HTGAWM: He Has A Wife

Manuel here catching you up on the latest #HTGAWM episode so Nathaniel doesn’t have to. 

This is it, everyone. We’re one episode away from knowing #WhoKiledSam (or, an episode away from ABC having to figure out what else to hashtag during the show, at least). Thus, much of “He Has A Wife” felt like watching a rather amateur chess game setting its pieces in place for the eventual check mate as our two timelines finally collided. 

DO NOT LEAVE!”

Annalise may be talking to Bonnie, but I can’t be the only one who week in and week out wants to sneak out the door but is unable to do so precisely because of Viola. Yes, her Annalise pushes incredulity (why go to such great lengths to cover up her husband? I’m hoping she pulls a Patty Hewes and we find she’s been master-minding the entire show all along) but she’s endlessly watchable and every episode has a number of moments that show why this is one of the buzziest shows of the fall.

Five moments after the jump

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HTGAWM: He Deserved to Die

Here's Manuel taking over How To Get Away With Murder Recap duties for the next two weeks.

Is it is me or was this the first wholly uninteresting HTGAWM episode yet? And might that have to do with the fact that we were focused on arguably the least fascinating character on the show, Rebecca Sutter? I can’t tell whether her schizophrenic characterization (is she wily or is she broken? is she indifferent or just cooly in control?) is an intentional if badly executed performance choice or a result of the show’s fragmented storyline which depends on withholding information in order to propel narrative tension from week to week. I’d recommend its writers watch every season of Damages to see how to use flashbacks to keep audiences guessing (and how to build tension by refracting known information rather than continually serving up new revelations) but it’s clear that HTGAWM is sadly constricted by its by-the-week network formula.

And so, with that said, watch me tackle this week’s episode with an attempt to break down said formula so you too can write your own HTGAWM spec script! (Beware, spoilers and a slightly NSFW gif ahead)

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HTGAWM: "We're Not Friends" & "Whack-a-Mole"

It's true.  I didn't quit How To Get Away With Murder as intended. The people have spoken and the last writeup was so popular that I kept watching. But writing about it is harder when it's not being porny and forcing my hand and, um, jaw (see: previously on...)

"We're Not Friends" & "Whack-a-Mole"
It's two episodes in one post, a survival tactic. Manuel will be handling the next while I'm in LA, bless him for his sacrifice.

These latest two eppys huff and puff and cry and scream and the first at least is so (typically) hysteric that it has a jury picking montage with frenzied strobelight-editing set to housemusic from the 90s (I half expected Viola Davis to start pivoting and jacking while shouting "excuse" and "accept" and "dismiss for cause" at each potential juror.) Amidst all the heightened emotion the two rawest expression of feeling came in scenes between Annalise and soon-to-be-dead husband Sam. Their scenes together crackle in a way that little else on the show does which does not bode well for Season 2, unless they go supernatural and keep Tom Verica on as a ghost. Pretty please?! You're always jumping the shark when every character is a shark anyway and it's not like they're concerned with Ivy League or Legal accuracy.

These two scenes with have promising Emmy-seeking character moments, though they're a potentia mine field of regressive gender politics. In 'Not Friends' Annalise implies that she was once like the murdered student, a student her husband picked up "weak, broken ... a mess that he had to clean up" and in 'Whack-a-Mole' she delivers a pathetic but wholly human refrain of "I need you"

So...um... [cue Celine power ballad] she's everything she is because he loved her??? 

What the what now,Viola?

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How To Get Away With Turning Your Procedural TV Into Gay Porn.

I was going to quit How To Get Away With Murder with this fourth episode but I may have to keep watching from the sheer ridiculousness as well as the fascinating case study of Anything Goes in contemporary television. If you replace all the female characters on this show with gay men (as you could well do with only 1% of your imagination since all the characters are so broadly drawn) this would be the gayest show that ever existed. Sorry Queer as Folk, Sex & The City and Looking.

ABC had promised jaw-dropping with their promos for last night's episode once you heard 'Viola Davis's last nine words'. Those last nine words included the word "penis". Hey, they're the ones who said "jaw-dropping" not me! Naughty naughty. (For the record my jaw did not drop but it did open wide for a long chortle. It's either really terrible writing or A+ lurid paperback but either way it amounts to the same thing) Viola's quotable send-off turned out to be so gay and so trashy that it exemplifies the young series better than I could ever hope to.

The last nine-words were...

 

Why is your penis on a dead girl's phone?

The most important word in that sentence is penis because How To Get Away With Murder is obsessed with them. Let's recap their communal cock collection after the jump...

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Viola Davis, Vanquisher of the Unspeakable

Manuel here with your daily reminder that this is Viola Davis’s world and we’re just living in it. Remember Jessica Chastain (she, champion extraordinaire of actresses all around) telling us that "Viola Davis is one of the greatest actresses in the world"?

Well, it shouldn't surprise us, but Ms Davis is as graceful a person as she is a performer. She was one of several women celebrated by Variety this past weekend at their “Power of Women” luncheon. The roster alone should get you excited: Davis, Reese (don’t call it a comeback) Witherspoon, Jennifer Lopez, Jane Fonda, and producer Donna Langley. That they all got beautiful covers and editorial photo shoots is just an added bonus for us readers.

But it was Viola, being recognized for her work with the Hunger Is initiative, who once again showed us why she’s so fearless and magnetic on and off camera. Her speech below is a brave and touching call to action, and I won’t shy away from mentioning that it made me shed a tear or two. As she notes, she’s intent on getting rid of the word “unspeakable,” for everything should be spoken about, including one’s shame and one’s maybe-not-so-happy childhood. Watch her follow her own advice:

What can one say after that? Do you also wish we knew what it is that Viola's husband says to her every day? Are you just as happy that Davis is being feted left and right these days?