her, though.
Just When You Think it’s Finally Okay…
The siblings’ case is finally climaxing even more than- okay, that’s not an appropriate joke for this setting. Anyway. Laurel’s first duty as the new Bonnie is to be interrupted by Michaela, reporting the Caleb is demanding an update on the case. And Annalise agrees. Just as she’s telling him and Catherine about Phillip, she gets a call from Sinclair, who is offering a plea deal of 15 years each. Annalise is having none of it, but the siblings are clearly nervous enough to consider the offer.
Caleb is the one leaning more heavily towards acceptance, so Annalise sends Michaela and her “assets” off to persuade him otherwise. Meanwhile, Catherine contacts Wes privately to get his own opinion, away from Annalise. And while Michaela does her duty loyally, Wes winds up saying that he would take the deal. He tells Annalise later that he feels he should have just confessed to his own crime himself. Annalise tells him she’s choosing to protect him and that he shouldn’t feel guilty. Then she sends him home.
While Frank is off fishing for info, Asher makes a starting discovery about why Sinclair has suddenly changed tactics- she bugged the house. The students start searching wildly through evidence- to a music montage, of all things- only to be interrupted by the news that Caleb has taken the deal. Specifically, he wants to go to jail himself and keep Catherine out. Thankfully, Asher finds the bug just in time, causing Annalise to throw yet another crack Frank’s way.
Meanwhile, there’s Phillip, who Nate is still investigating. It turns out him threatening to sue wasn’t just a lot of talk, because he winds up at the police station. But Nate stumbles upon evidence that he…has schizophrenia? Isn’t really who is says he is? Both of the above? I don’t know…and surreptitiously alerts his fellow police officers. Just when it seems like progress will be made with that shady dude, Catherine takes the deal that her brother just left- her going to jail to keep him out this time.
She is determined and all seems lost. Not allowing her legal team to interfere, she goes to trial to accept the plea deal. The students do their best to think of anything that could change the circumstances, but are unable. But, at the last possible moment, Frank walks in with the DNA evidence to change her mind. Does that mean Phillip is a part of the big happy family? Well, yes- in the sense that he’s a product of the incest between the sibling’s father and their aunt. Yes, the same murdered racist aunt who was outraged by the siblings’ supposed relationship. Let that one stew for a nice, long, time. Also, EW.
…Due in Part to All the Sex…
Micaela and Caleb confess that they like each other. They have sex. Nate and Annalise inexplicably decide to have a relationship again. They have sex. Frank and Laurel and totally okay with him being a child for large parts of the ep. They have sex. And Connor and Oliver have sex in Annalise’s classroom, which is actually totally hot. Only Wes and Asher don’t have sex. Poor Wes and Asher. Well, and Bonnie, who is probably still hiding out in the shower.
…It All Comes Crashing Down.
So Caleb and Catherine are pretty well golden. Sinclair has been forced into investigating Phllip. Everyone is having sex, which is just what they do on this show. And Wes has been sent a very sweet painting of himself and his parents when he was a child, done by Catherine. But then he sees from a photo that there is a very similar painting in Phillip’s house. And THEN Caleb finds a gun (that the entire forensics team just totally missed) stashed in a heat vent. AND THEN Catherine and Phillip are meeting in a car together, the latter ensuring the former that everything will be fine. ARE. YOU. SERIOUS?! And then there was the beginning of the episode, which suggested yet again- but didn’t make clear- that Bonnie indeed killed Sinclair.
Next Week: What Did We Do?