Peter Nowalk talks How to Get Away With Murder's queer legacy — and reveals what happened to Connor and Oliver

How To Get Away With Murder creator Peter Nowalk made one of network TV's queerest shows ever — but that wasn't always the plan.

Sure, the ABC drama launched in 2014 with a pilot episode featuring a steamy sex scene between sexually liberated law student Connor Walsh (Jack Falahee) and tech expert Oliver Hampton (Conrad Ricamora). That OMG moment was obviously part of the story from the start, but at the time Nowalk had no idea his legal thriller would evolve to tell multiple queer love stories — including one with his lead, Professor Annalise Keating (Viola Davis).

That development didn't enter Nowalk's mind until he was crafting a season 2 storyline that would have Annalise seek the help of someone from her past, a plot point that would eventually lead the revelation that Annalise had once been in a relationship with formidable defense attorney Eve Rothlo (Famke Janssen).

During the hiatus after season 1, Nowalk pitched the idea to Davis, at the GLAAD Awards of all places. "Her face lit up," he tells Entertainment Weekly. "She loved the idea because it felt real to the character. If it registers right for her instinctively, then it feels like a fun storyline to explore."

Nowalk looks at Annalise repressing her sexuality as a "mask" the defense attorney wore, so the season 2 revelation fit with the character viewers knew from the beginning. "I don't think it was ever like Annalise is bisexual, per se, because the character was struggling with the label at that point," he says. "We all wear masks every day, and queer people especially wear masks, but even if she wasn't queer or had slept with a woman, she was still performing for the world she was in — [a world] that contradicted how she grew up."

"It made me so excited to delve into this woman's life and what life would have been like in the '80s and '90s at Harvard for a Black woman from a very poor Southern family," he adds, grateful Shondaland and ABC granted him the freedom to explore the storyline. "Going into this elite institution, it makes sense she would have suppressed this desire in herself."

Over the show's six seasons, Norwalk wrote in many LGBTQ+ characters, including legal eagle Tegan Price (Amirah Vann), troublesome law student Simon (Behzad Dabu), and Annalise's friend and client Jill Hartford (Alexandra Billings). For the episode featuring the latter, Nowalk sought assistance from GLAAD and consultant Janet Mock (who had not ventured into TV writing at that point). "I do remember it feeling like a challenge, because we didn't want to portray anything that wouldn't stand the test of time," he says of telling the transgender character's story.

As for Connor and Oliver, that sex scene was just the spark for one of the show's central relationships — one that also allowed Nowalk to pave new ground, as it's revealed in the season 1 finale that Oliver has tested positive for HIV. Nowalk is incredibly proud of HTGAWM's portrayal of living with HIV, particularly one poignant moment in season 5 as Oliver is picking out a wedding suit: "I'm having a memory of Oliver coming out to his mother as HIV-positive and Conrad Ricamora's performance and the actress who played his mother[, Mia Katigbak.] It was so beautiful. She just loves that her son is love, and I definitely feel proud of showing parents just loving their children however they are. Feels very basic, but it's still impactful."

When Nowalk spoke to EW about the series finale in 2020, he wanted to leave it to the fans to speculate on what happened to Connor and Oliver between Connor's prison stint and the flash forward where they are seen together at Annalise's funeral. But when presented with the same question now, the series creator is more forthcoming. "They got together after [Connoer got out of prison,]" he says. "That feels healthy to me, because they had so much trauma and it would have been good both for Connor and for Oliver to go off and have that time to work on themselves. That's the type of romantic I am."

"The thing that felt empowering to write — and to be able to portray — not just queer people, but people of color and people who have been othered in many ways was [writing] all of them fighting back against the behemoth of a normative culture," says Nowalk, "and that's what I'm proud of."