Editor’s Note: This article contains spoilers from How To Get Away With Murder’s Season 5 Episode 13.
In this week’s episode of HTGAWM, loyalties were tested and broken as the suspense mounts. After this week’s episode turned the case to everyone’s favor, I’m left wondering if this is simply the calm before the storm or if our favorite lawyers will pass free and unscathed.
Image Credit to Peter Nowalk’s Official Twitter
This week’s episode felt really warm and wholesome, despite the sinister activities brewing in the background (as it’s Christmas time for Annalise and her students!). Annalise hosted a lovely party and we got to see some very heart-warming scenes between her and her mother. While mostly serving as filler scenes, the dinner party did offer a nice reprieve from the intense paranoia that’s been ensnaring our characters. However, for the Keating gang, it was significantly less joyous due to the arrival of Connor’s mom and Gabriel’s presence. Not to mention FBI Agent Telesco showing up and confiscating the Coliver wedding photos along with Oliver’s laptop put the entire group on edge and definitely dampened the festivities. During the party, we also see Laurel receive a mysterious phone call from a “mouth breather” and she immediately suspects her father.
I just love when Annalise's mom (the Honorable Cicely Tyson) comes to visit. Only a mama know thier child's heart. You can't lie to your mom. She know know you. #HTGAWM
— ilovemyshows (@aihams22) February 15, 2019
Speaking of strange calls, Annalise receives a call from Telesco imploring her to come in and answer some questions. Telesco offers her full immunity if Annalise agrees to sell out the others. Despite her mom encouraging her to remain her “generous daughter”, Annalise meets up with Telesco and seems ready to take the deal…..except Telesco never shows?
In the final moments of the episode, we see Tegan and Telesco bond in her car and eventually kiss each other. To our shock, Tegan automatically informs the FBI and asks to be reassigned to another agent. This third act of misconduct from Telesco gets her taken off of operation “Bonfire” (the complex investigation interweaving pretty much every crime in the series), which honestly was really satisfying. Something about Telesco just always gets under my skin, even though she’s one of the few people smart enough to realize Annalise is playing her. However, she wasn’t smart enough to see Tegan playing her. After Telesco is fired, we see Tegan talking to Annalise about how she bought her time by getting Telesco kicked off. Clearly, Tegan manipulated Telesco into the situation as a favor to Annalise, which caught me by surprise. Tegan has been set up as someone very interested in digging into Annalise’s dirty secrets, but it seems that they were working together way more than they thought (side note: I’m still rooting for them, I think they’d be the best power couple ever).
DAMN TEGAN! I underestimated you. You a ride or die too. #htgawm pic.twitter.com/XlfcOJRAJW
— noelle 🍉 (@noellekelly7) February 15, 2019
Annalise receives yet another strange call towards the end of the episode, leading her to a meeting with Birkhead. While this seems very risky, Birkhead is clearly desperate and doesn’t know how to escape the clever way she’s been framed. She offers up information to Annalise as a way to hopefully end their feud (most likely so she can gain Annalise’s legal help): who killed Nate Sr.
It was Emmett Crawford.
Now, this is the moment I think we all collectively gasped, lost our minds, and threw our drinks at the TV. Emmett?! Sure, he’s been too nice and good for HTGAWM standards, so it was about time something dirtied his reputation but killing Nate Sr? Part of me wonders if its a ploy because it’s hard to discern how he would really have any connection to Nate Sr, or any motive at all to kill him. Perhaps it was to play with Annalise? Keep her at C&G and under his thumb?
Whatever the reason, we know he’s in for it next week. Annalise may have played nice rejecting his advance, but playtime’s over and once Nate finds out it was him, who knows what’ll happen? Nate has mellowed out in his hunt this week but that’s all going to haywire if he finds out, and what’ll happen to Bonnie? After placing herself at the funeral, and talking to Miller’s mom (and a pregnancy scare!) Bonnie is having a really difficult time. How will she react to this revelation?
Image Credit to Peter Nowalk’s Official Twitter
This week’s episode definitely wasn’t as jam-packed and messy as last week’s, which was a nice change of pace. At times slow, it was still a nice filler episode with meaningful insight from Annalise’s mom, and some nice festivities. We also saw Connor and his mom rectify their relationship after her mistakes, and the focus of the case seems to have shifted to Birkhead concretely. What I’m wondering is how Nate managed to frame her so well! In the news clips, we see he’s taken care of every tiny detail to incriminate her, and it’s remarkable. Sometimes even I feel fooled into thinking she did it!
Going into next week, I’m wondering how the new agent that’ll be assigned to “Bonfire” will handle Annalise and the rest of the case. Whatever the new agent decides to focus on, I don’t doubt that Telesco will continue her own investigations into Annalise. I can’t wait to hopefully see this new alliance between Tegan and Annalise develop, and what the fallout against Emmett will be. While everyone seems pretty secure right now, this is HTGAWM, and I bet it’s only a matter of time till something damning gets revealed.
Featured Image Via Peter Nowalk’s Official Twitter
