Thursday, July 16, 2020

My Review of How To Get Away With Murder's 6x13: "What If Sam Wasn't The Bad Guy This Whole Time?"


Written by Ricardo C. Lara
Directed by Dawn Wilkinson

Tegan: "Who was born in March, Annalise?"
Tegan/Bonnie: "Who is it?"
Annalise: "Frank!"

Okay, I'm gonna say it - one this was too obvious a reveal and two, it's way too late in the day to be doing this kind of storyline. Serously Frank is the love child of Hannah and Sam? I guess it explains a lot but it's still an unsatisfying and unnecessary plot with only two episodes left to.

What was even more strange was during the inclusion of the flashbacks and present day antics was that Hannah didn't appear once. I mean, she could still appear next week but it seemed off that we didn't see her in some capacity. Still though, even if that flashback to Annalise's incest barb from the first season, which I had forgotten about, this was disappointing in terms of reveals.

On the plus side, at least Vivian wasn't lying and came across better in both the present day stuff and the flashbacks with Sam and Gabriel. She also saw through Sam in a way that Annalise hadn't at the time and it seems like she'll succeed in getting Gabriel to leave as well, so it's a plus all round.

Speaking of the flashbacks - we saw Sam attempt an affair with Vivian before the latter rejected him, argue with Annalise over their grief for their child as well as sabotage Frank and Bonnie's blossoming relationship while having the implication that Hannah coerced Sam into a sexual relationship that resulted in a pregnancy.

I feel this episode was trying to give Sam a bit of a free pass when it came to his reprehensible behaviour and I really didn't like that. Sam has never been a sympathetic character and this episode certainly failed to generate any sympathy for him. In general, I don't care about Sam and this new reveal feels like a massive case of "too late" as we're late in the game and have other things that matter.

Speaking of which, it seems like Connor took himself a new deal with a rather annoyed Agent Lanford applying the pressure to both him and Michaela. I'm not sure if the latter also agreed to a new deal but I assume that she did though. Nate also managed to get himself an advantage by ratting Pollock out to the FBI as well as holding the cards over Frank with Xavier's boy to boot. That's also rather annoying.

- Annalise was also doing some investigating into Wes/Christophe during the flashback sequence this week.
- I notice that Sam is the only character who doesn't look noticeably different in the flashbacks.
- Standout music: Unsecret's Fallout during the last few minutes of this one.
- Chronology: 2005 for the flashbacks. We also found that Sam and Hannah's parents have been dead since 1993.

What If Sam Wasn't The Bad Guy This Whole Time? wasn't quite as good as the previous episodes and this plotline with Frank was something that should've been done earlier in the show's timeline. It feels too late to be doing it now and while the flashbacks were decent, it felt like filler overall.

Rating: 7 out of 10

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