We flash forward to Homecoming night right away. We learn some new information about the night Sam was murdered. It looks like Rebecca did the dirty deed. Wes comforts Rebecca. There is a shit ton of blood. Michaela is not handling things well. Connor is once again very angry at Michaela, seemingly for being such a wimp. She seems to be losing touch with reality. Who can blame her? There is a man losing an AMAZING large amount of blood on the floor next to her. She is crouched down clutching a bookshelf. The camera keeps doing a close up on her engagement ring. Wes is comforting Rebecca who is sitting in Annalise’s chair behind the desk. My first thought was that Annalise has developed a sexual relationship with Wes and convinced Wes to convince Rebecca to kill Annalise’s husband. She has promised to get her off. Because, How To Get Away With Murder. Wes’ whole personality shift has occurred because Annalise has groomed him into her sexual minion. Just my initial response to all this. I really have nothing to back it up.
Flashback two months prior. Michaela is in bed in a torrid sex scene with her fiancé. After sex he suggests quitting his job that paid for a very nice engagement rock to move to Philly and be trophy husband. Michaela says she is not interested in being married to a loser. Plus the nanny will take care of the kid. She only wants one, he wants more. The fiancé walks Michaela to work because there is a murderer or two on the loose and he meets the other interns. Connor seems to know him very well. He whispers to Michaela that he guesses they have more in common than he thought. Oh so Connor use to fuck Michaela’s fiancé when they were in boarding school together. That explains the animosity. Her finance is gay and using her as a beard. Although he did seem into the sex with Michaela so I guess he is bi. This is all news to Michaela.
Annalise is asked to take the case representing the athlete who is on trial for killing water tank girl. But before she takes the case she needs to know that Sam is not the real killer. Nate checks out Sam’s alibi, a speaking engagement out of town at Yale. He never showed up. He claimed to have food poisoning. This caused him to lose his job offer to teach at Yale. 
The interns all go with Annalise to see the client for the procedural case for this episode. A lady arrested for having sex in the park. Wait? Was this against the law in the late 80s or early 90s I’m asking for a friend…. Anyway, while they wait Wes asks Connor if his IT boyfriend can help him hack a phone. Oh Wes, lesson one, know your enemies. Lesson two, everyone is potentially your enemy. Lesson three don’t give colleagues information they can use against you. Connor is not your friend.
So for whatever reason, all the interns are there to get the soccer mom out of jail. She is very grateful. All charges have been dropped. They all walk out together and then she is immediately arrested for being a terrorist. Yet another person living under an assumed identity? Why? During a meeting with the team, and the clients husband, Connor needles Michaela about her fiancé keeping secrets from her. The soccer mom client arrested for apparently jacking a random guy off in the park (again, has there been a ruling on the legality of this?) is accused of being part of bombing. The soccer mom all but confesses. She wants to take a ten year plea. Annalise says she can win this. She is going with a brain washing defense a la Patty Hearst. This procedural case seems to be sort of a throwaway storyline. Did we really need two cases in a row where the spouse has a false identity? Was there more we were supposed to get from this?
Annalise tells Frank, in front of the interns, to leave the lawyering to the lawyers. Wait what? Frank is not a lawyer? This is news to everyone. What is he then? Asher somehow comes up with important information. He gets the trophy that Annalise took away from Connor. So Asher is currently in possession of the soon to be murder weapon. Annalise tells the client she has to go meet with the “cult leader.”
Meanwhile Connor and Asher talk about Frank. Is he not really a lawyer? They are also having a pissing contest over “the trophy” which is sort of the immunity idol of the interns in addition to eventually becoming the murder weapon. Connor has it but Asher is about to take it. Lots of tension between these two. Michaela says she never thought Frank was a lawyer. Wes’ phone rings. It’s someone calling for Lila on the phone from his bathroom. Wes realizes Rebecca hid Lila’s phone in his bathroom. Sounds like someone wanting to do a drug deal. So Lila was a drug dealer?
Flash Forward to the night of Sam’s murder. Michaela is still freaking out. Laurel says that the bonfire is their alibi. They were at the bonfire, thus there is smoke on their clothes, etc. Sounds like something Frank might have planted. Annalise is controlling Wes. Frank is controlling Laurel. They all go to the bonfire and take a shit load of selfies. Micaela is a wreck still. Connor grabs her and takes a selfie but first he gives her the title quote, “SMILE or go to JAIL!” They post all the photos on the Internet and claim the bonfire as their alibi if it comes to that.
Back to the soccer mom confronting her cult leader with Annalise. Dude says he spent the last 20 years waiting for her and it was worth it. She looks great. She says he doesn’t look too bad himself. He tells her not to say that too loud, there are a lot of lonely guys in here looking at him. They hold hands. He says he will testify on her behalf. She smiles. These two clearly still have the hots for each other. Why is this soccer mom who is married with two kids, and who has an imprisoned ex lover that she is still pining for giving out random handies in the park? We never get an answer to that.
Annalise and Sam have a double dinner date with friends. He announces he did not get the job at Yale. Nate is still checking out Sam’s alibi. He left Yale at 7 and was not back until 6 am. The alibi does not hold up. He was not at Yale when the murder occurred.
This is the first episode with two procedurals. The football player case has been taken on by Annalise. He says that he was at a frat party. Lila was pissed at him. Some of the girls wanted coke so he called Rebecca. She was friends with Lila. He knew Rebecca dealt. But Wes knows it was really Lila who was the dealer based on the phone call. Rebecca came over with the coke and he was in the middle of fucking her when Lila walked in. Wes knows he is lying. Dude says that he and Lila had promised to be celibate until marriage. This is such a crock of shit. He says Lila lost it. She was screaming and scratching him and that is why his DNA is under her nails. He says that Rebecca set the whole thing up. Rebecca did it not him. Rebecca used his phone to text Lila and tell her they were together.
Wes prints up a fake attorney license to get into see Rebecca. Wes tells her he found Lila’s phone. She calls for the guard and busts him letting them know he is not a lawyer. He screams at her that the jock is going to pin it all on her. Why would Rebecca have Wes thrown out when he is there trying to help her? Why?
Meanwhile, Laurel is meeting with Frank and Bonnie. she wants to leave to go to a Law Review party. Ah..Paper Chase memories. I never wanted to be an attorney but I always wanted to go to a great Law School and be on the Law Review. Frank gives her permission to go. Bonnie is pissy about it. Bonnie is pissy about everything. It’s rowdy party. Laurel meets a legal aid guy and they get cozy. Michaela and her fiancé are there. Connor is being the third wheel. Michaela tells him to piss off. Connor says something like there was a time when he thought he would be the one with the engagement ring. Michaela asks what he is talking about and Connor says they were sixteen locked away at an all boys school, it’s not a big deal. Michaela is furious.
Wes is coming clean to Annalise. He says Rebecca needs him. He is trying to help her. He doesn’t care if she fires him. She doesn’t. So does that blow my whole theory about Annalise seducing Wes? Probably. Back to square one I guess.
In court Connor tells Michaela he hooked up with all of the hot guys in boarding school if it makes her feel any better. And he hardly remembers what her fiancé’s cock looked like. Oh, but then he says he does. Burn. Also in court Laurel finds out that Frank was there when she made out with the hot legal aid guy at the party. Frank seems…ominous.
The cult leader guy is called by the prosecution. He says that the bomb was all the soccer mom’s idea… UT OH. Everything is going to shit. Annalise crosses and says he said that he told her that the bomb was all his idea. She says it was not until he talked to he spoke to the defense that the prosecution called him as a witness. And now his story has changed. He got a deal.
Annalise’s team gets three hours to build a new defense. The client disappears. The judge issues a bench warrant. The case is on hold. the cult leader dude got immediate early release and ran off on a bus with the soccer mom into the sunset.
Annalise warns Michaela to choose her husband carefully she says ” You will only have yourself to blame if it ends badly.” There seems to be a lot of piss poor choices in spouses going around.
Nate LIES to Annalise and tell her that her husbands alibi is solid. WHY? Nate wants Annalise to go home and be with her husband. Is he saying this just to get her out of his hair?
Flash forward to the murder of Sam again. Michaela has lost her engagement ring in all the drama. It came off somewhere. She freaks out.
Back to whenever. Michaela is surprised by her fiancé. She says he should have told her. He says he is not gay it was something that happened when he was a horny kid at an all boys school. He loves her and he is not gay. She says that her wedding gown is Vera Wang. Not off the rack Vera Wang, but bespoke Vera Wang. It cost her a fortune. So he better be sure. Because if he is gay and does anything to discredit her she will ruin him. Ah young love.
Bonnie and Sam. Hmmm….. have a discussion about Annalise repping the footballer. Something is up with those two.
Back in class, the trophy goes to… Wes. And Annalise says she is representing… Rebecca….Annalise and all her minions arrive to depose her and she is told her client just confessed….Boy that trophy gets passed around a lot. Did is skip Asher or was it passed twice?
Wait what? Viola Davis utters her last nine words on the next episode? So that is why the kids are more interesting… I’m still in. What does that even mean? How can she utter her last nine words? Will they show another flash forward with her getting killed? “I taught you how to get away with murder” is nine words…..
I know! What is up with that?!? Her last nine words??? I hope it’s as exciting as they’re making it sound.
Anyway, this jumping around is insane. It’s not that they just keep jumping back and forth between 2 months ago and the present, but when we jump to the night of the murder/bonfire, they keep throwing us to all different times over the course of that night, middle, back and forth, sometimes showing the same scenes over again. It is a bit too much.
Anyway, I guess the hand job chick and the cult leader set that whole thing up so they could run of together? That would be a reason for the hand job in the park, which, by the way, is indecent exposure. She did provide another reason when they were all riding in the car on the way back from meeting the cult leader in prison though. She said that seeing him just then made her realize that she has been chasing the excitement from her days with him. That she felt so alive then, and that is why she did that thing in the park. To feel that excitement again. I still think they (the writers) were trying to show us that the whole thing was cooked up by the two of them to get him out of jail so they could be together.
I’m still kind of lost on a lot of what is going on with this (these) murders though, to a dizzying degree, but I just knew that the cop was going to lie to her about her husband for some reason. I also wonder if it’s just to get her out of his hair. I’m thinking about watching it over, but honestly, I don’t even know if that would help.
If anyone watches them over, I want to know if Michaela had her engagement ring in other flash forwards from the first episode. I think he loss of the ring will lead to her getting the rap for Sams murder and she will squeal like a stuck pig on all of the others.
On Fri, Oct 10, 2014 at 1:50 PM, Tamara Tattles wrote:
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I am binge watching the first 3 episodes. Yes, Michela has on an engagement ring at the beginning. Wes sits next to her in first row of lecture auditorium and speaks to her, she sort of flips him off “I’m engaged” and flashes her ring. She thinks every guy is coming on to her.
The jumping around between timelines is no shocker..before this show even began ShondaFreaks were putting this out “you’ll need to be smart or just pay VERY close attention to this show to get it”. I thought to myself that if the characters are going to he speaking at an even FASTER pace than Scandal, I won’t watch, scandal is getting a TAD ridiculous with the speed speaking (anyone notice Quinn now speaks as fast as Abby & Olivia??? Ya she DEFINITELY practiced during the break lol). I can’t take it much longer, you don’t need to speak at a pace of 30 words per second to sound intelligent.
Alas, it’s the timeline jumping that seems to confuse. You do have to pay close attention at all times, in fact I have to rewind & rewatch several scenes to keep up they’re running, they’re killing they’re jumping thru time..lol I still love it
Well, I am going to watch it tonight. Glad I read the recap before hand so I can pay attention to everything!!
the jumping around makes me nuts also, it can be hard to keep up with as i am trying to explain what my son missed when he is trying to do his homework. i still really like wes, i KNOW we are supposed to like him but i really do like him. i have to rewatch it to make sure i got it all, the recap helped some but i am still confused.
Shows like this help wean me from the Bravo teet.
Oh I’m soooooooooo in!! I love the jumping around….keeps a Black Nerd on her toes!!! LMAO!!
Michaela’s face when Conner whispered that he slept with her man back in bording school was pricless!!! She’s totally gonna get blamed cause that half ass smile at the bonfire + lost engagement ring = GO DIRECTLY TO JAIL! DO NOT PASS GO…DO NOT COLLECT $200!
And….
Who is pissing in Bonnie’s coffee everyday? Why is she mad at the entire human race? CTFUUUUUUUUU!! Can’t wait to find out what’s up with her!
Does it seem to anyone else that she either has the hots for Annalise’s husband, or maybe even had an affair with him or something. I’ve noticed her get a strange look on her face when she sees Annalise and her hubby being affectionate with each other.
Oh yes lori!!!! Could she be the student he’s slept with in the past?? Or does she have the hots for him & know about Annalise & the detective??? Even so, she acts pissy towards EVERYBODY!! LOL!!
I think it is for Annalise, in the last episode Frank alluded to the fact that she is gay, when they were talking about Laurel.
I’m rewatching episode one right now. There is a scene where Sam walks into the law office and she runs over and excitedly says “Sam!”, and gives him a peck on the cheek and is gushing over him, asking about how his trip to Yale went. Then Annalise walks up to him and they start kissing and he says “I heading to bed. You coming? I’ve missed you” and Annalise says “I’ll be up soon”. Bonnie gets “that look” on her face. I think shaeonassis is right and Bonnie is probably the previous student that he slept with.
If she is a previous lover and not someone lined up to be the next one, Annalise would know about it. Why would she hire her?
I don’t mean that’s a stupid theory, because why would she hire her? I mean that could be the situation but how would hiring her benefit? Annalise?
On Sat, Oct 11, 2014 at 6:07 PM, Tamara Tattles wrote:
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Keep your friends close and your enemies closer?
I really enjoyed this episode. I’m still into this show. Showing that Rebecca killed Sam so early kind of makes the flash forwards a bit more boring. I guess we just need to find out what the motive was. It’s also clearly pointing the fingure at Sam for the water tank girl’s murder.
The Bonnie and Sam scenes make me uncomfortable. Their awkward conversation and sexual tension makes me feel dirty :).
I thought next week’s promo said you don’t want to miss her last 9 words…as if to say the last 9 words she says on that ep (not ever) are not to be missed. That’s how I took it.
You are probably right. It all seemed very final to me, but I was watching very late at night. that said with all the back and forth in time, in theory they could kill her too and still have her on the show every week and for more seasons.
On Sat, Oct 11, 2014 at 9:49 AM, Tamara Tattles wrote:
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Ok so after this week’s episode, I am sticking with my theory that Rebecca knows that Sam murdered the water cooler lady. She confronts Sam there is a struggle, he falls and hits his head, or she attacks him with the trophy to protect herself (yes it is still a working in progress 🙂 ) and that is how he dies. Or maybe Wes set her up to blackmail Sam into leaving Annalise and he dies, that is why the group is now helping her cover it up. … shucks I don’t know.. but I am liking this show :).
I think it’s fairly clear that Frank is a paralegal. Bonnie probably is, too.
How is that fairly clear?
On the earlier episode when Annalise first questioned Sam if he had anything to do with the missing student, she said you did this before. Why would she jump to the idea that a missing girl might be one he had an affair with? I don’t think she is worried he has only been unfaithful again. She is worried he has killed a student again. She may have defended him in the past or met him in court while he was being tried. She might have been the intern.
Nate is lying not to protect Sam but to protect himself from Annalise trying to coerce him into changing evidence to protect Sam and thereby getting himself fired. She would involve him someway. Look how she fights for strangers, what lengths would she go to for Sam? She really loves him, Nate and any other man or boy is just a means to get control of something she wants. Maybe!
I think Bonnie may be related to Sam instead of a paramour.
Theory: the cop boyfriend lied to Annalise about her husband Sam’s whereabouts the night of Lila’s murder because the boyfriend is hugely pissed about his job suspension due to Annalise’s MO of getting away w/ murder.
I mean surely that is what the want us to see on the surface, but I don’t think Nate would have gone to all the trouble to investigate only to lie. He could have just told her he investigated without going to all the trouble. Doesn’t he have a dying wife at home? Men don’t go to that much trouble to tell the same lie they could have told with no trouble at all. Why did he check into it first?
On Sun, Oct 12, 2014 at 7:25 AM, Tamara Tattles wrote:
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Yes he does, which she horribly brought up when she had him on the stand. “Were you home taking care of your wife? She has cancer right? “
I think Nate wants to be the one to bring Sam to justice and thereby restore his reputation. He investigated more for himself than for Annaliese. Now he has something to go towards finding a murderer. At that point, Sam is still alive and Nate is going to take him down. He used Annaliese just as she used him. She unwittingly gave him a lead in the death of Lila Stangard. That’s my opinion so far.
That sounds reasonable… Payback is a bitch and all that…
On Sun, Oct 12, 2014 at 11:40 PM, Tamara Tattles wrote:
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Theory: Sam had a previous affair w/ student that was murdered, which is why Annalise is suspicious this time around..Also explains talk of going to Yale, possibly to continue his dirty deeds. Hasn’t been revealed yet, but I think the police are already on to Sam. It would 1. explain why Nate lied to Annalise about his alibi. 2.Nate told her something to the effect of “be careful, you don’t know what’s all involved”.like theres somthing she doesnt knoe 3. I think Asher is undercover & works for the police & was placed in Prof Keating class to keep tabs on her.4 Asher is absent in all of the flash-forwards w/Sam’s body. 5.Wes saw Asher @ the police department w/out the other members of the group & it seemed very suspicious. 6. Asher’s summer interniship seemed too advanced to only be an incoming law student, pos a cover.
My only conclusion to Nate lying to Annaliise is: Nate is now on probation due to Annalise. In order to get off and look good on the precinct he can bring this evidence against Annalise husband to his bosses and by not telling Annalise he gets back at her for what she did to him on the stand.
That’s a good one.
Yes! I said this before I read your post. I agree.