Following on from the reasonably solid Scandal crossover event last week, How To Get Away With Murder resumed normal transmission last night with an episode that was probably the most difficult one of this fourth season to follow. This episode had the added pressure of being the season's penultimate one, and left a couple of decent cliffhangers leading into next week's season finale. "The Day Before He Died" was written by Joe Fazzio, with Scott Printz directing his first episode of the series.
I'm going to start things off by saying that having Wes back was the highlight of this episode for me. The flashbacks he featured in were really solid as the episode prepared to conclude Laurel's season-long quest to determine who killed her boyfriend and father of her child.
Laurel's mother also featured alongside Wes in some of those flashbacks, as well as in present day. We saw that Laurel's mother effectively tried to pay Wes to break up with Laurel in the meeting which Wes wisely thought to record, and which Bonnie and Frank became aware of through CCTV footage. Wes wasn't fazed by Laurel's mother's attempts to bring him over to her side, so despite her use of Wes's lesser known first name, and mentioning the Mahoney case, Wes didn't budge. After realizing she had failed, and later hearing that Wes was going to confess, she called Jorge with the bad news, and it appears it was him who ordered Dominic to kill Wes.
I'll pay you to stop seeing Laurel.It's taken a while to get to this point, but it's been a good journey for Laurel, who has had by far the biggest season out of all the law students. So now she needs to convert this into a confession and possibly a conviction, but also into a return of her child. My early money would be on Laurel regaining custody of her child in exchange for not going to the police with what she's learned about the actions of her parents.
Last week's bombshell was the news Simon was awake, and this revelation was the second subplot which garnered a good portion of screen time. I enjoyed this as well because we had some fast moving damage control happening as news filtered through that Simon's memory was somewhat functional, so dealing with the fallout couldn't be delayed. Oliver was the man of the hour throughout because of his rapport with Simon, and he managed to convince him - with some help from Annalise - that he was in a much more disadvantaged position than he first believed. Despite the surprising twist by way of Tegan being his lawyer, Simon won't give a statement for now, but if I've learned anything watching this show over the years, nothing is forever, even if he did fire Tegan later on in the hour.
Do you wanna be a cheater, or a lying cheater?Filling out the rest of the hour was some of the fallout from last week, with Michaela's indiscretions in the spotlight in particular. The 'girls talk' between Michaela and Laurel came moments before the 'boys talk' between Connor, Oliver and Asher. The latter was professing his love for Michaela, but the guilty glances from the other two couldn't be dismissed by Asher, and it didn't take him long to put the pieces together and to rightly rip into Michaela the next time they saw each other. It's about the most sorry I've ever felt for Asher in the entire series, and Matt McGorry delivered handsomely in these scenes.
This wasn't a mistake, Michaela. This was you stabbing me in the heart!
Also of interest was further progression on the whereabouts of the hard drive which Laurel took from Caplan & Gold, but lost when she was taken to the hospital in early labor. Bonnie managed to bribe one of the evidence managers into admitting Denver held the hard drive, thus connecting him even more firmly to Jorge. Laurel said just as much when she surprisingly confronted Denver alone with evidence of her father's illegal donations to his Attorney General campaign. Laurel handed the evidence over in exchange for her effective immunity.
I thought the main cliffhanger in this penultimate episode was really good. Around the midpoint, Frank got an alert that Bonnie's car had been tampered with, but after investigating, he couldn't find anything wrong with the car. That's because it wasn't physically compromised, but it was likely electronically compromised, which is something a technology company such as Antares could handle with ease on Jorge's orders following a phone conversation with Denver.
In the final seconds of the episode we saw the aftermath of a bad car crash, which Bonnie is most likely involved in. A coroner's van can be seen removing a deceased victim. The car is the same color as Bonnie's but not the same model, which is either intentional or just a production limitation. We know Bonnie was driving shortly before Nate called in the accident to Annalise, though there is surely more to the story, but Bonnie's status is currently unknown. She may not be dead, but if she's hauled in front of the courts because of a dangerous driving causing death conviction, this would be a major blow for Annalise and her associates, and a solid foundation for a fifth season storyline.
Other matters worth a mention is Connor and Oliver's intended nuptials now being made public, no further developments on the Supreme Court case, Annalise meeting Isaac in hospital and further cringeworthy hints of chemistry, and again regarding Annalise, I really enjoyed the toned down version of the character who was clearly still recovering from the Supreme Court happenings, but wasn't willing to get into any shouting matches with anyone, and to just to get on with the job instead. The way she shut down Asher and Michaela's quarrel was ice cold. I wouldn't mind seeing more of that because it's an easy way to prevent the character becoming too dominant and confrontational.
In all, this episode of How To Get Away With Murder didn't blow me away, but it didn't disappoint either. It was more toned down than I expected for a penultimate episode, but it still worked in its own way, and several good outcomes will pave the way for what's hopefully going to be a really good season finale next week. Bring Wes and Laurel's mother back to help climax that storyline was a timely move, and my favorite part of the hour.
That's all for this week. Thanks as always for reading, and do share your thoughts and theories on this episode in the comments below. I also want to hear what you think will go down in next week's fourth season finale. See you right back here for that for the final time next week.
