Friday, November 02, 2018

My Review of How To Get Away With Murder's 5x06: "We Can Find Him"


Written by Tess Leibowitz
Directed by Jonathan Brown

Annalise (to Emmett, re Birkead/Nate Sr): "I had every intention of turning her down but then I couldn't. Not when I could free the man whose case gave me back my career."

And going by the title for the next episode, we can all say that Annalise got well and truly played here. One proper episode in and Laura Innes has already managed to cement Governor Birkhead as a pretty potent antagonist for Annalise by the way she used Nate Sr as a means to get Annalise to quit Caplan & Gold while at the same time ensuring that Nate Sr ended up a dead man.

Dramatically, this episode was off the charts brilliant with it's three main plots. Much as I wanted the Nate Sr done and dusted, I didn't want him to die. The moment he started writing that letter and Nate was allowed to feel happiness at his father being a free man, it seemed pretty obvious that Nate Sr's days were numbered. A horrible way for the character to go but damn, did it certainly end this episode on one hell of a punch though.

Annalise certainly bit off more than she could chew here and along with Birkhead gunning for, she also made an enemy out of Emmett as well. I mean, that was always going to happen as he's shown his vicious streak in earlier episodes. He certainly showed his true colours when Annalise made the foolish decision to go with Birkhead though.

Also foolish was Bonnie and Julie's scenes together. Bonnie can't genuinely believe that her baby is dead and after all this build up, I don't believe it either. I do however believe that Gabriel is clearly not Bonnie's son, though his actual purpose is something I wish the show would get on with already. The scenes with Bonnie and Julie though were pretty electric to watch along with Frank, Annalise and Ronald all playing good supporting roles for Bonnie's arc here.

Then there was the arrival of Connor and Oliver's mothers - Pam and Joanne. I liked both of the characters and the respective relationships each one of them have with their sons. I'll admit the scene where Oliver talked about having HIV to his mother was extremely poignant while Pam's flirting with Asher seemed to be setting up that little flash forward moment we witnessed at the end of the previous episode.

As for Laurel and Michaela - when the former wasn't blowing hot and cold with Gabriel, she was also competing with Michaela for the case of the week. The Gutbusters plot was amusing as well and I'm liking that Tegan continues to put both Laurel and Michaela through their paces, even if she's slowly softening to both of them.

- The flashfoward this week showed that Ronald is safe and planning to propose to Bonnie. Interesting that we got it at the start of the episode rather than the end of it.
- Connor caved in and called his father, who will undoubtedly stump up the cash for a bigger wedding. Where is Oliver's father though?
- Emmett admitted to Annalise his previous misconduct was the result of him getting involved with a client. I bet there's a bit more to the story though.
- Chronology: A month from the big event it seems.

We Can Find Him is definitely the strongest episode of the season. After the previous two feeling a little more like filler, this episode had some proper meat on it with all of the main plots. Obvious the Connor/Oliver/mothers and Bonnie/Julie stuff was the most riveting but nothing fell apart this week and we have one more character whom we can rule out for good measure.

Rating: 8 out of 10

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