My Review of How To Get Away With Murder's 4x11: "He's A Bad Father"

Written by Maya Goldsmith
Directed by Marta Cunningham

Laurel: "I love my son. I just want a chance to be his mother."

Before we were even halfway through this episode, it was pretty obvious that the outcome for Laurel wasn't going to go in her favour. Dramatically, it makes sense for now to have Jorge being the guardian of her premature son and given how easily Isaac alone was torn apart on the stand by Jorge's lawyer, everyone could've seen this particular verdict coming a mile off.

If Isaac hadn't relapsed into heroin before being torn to shreds on the stand about his daughter's suicide (which has now been reopened as a murder investigation), then he's definitely back on the gear after this one. That said, given that we've already got more mysteries on this show, do we really need to add another one as to whether or not Isaac might have killed his own daughter in the mix too?

Annalise did however seemed to believe Isaac's innocence and even made an attempt to reach out to him as well. Speaking of reaching out, this week we also saw both Annalise and Nate reach to the latter's jailbird father (Glynn Turman) and that led to some rather revealing scenes about Nate's past and his current relationship with his father.

The show has struggled for a while to give Nate something meaningful to do, so this plotline with Annalise wanting to use his father for her other cases storyline is actually a pretty good move for the show. The scenes with Nate and his father were pretty uncomfortable but also rather effective. The only bit that slightly spoiled the plot was the near reunion between Nate and Annalise but at least the latter put a stop to that one.

Getting back to the Laurel segment of the show, this episode also introduced us to her mother, Sandrine (Lolita Davidovich), who wasn't exactly torn on the stand by Jorge's lawyer but instead wasn't even talked to at all. Laurel's mother seemed to be scatty throughout the episode, despite delivering an impassioned defence of her daughter's mothering abilities, the episode also had Bonnie reveal to Frank that Sandrine and Wes had previously met before the latter's death last season.

- Oliver set up a page to help get Simon's parents over to visit him. I do like that Connor tried to talk some sense into him this week.
- Bonnie's paranoia about being watched by Denver might be justified, considering that her computer was tampered with and the fact that he dropped her in it with Jorge last week.
- Though the boys didn't much this week, it was nice to see them take delight in wanting to help Nate's father, before Michaela dropped the Laurel bombshell. Oh and Sandrine doesn't seem to like Frank either.
- Chronology: Not long since the previous episode.

Not the strongest episode we've had this season. He's A Bad Father though did score points with Nate Sr and Sandrine adding to the mix, even if Laurel's custody hearing for her son went the predictable route. Still though, at least they're intensifying on what happened to Wes before he died.

Rating: 7 out of 10