Saturday, February 16, 2019

My Review of How To Get Away With Murder's 5x13: "Where Are Your Parents?"


Written by Maya Goldsmith & Daniel Robinson
Directed by DeMane Davis

Governor Birkhead (to Annalise): "I know who killed Nate Lahey Sr and you know him to."

Well, the answer might not be satisfying but assuming that Birkhead isn't actually playing Annalise here, then it seems that Emmett actually was the one to bump off Nate's dad. And just when I was starting to like the character as well. If he did it just because of his infatuation with Annalise, that makes it even far creepier than ever.

Speaking of crushes, while Emmett is willing to kill for one, Tegan is somewhat willing to seduce Telesco and get her discredited in order to buy Annalise some more time, which is interesting. Look, I'm not saying the show should have Annalise and Tegan become a couple next season but I'm also not saying they shouldn't either. The upside is this though - Tegan is more friend than foe for Annalise and that can only be a good thing.

Keeping with the Annalise side of things - this episode was a rather festive one with Ophelia appearing once and the show making sure to give us some genuinely meaty and heartfelt scenes with Viola Davis and Cicely Tyson as the latter gave Anna Mae some sound advice on how to deal with her latest legal woe while entertaining everyone else during the dinner.

I really do love that this show always managed to get Ophelia in a few episodes each season and every scene she's in never fails to be a delight to watch. Ophelia really does bring out the best in Annalise, even when the latter disagrees with her and seeing both Viola and Cicely in scenes together is just fantastic.

As for Nate, he can breathe a little easy for the time being as Annalise didn't have to say anything that could put him in the FBI's attention but as for Bonnie, well she spent most of the episode nearly cracking up while also worrying about being pregnant. She did tell Frank that she wasn't and hopefully she's not, but I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out that is she is pregnant as we head towards the finale.

Then there was Christmas with the Keating 5 and Gabriel, which was also not full of merry cheer. We had Pam showing up and Connor having to tell her some of what happened when we weren't getting reminders of her hook up with Asher and Pam's own scathing commentary on everyone else not having a parent around. I did like a certain scene with Connor and his mother, but other than that, Pam kind of was in embarrassing mother mode in this one.

- Of course Laurel kept the blanket and made a phone call to Telesco. Gabriel also made a point about Michaela not wanting to look into her own biological family as well.
- I assume we're going to see Gabriel's mother soon enough. It does feel like we should be getting one confrontation scene with her and Annalise before the season ends.
- Pam actually let Connor as a teenager have sex with an adult in her house. This does explain some of her own boundary issues I guess.
- Chronology: Christmas time for the show. This is the second time they've had a Christmas episode on the show.

Where Are Your Parents will not go down as the most festive of Christmas episodes and it does feel a little jarring watching one of those in February, but it's easily the strongest episode we've had since the show's return last month. Some genuinely brilliant scenes, with the Annalise/Ophelia ones being the clear highlight and a nice twist at the end too. This should bode well for the last two.

Rating: 9 out of 10

No comments: