Recap/Review: How To Get Away With Murder's 1x13: Mama's Here Now

Was this a penultimate episode or what? Given that the finale is essentially a two parter, I guess it was but this was certainly an eye opening episode as certain things came together quite nicely.

Written by Erika Green Swafford & Doug Stockstill
Directed by Michael Listo

Getting Things Done: And the Emmy for Best Guest Star .... had better go to Cicely Tyson in the next seven months. As Annalise's mother, Ophelia, she was certainly the best guest star the show has brought in so far and the scenes between her and Viola Davis were basically a masterclass in acting goodness. No stone was left unturned as we learned that Annalise used to be called Anna Mae and that she had been raped by an abusive uncle, who Ophelia later ended up killing. While the commentary on men taking things from women wasn't particularly subtle, there was an element of it that rang true enough to explain the strained dynamic between mother and daughter as the latter would step up a gear in order to fix the problem that she caused Nate. Leading into ...

Attack Of Conscience: Michaela. Last week it looked like she wasn't particular bothered about an innocent man being sent down for Sam's death. This week was thankfully a change of tack as Michaela used her own smarts and sex appeal to get information on Nate's current predicament (which ain't looking good but nice of the show to give us some naked Billy Brown though) before Annalise stepped in, had a cryptic exchange with Nate before slyly encouraging him to switch lawyers with a little note she easily managed to slip him. I think this episode might have my favourite one for Michaela. We need to see more of these kids good side and this was a great way of doing it.

Hi, Rudy: Okay, I actually thought that Rudy wouldn't be introduced until much later. I wasn't actually expecting a Wes/Laurel team up to meet the bloke in a mental hospital and I certainly wasn't factoring that he might have actually played a role or know something about Lila's death but this episode proved otherwise. It also proved that Rebecca is shady as hell as the episode ended with her actually tracking Wes's phone. Maybe she did kill Lila after all. At least the last two episodes will finally put this storyline to bed and possibly Rebecca in a bodybag or jail if she's guilty.

Nearly A Couple Again: For Coliver shippers (first and last time I ever type that) - myself included, it's amazing that the cutest thing in this episode with the two of them was Connor not having sex with Oliver. And why? Because it showed character growth on Connor's part by him not wanting to take advantage of Oliver's drunken state and also it came after Connor introduced Oliver to Laurel, Michaela and Wes (that scene was a little too short) and both of them worked together to help Bonnie get an advantage on her case. Now this is how you write an LGBT relationship. Much as I enjoy your shows, Ryan Murphy - take note here.

HumpR Strikes Again: I love the fact that this show made up a gay app/cruising site and I love that they found a way of using it again in another episode. This week, it looked like an unconventionally good looking nurse was going to get fired/her place of work sued for rape on a male patient, only for it to turn out that the patient and another guy were attempting to scam the hospital for a payment. While Bonnie nearly made a balls of the whole thing at the start of the episode, she eventually got her groove, landed a victory for her client and even had sex with Asher (which Frank witnessed). Overall, a really great episode for the character - which makes me wonder if she's going to be revealed as Lila's killer in the next two episodes.

Next week, it's the two part finale as we finally find out what happened to Lila and get to see what's set up for next season.