How to Get Away with Murder went for a different approach, tonally speaking, to start season 4, and frankly, it wasn’t a bad idea to do so.
A change came to How to Get Away with Murder in “I’m Going Away,” the season 4 premiere, but it calmed things down significantly to do so … only for there to be some twists and turns to start forming as well. Let’s break it all down.
When Annalise starts the season off without a wig on, things are serious, and it involves her calling her living co-conspirators/former students to a meeting via text. Laurel reads the text with her father right there, and within two minutes, she tells him she had an abortion.
She’s the last to arrive at the dinner meeting, with the letters we just saw Annalise writing at the students’ table settings.
A week earlier
Annalise is on a plane to Memphis and resists the offer of a free drink, giving a rather talkative gentleman a fake name. She gives her mother and sister huge hugs when she arrives at home, and at dinner, she offers to look at a “memory care center”, since her family home has a bell on it now. (So that’s why the season 3 recap included the mention of her mother’s dementia.)
Cicely Tyson’s Ophelia bitterly reminding Annalise that people don’t live long around her is the kind of scene that Tyson practically has to get every time she makes an appearance. Combine that with the nighttime shocker that the insurance money isn’t coming thanks to Hannah Keating, and Annalise is looking for an AA meeting, only to then find talkative plane man’s number.
They meet at a bar, but Annalise again doesn’t go for the drink. That’s three refusals in the span of less than 10 minutes, which suggests that this is a plot point. The next time we see them, after Oliver and Connor’s scene, they’re in a hotel room together, but she quickly leaves.
And then, at night, her mom rushes in, saying the house is on fire. But Annalise reassures her that things are all right, and both actresses go quiet. How to Get Away with Murder has never shied away from silence with just music, and here, when both women are confronting the reality of Ophelia’s dementia … it works.
The present day (pre-dinner)
Connor and Oliver, meanwhile, are at a bar, witnessing a bachelorette party, which is just another excuse for Connor to point out he doesn’t want to get married. Although Oliver proposes eloping instead of meeting Annalise, Connor’s still bound to his former professor.
Asher and Michaela are out mattress shopping, and Asher proceeds to be slightly embarrassing, enough for them to be alone when they get Annalise’s text. “She’s dead inside,” Michaela says, but we’ve just seen that that’s really not true.
A week earlier
Just to make sure that we know it’s not true, the next scene is Annalise helping her mother out of the shower, singing an old song from Annalise’s childhood, and then Ophelia agrees to go look at the place Annalise proposed. At the Acacia Center, Mac and Annalise get into it yet again.
The present (pre-dinner)
Back in the present, Frank and Bonnie are looking at possible offices, and the question of money again comes up. The entire scene repeats over and over that Annalise has not yet forgiven Frank.
Earlier (pre-dinner)
Annalise has a heart-to-heart moment with Celestine, her sister, and has another with her mother, with both women again confronting the realities of the illness that Ophelia’s facing, this time in words. Before she leaves, Annalise bids her father to “keep her safe,” and it provokes an apology from her dad about the abuse, but we also see her planning the dinner on the plane.
First, though, she faces a hearing to determine whether or not she can keep practicing law because of her violating probation. Annalise is not soulless here, either, putting together an impressive speech. It’s not old Annalise — not by a long shot, as she herself points out by saying “I’ve lost everything” — but it’s an Annalise who can still put together a good case when she needs to.
The dinner
Finally, we get back to the momentous dinner. Annalise has not lost her license, and Laurel tells them a different story: she is still pregnant.
Then, a real bomb drop: they don’t have to work for Annalise anymore. Those letters are for them to work somewhere else. Laurel walks out, but Michaela is in tears and angry about it, then walks off with a champagne bottle. Asher’s quick to follow. Connor just thanks her and leaves. Annalise gives Bonnie a letter, then, and now it’s Bonnie’s turn to cry.
Annalise moves into a place that charges by the week or month, and meanwhile, each of her former students read their letters. The impression is that they have all gotten similar letters, all of which are highly complimentary. Connor finally reveals why he’s been so hesitant to get married: he wants to “do something the right way.” They continue being adorable, and even Michaela and Asher are adorable as they start job hunting. It’s back to Laurel, who nearly asks her father “Why did you kill Wes?” before putting her phone down next to a gun. Finally, Bonnie meets with DA Denver.
At the end, Annalise meets with a new therapist (Jimmy Smits).
3 months later
The therapist and Frank walk through a hospital-like hallway into a room, and Laurel wakes up in a bed, screaming “Where’s my baby?”
All in all, How to Get Away with Murder turned in a cohesive, coherent episode that ended up being quieter than most, but no less interesting because of it. Would the show be good if it always put in episodes like this? Certainly not. We do not always watch it for the great acting moments. But to have this emotional start and then let things get bonkers right at the end there? To contrast how quickly things escalated at the start of season 3, this is a welcome change and fulfills what Pete Nowalk talked about in the runup to the show.
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Did you think How to Get Away with Murder was a Thursday-night snoozefest or an intriguing start to a fourth season?