How To Get Away With Murder
Season 3, Episode 9
Original Air Date: November 17, 2016
Grade: A
This article contains spoilers for Season 3, Episode 9 “Who’s Dead?”
There’s anger in the air. During How to Get Away With Murder’s entire countdown to the #WhoIsUnderTheSheet event, I checked off all the people on the list who weren’t dying. And as heart-stopping as the thought of it being Wes was, I didn’t think the writers of the show would have us on the brink of tears like we were. Everyone assumed it would be Nate. Nate’s loss would have been profound for Annalise and probably lead her down a dark road but it would’ve been expected – not as much of a kick in the head to everyone and a convenient plot device to see Annalise restart.
But the loss of Wes is darker. It’s going to effect everyone including the Keating 5, which is now the Keating 4. The one job Annalise relied upon was the protection of Wes and treating him like the son she lost. I even wondered if the Keating 4 was just all expendable and Annalise was only helping them to help Wes. I wonder if the students feel the same and if this is true, what it will mean for the future of the cast as a whole and Annalise as a professor, a mentor and just a person in general.
The episode started with the possible death of one main character in the same house. Frank. Poised to commit suicide in front of Bonnie and Annalise, both on two extremes in regards to their feelings towards him, Bonnie is able to talk him out of it and it’s quite clear that Frank should be absent for a few more episodes. The damage he has done not only to others but himself has left him unable to cope. If Annalise’s own drinking is a battle we have to sit through as she gets counseled on, Frank’s own counseling sessions might help to see how he’s gotten to this point.
Keating 5 doesn’t really have anything else brewing that’s completely interesting. Michaela’s mother comes out of the shadows, showing Michaela was adopted, leading to even more questions as to how someone from such a horrible mother managed to pull herself up and go to law school and accomplish so many great things.
Mary J. Blige appears again, this time as a shoulder for Annalise to cry on about her vast amount of issues. I found this entertaining because Mary J. is not only putting in her weave, but in the same place Mary often finds herself in, being a shoulder to cry on for Black women, usually through music and this time in person. A later confrontation with ADA Atwood and Nate, who breaks up with the ADA, has Annalise crying and drunk on the floor. The whole time I was worried if Annalise was drinking Everclear due to how much she’s damaging her body and all of the old evidence from past seasons in an effort to clean herself.
After spending time with Bonnie which ends in a kiss that still has my head spinning, she invites the students over to the house to announce that jail time is probably on its way. Laurel, Wes and Nate, being nosy as usual, are the only ones who actually make it and as a result are within the house during the explosion that injures Laurel and kills Wes. Wes had requested immunity to testify about Rebecca and had been prepared to die. In Nate’s words, he had “died before the fire.” So many questions, so many concerns but ultimately, I’m still in awe and intense sadness that Wes is now leaving us. We didn’t deserve this. Now I have to start paying more attention to Asher, as annoying as he is. We’ll see the aftermath of all of this unfold when the show returns in January, along with Scandal.
