Saturday, October 28, 2017

My Review of How To Get Away With Murder's 4x05: "I Love Her"


Written by Sarah L. Thompson
Directed by Lexi Alexander

Bonnie (to Isaac, re Annalise): "I miss the house. I miss our family. She made me feel safe. Even when I hated her. I didn’t have anyone until her. Then she just threw it away."

I was going to use Nate's mention of Bonnie being a Single White Female as my quote for this episode but I decided to be a bit more fair to Bonnie because while her vendetta with Annalise has gotten rather tiresome, this episode on the other hand was absolutely fantastic.

Back in Season 2, we got some rather graphic details about Bonnie's backstory when Annalise told Asher about her abusive father. This episode went to 2002 where Bonnie was giving evidence against one of her attackers and Annalise was defending the guy and thus their fates soon intertwined with each other as Annalise's guilt over Bonnie led to her trying to help the troubled waitress out by bringing her in as a student for her own law firm and introducing her to Sam as well.

I loved the flashbacks, dodgy wigs to one side and I certainly think the episode did a fantastic job into delving into Annalise and Bonnie's fascinating but toxic relationship with each other. In the present day, Bonnie was mulling over her 'break up' with Annalise to Isaac before the latter eventually figured out who she really was while at the same time also sabotaging Annalise's latest mission, both things which didn't exactly put Bonnie in a particularly great light this week.

I do think Annalise handled the fallout of Bonnie's actions better than expected, considering the last time Bonnie went for the kill, Annalise nearly went for her. It also helped that she still had Claudia on her side and that Connor also got roped in to help her. I'm glad they're teaming Connor and Annalise up. Aside from them being my two favourites, I'm also done with Connor just moping around the place and this episode finally gave him the kick up the backside he's needed this season.

Keeping with the kicks, are we really doing a whole 'who's the daddy?' story with Laurel's baby? It seems so as this week, it turned out that Laurel actually did cheat on Wes with Frank and that the baby might be his. Much as I do like Laurel, this episode really wasn't her best as she was kind of vexing with everyone this week, especially Oliver and Michaela who hacked into Caplan & Gold's files to get more information on Trent but they also nearly got caught by Simon, who was less annoying than usual this week.

As for Asher, he was shown in the present day to be growing increasingly insecure and frustrated with Michaela's long working hours but when Bonnie showed up at Caplan & Gold in the flash forward moment, Asher was also seen crying in a cell. Has Asher someone else and if so, who?

- Connor nearly went off with a guy on Humpr but chose to talk to Annalise instead while Simon more or less confirmed he was gay to Oliver.
- I really like that Tegan seems to actually like Michaela, so I'm bracing myself for their relationship to go south pretty fast now.
- Annalise and Sam were trying for a baby in flashbacks during this episode. I was a little surprised to see Sam this week but his appearance worked well enough.
- Chronology: Two weeks until the big mid season finale moment. In the show's chronology that is. Mostly 2002 in flashbacks though.

A brilliant episode. I Love Her delved successfully into Annalise and Bonnie's relationship, the flashbacks were fantastic, present day stuff interesting and more facets to the main mystery added on pretty well. Kudos, show.

Rating: 9 out of 10

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