How To Get Away With Murder 5×02 review: Michaela and Annalise team up

The fifth season of ABC’s How To Get Away With Murder continued on Thursday night and viewers continued to piece together who died at Oliver and Connor’s wedding.

This show doesn’t do obvious and it also usually moves fast. But the first two episodes of the season have started out rather slow, likely setting up an explosive (and possibly final) season.

Thursday’s episode sees Michaela Pratt (Aja Naomi King) and Annalise (Viola Davis) work together to help defend a gay Muslim woman, Nanda, after she was charged with running over her wife with a car.

Yes! The old weekly cases are back after a few seasons off and I’m here for it. It was always one of my favorite things about this show back in the first season.

The subplot of the second episode was about Bonnie (Liza Weil) and her relationship with soon-to-be DA Miller. Now, this is a storyline I really don’t care to watch; I honestly felt bored watching them go through their “I like you” talks. But given that Bonnie’s relationship with Miller has been a big point of the first two episodes, we better start paying close attention.

Nate (Billy Brown) is still looking into Bonnie’s long-lost child and flashbacks remind us that her father said the baby died during childbirth. Meanwhile, Miller is giving Bonnie the attention she desperately craves and eventually, the pair sleep together.

Gabriel Maddox’s (Rome Flynn) mysterious persona was one of my favorite parts of the episode. Clearly, the show wants you to buy into the theory that Gabriel is Bonnie’s long lost child. But like I said, this show does not do the obvious. Gabriel seems like a cool and confident dude. But he has a flip phone. In 2018. Is that bad? My dad has one… So… I’ll leave that there.

Frank (Charlie Weber) is working to find out who Gabriel really is but it is unclear why? Is he trying to protect Bonnie or Annalise? Maybe both? We’ll have to keep our eye on that. Based on the preview for next week’s show, Frank is determined to keep a close eye on Gabriel and even get into his head. He clearly knows something.

Back to that court case with Annalise and Michaela, we see Annalise take over as head counsel and breakdown that it was Nanda’s deceased wife’s son that was secretly a closet racist and wanted to frame her for the murder. Long story short, she is released and the charges on her are dropped. But there’s bad news for Annalise. Her boss at C&G is determined to make her defend rich clients and ignore her class action cases. Why? Because its all about money for the company.

Finally, we flashforward to the wedding. Bonnie is carrying baby Christopher into the bathroom after taking him out of the snow. Michaela and Laurel enter, with the latter taking her son after Bonnie lied he needed changing. Michaela notices blood on Bonnie’s leg and asks her whose blood it is. And the episode ends.

Episode Notes:

• I liked Annalise telling Michaela, “You didn’t know something and you admitted it. That’s what grown-ups do.” That’s a real growing moment for Michaela there.
• Asher is now working at the DA and seems like he screwed up Bonnie’s plans for his trainwreck of a speech. I know fans like Asher but I’m so wishing he died instead of Wes.
• We all know we’re going to get a Tegan/Annalise showdown. And I’m so ready to watch that build up.
• As for my prediction for the flashforward: I’d say it’s either Tegan or Miller who is going to die. I feel one of them came too close to the truth and couldn’t risk the Keating 4 getting exposed.

What did you think of this episode? And what is your prediction about the flashforward? Share your thought in the comments below. 

How To Get Away With Murder airs Thursdays at 10/9c on ABC.