I guess in all the permutations of possible murders on this show, murdering the wrong person altogether had to be an inevitability. It was only a matter of time before someone committed a li’l whoopsie-daisy. There have been crimes of passion and self-defense and well-planned assassinations, so it was definitely time for a complete and total screw-up. We don’t know yet if Nate and Bonnie really killed an innocent man, but yikes.
There’s also still all this nonsense with Gabriel and Annelise, but it feels like How to Get Away with Murder doesn’t really know what to do with all of Gabriel’s cheekbones just yet. Is he evil? Is he a sad boy? Whoever he is, we’re going to keep getting shots of him without his shirt on. And as much we all clearly enjoy that, shirtless push-ups do not a story make. Let’s get into what we do have.
Okay. Hold on. Why is the episode opening with this very beautiful fluttering-snow montage? This isn’t something they’ve done before. Oh, this was all a device to remind us that there is a puddle of blood in the snow. Why hasn’t anyone found that big pile of snow-blood yet?
Everyone is circling around the Keating Gang house and Connor heads over to Asher’s to try to listen to Gabriel through the walls. The rest of the gang is watching Gabriel on the camera. That camera hasn’t revealed anything too useful except for some shots of Gabriel without a shirt. Michaela decides that now is the best time to start working on the wrongful death suit against the state for Nate Sr.’s death.
Laurel sees her son’s baby blanket with blood on it again. She picks up the phone to call Bonnie, but Bonnie is dealing with Nate and Frank. Frank wants to tell Annelise about Nate killing Ron. How is everyone’s idea of how to deal with Ron’s disappearance to implicate more people? This should maybe be a problem we don’t tell Annelise about. She was so happy at the wedding, let’s not ruin her last known moment of happiness. Frank calls Eve to ask what to do and Annelise picks up and tells him to come over with Gabriel’s file.
Eve and Annelise have to deal with that elephant in the room: Eve hacked Sam’s e-mail and showed up unannounced to Annelise’s apartment. Eve says she wanted to help save Annelise and Sam’s marriage, and Annelise says the marriage was over when their son died. WELL THANKS FOR LETTING ME KNOW, ANNELISE! Eve is ready to blackmail Gabriel out of existence. Annelise says the governor knows about the adoption and somehow that’s enough for Gabriel to find out and link Annelise to Sam’s killer. We all clearly understand the logic behind that and Annelise needs better ideas, EVE.
Nate and Bonnie are going over her story one more time to make it nice and tidy. Nate also decides to completely emotionally torture Bonnie and tell her that Ron had a wedding ring on him. Someone just let this woman live. The amount of emotional shit they make her eat is unreasonable. Bonnie should decide that she’s not dealing with any of these assholes anymore and just drive into the sunset. Drive away, Bonnie! There’s just one snag —Asher saw Nate with Ron at the wedding.
Gabriel shows up at the Keating Gang’s house to drop some BIG NEWS: he’s Sam’s son!!!!!
Pause. Pause. Pause for reaction.
Oh my God … oh, no … this is a shock, Gabriel.
Gabriel explains that he’s there to find answers! Everyone stares at him blankly and comes up with a story that would prevent him from questioning their refusal to help him. Laurel pulls the greatest card and says that she loved Wes and he hid the darkest part from her. Now, you can’t argue with that, can you, Gabriel?
Annelise and Eve share a few tense moments before Eve gets some good news that is clearly designed only to thematically destroy Annelise: her alive wife is pregnant! Eve can tell that Annelise has been drinking again, and she tells her that she can stay unhappy if she wants or take responsibility. Well, fuck you too, then.
Asher heads over to Nate’s apartment to be grilled about what he saw at the wedding. Nate tells him that he didn’t see nothing, ya hear? Asher wants to understand what’s going on, which is difficult for Asher, usually. Bonnie finally shows him Ron making the call and saying that asking for the inquest was a cover. Asher doesn’t believe that his boss — who has barely masked his contempt for him — could have done it.
It’s time to head into the office. The weekend is over and Bonnie has to act like nothing is wrong. When she gets to her desk, Ron’s secretary is already suspicious. It doesn’t take long for the FBI to be involved. When Bonnie sits down with the FBI and plays her murderous Pollyanna act, she gives Roxie Hart a run for her money. She says maybe he’s just taking some personal time because she broke up with him.
I’m gonna say this RIGHT NOW — I don’t care about what’s happening with Gabriel. This Ron murder storyline is infinitely more interesting and they slow-rolled Gabriel for so long that any narrative juice has gone cold. Does this metaphor make sense? Whatever half-step Annelise takes to try to blackmail Gabriel with info about his mom is fine. Plus, all of the Annelise apartment scenes are either setting up whatever love-slash-professional triangle is about to go down between Annelise, Emmett, and Teagan, or just rehashing the same story between Annelise and Eve. Teagan seemed absolutely delighted to discover that Annelise is bisexual and lost her fucking mind when Michaela said she had her own bisexual liaisons. Annelise did also tell Eve that Annelise’s background made it more difficult to be out.
Let’s get back to the Ron and Nate intrigue. Nate beats up the guard who shot his father, thus giving him a reason why his hands would be bloody. Nate plants the seed to the FBI that someone killed Ron because he was investigating the guards. Nate really seems to have this whole thing under control. Meanwhile, Asher is asking Ron’s secretary about Ron’s cell phone. He wanted to wait for the upgrade and died before he could get it, but Asher wants to talk about the fact that his battery would die all the time. Mainly he just wants to be on the record with someone believing that Ron will come back.
Asher tells Bonnie his theory that because Ron’s phone would die all the time, he wasn’t ordering the hit, he was just checking in because his phone died. WHO in the year of our lord 2019 uses a PAY PHONE? If someone used a pay phone for any reason that wasn’t a crime, I’d be scared for that person’s stability and judgement. Pay phones only exist for crimes.
Bonnie goes to her co-worker and asks for recordings from the prison warden’s phone from when Ron called. She tells him she wants to make sure the warden didn’t order the hit on Ron. Bonnie is also feeling all sentimental and doubting Nate’s story because she found a bunch of romantic Post-it notes from Ron. Michaela gives Teagan her wrongful suit and tells her to take it to Emmett because it will get Teagan back in the board’s good graces. Gimme more law!
Finally, it’s time for the final montage. Let’s break it down, bullet-point-style:
• Gabriel wasn’t calling Eve and telling her “they know who I am.” He was calling Ron!
• Bonnie listens to the recordings, and Ron’s call with the warden was pretty friendly. We have to still assume that Ron is a sociopath who is fine with getting some kind of parasite in his ear because he willingly uses a pay phone.
• The news finally breaks that Ron is missing and Michaela starts putting it all together. Blood on Bonnie’s legs, Asher being weird at the wedding, blood on Christopher’s blanket. WHAT DO YOU KNOW, ASHER? Nate did it.
• Nate finally tells Annelise about Ron and Annelise says the governor is going to come after them. Nate says that the governor told Ron to order the hit and his plan is to create a conspiracy that the governor killed him to keep it secret.
