My Review of How To Get Away With Murder's 4x12: "Ask Him About Stella"

Written by Tess Leibowitz
Directed by Stephen Cragg

Isaac: "You need help!"
Annalise: "Not from you!"

Okay, I really want to talk about the final scene of this episode first and normally I would but sticking with the title for this one, let's discuss the Isaac segment instead as it turns out his addictive personality has resurfaced or maybe it never went away in the first place.

The episode started with him getting a fix and then confessing to Annalise that he's been high again, so the two of them go and get something to eat as Annalise spends a good portion of this episode trying to actually help Isaac but you could already tell that her efforts were going to be in vain, even with Bonnie putting her head in a noose with Denver in order to prevent Isaac being arrested for his daughter's death.

Flashbacks did show Isaac's role in Stella's death and while he didn't directly kill her, his addiction is what led to his child being able to take her own life though. Seeing Isaac unravel as his lies became exposed was an interesting change of pace from the Laurel heavy scenes we've had but I genuinely did think he was going to attack Annalise before she managed to get away from him.

I'm not sure if this is the last we'll see of Isaac given that Annalise did drop another bomb on him by phoning his ex-wife to ask about Stella and I suspect it's probably not either. Of course, Isaac wasn't the only set back Annalise had to deal with this week.

Her Face Case with Nate's father also kept taking bad turns, even to the point where Nate Sr was losing even more faith in his son and the justice but this plot did result in some of the best scenes of the episode. On one hand we had the Keating 5 being their competitive best to try and write the best statements for Annalise and when things truly went south, Michaela was the one to put Annalise into contact with someone who could fix(er) their problems.

For the last few weeks, ABC have been shamelessly hyping up the crossover event this show will have with Scandal and for a few seconds we got to see Annalise attend a lecture of Olivia Pope's. However we're all going to have to wait another three weeks before we get to see both Viola Davis and Kerry Washington go toe to toe with each other, but it was hard not to feel excited during that final moment.

- Laurel got to see her baby this week, which she named Christopher while Frank confronted Sandrine over her connection to Wes.
- Connor is going back to law school and the wedding is back on with Oliver, though I'm starting to doubt it'll actually go ahead.
- I have to admit that Asher was pretty funny as the cook for most of this episode.
- Chronology: From where He's A Bad Father more or less left off.

Ask Him About Stella didn't really advance too much with Jorge's ongoing schemes and I have a feeling that even the crossover might not advance Sandrine's connection to Wes as much but episode wise, there were plenty of good moments to go over.

Rating: 8 out of 10