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"How to Get Away With Murder" Recap: Blanket Baby

The insanity returns

Welcome back, my fellow Murderistas! As far as we’re all concerned, Annalise has been bleeding out on the rug of Murder Mansion for the past 10 weeks. But in the land of HTGAWM no time has passed at all.

We open right where we left off, with a post-shot Annalise flayed out on the floor, groaning out this show’s equivalent of “Rosebud” – “Christophe … Christophe” – which we all know has something to do with Wes’s mysterious past. Although given this is Annalise we’re talking about, it could just as easily be her favorite brand of tequila. As in, “Quick, somebody get me a Christophe & Coke before the paramedics get here.”

Wes is standing over her, gun in hand, looking completely gobsmacked by what he’s done, all, “Oh crap, you’re totally going to flunk me now, aren’t you?”

Laurel rushes in and sees him standing over a perhaps-murdered body and goes, “Again, Wes? Seriously?” But when Michaela comes in behind her, Laurel takes charge and claims she’s the one who shot Annalise. Presumably because she’s applying for the position of Bonnie 2.0 and in the job description it reads, “Comfortable managing any and all murder-y situations that may arise. OF WHICH THERE ARE MANY!!!”

Two weeks later … Bonnie is escorting Annalise home from the hospital, and she still looks pretty wrecked although she’s also wearing silky lavender pajamas that are to die for. Bonnie proceeds to put Annalise to bed and lecture her about her recuperation, and if I were Annalise I’d be fairly alarmed at the prospect of being in the care of someone who pretty recently wanted you dead, like, “Take your pills, Annalise. And if you get hungry, I left you a plate of ROAST RAT. Nuke for 90 seconds and enjoy, bitch!”

In actuality, Bonnie seems to be trying to make nice with Annalise, who is having none of it, all, “Sure you can empty my bedpan and clean the pus out of my wound. But if you think you’re sticking around to watch The Bachelor, you can forget it.”

Bonnie has no sooner left the house when Annalise makes a beeline for the liquor cabinet. Only to find that Bonnie has confiscated the Kirkland brand barrel of moonshine Annalise had been keeping on hand for the inevitable day one of her students would finally decide to shoot her. Dang!

But no worries! Because you know what’s a good substitute for booze? Buckets of Vicodin, that’s what. Which Annalise proceeds to scarf down like movie-theater Skittles, then pass out in a nice, relaxing coma.

Meanwhile, Laurel is checking up on Wes, who is moping around his apartment desperately attempting to grow angry facial hair and acting like that sad creepy goth kid you knew in high school, the one who liked to write poetry about dead birds in his journal.

Later in the episode, there’s a flashback to Laurel visiting Annalise in the hospital, where we learn that Annalise specifically tasked Laurel with keeping an eye on Wes to make sure he doesn’t crack up. Laurel in turn had told Annalise that she covered for him for shooting her because the gang was already upset at him for getting them involved in Sam’s murder and if they knew he did this on top of that they’d be royally pissed.

Laurel had also asked Annalise whether it’s true Rebecca is dead, and Annalise is all, “What?! Of course not! I only said that to rile Wes up, and now let’s never ever talk of this ever, ever, EVER again, mkay? Now don’t you have some Frank-boning to do?”

So now back in the present, Laurel assures Wes that all is okay with Annalise and Rebecca, but Wes continues to be all mopesy, and she tells him to get his shiz together before the gang are tempted to give him the ADA Sinclair special and toss him off a roof.

Back at Annalise’s, she’s passed out on the couch, when KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK! There’s a desperate sounding pounding at her door. I started cracking up here, thinking this would be some new client, like they’d really try to shoehorn some random case of the week into all of this, like, “Hello, Ms. Keating. I’m a former colleague of your husband who is accused of being an art forger but I’m totally innocent can you help me?”

Instead, it’s a teary, anxious woman who, when Annalise opens the door, shoves a baby (!) into her arms and runs away. Goodness, Annalise’s day certainly got interesting.

Panicked, Annalise paces with the wailing bundle of joy, then calls in the big guns, meaning Bonnie, all, “Help! I can’t get ‘it’ to stop crying. Can’t you just put the lotion on it and put it in a basket?” She passes the baby to Bonnie …

Who looks down and sees she’s actually holding a blanket. Yes, it’s a Blanket Baby, which is the best kind of baby to have. It’s warm, quiet, fuzzy, and only poops dust bunnies. Bonnie is all, “Okaaaaaay. Um, do you have any extra straight jackets lying around?”

Commercial break. It’s okay, guys. Oprah says it’s okay to eat bread again and f*ck that Paleo crap. God bless you, Oprah! GOD BLESS YOU!

Back in murder-land, the gang are getting together for study group. LOL to the gazillionth degree. You mean we’re still operating under the ridiculous pretense that they’re still students through all this? Gee, I can’t wait for Season Four when they’re taking the bar exam just after Wes accidentally assassinated the President. And who exactly’s been teaching Annalise’s classes for her these days? Matlock?

Anyway, huzzah huzzah! There’s wonderful news! Wes has decided to grace the study group with his majestic, perpetually gobsmacked presence. But then Bonnie comes in with bad news … Annalise is high off her rocker and can’t possibly testify in the hearing against Murder Sister.

Oh yeah, that’s still a thing. As a news report helpfully points out, Murder Sister is in custody for the crimes of, in no particular order, shooting her parents, shooting Annalise, and pushing ADA RBF off the roof. This was of course all part of Annalise’s plan, and I’m still upset that they’re all so eagerly framing a woman who, as far as we know, is innocent of all this just to cover Asher’s ass.

Granted. Murder Sister is a terrible, terrible artist, but does that mean she should be framed for murder and locked away in jail for the rest of her life. (Yes, yes it does.)

Anyway, Annalise is to be the star witness at the hearing where they’re going to determine if the case against Murder Sister should go to trial. But since Annalise is a basket case, their best option, they decide, is to collectively write a statement for Annalise and submit that to the court in her absence. The gang get to work on this …

While Bonnie goes back to Annalise’s place to make sure she doesn’t follow through on her determination to testify. To that end, Bonnie serves up a good old fashioned Roofie Sundae, topped with delicious Kill Pill sprinkles courtesy of Mrs. Nate. There’s something very magical about Mrs. Nate’s Kill Pills in that the bottle keeps magically refilling itself as the pills magically serve a variety of random storylines. Somebody should toss a few of those pills in the yard and see if a pill beanstalk grows overnight taking them up to the Soup Castle in the sky.

You know, Viola Davis has had so many spine-tingling, Emmy-worthy acting moments on this show. But to me nothing tops the sight of her here, stoned out of her mind with a case of the munchies, scarfing down ice cream and licking the enamel out of the empty bowl. Then THUNK … she collapses head down the desk.

At the hearing, Annalise’s statement is presented in absentia and … promptly rejected by the judge. D’oh!

Back at Conniver’s fab gay place, Connor and Oliver are playing host to a distraught Asher. Although he’s not so distraught that he can’t take time to criticize Oliver’s music collection, asking if they have anything “less stereotypically gay” as he holds up a copy of Flashdance. No. This is not a stereotypically gay album, and I know this because I don’t own it. I see your Flashdance, show, and I raise you a Michael Feinstein and Cheyenne Jackson Duets CD, the gayest CD known to man, so gay that my listening to it has turned every single person in my apartment building gay as well as their pets.

Oliver wants to know when the doucheface is going to leave already, and Connor says they need to be nice since the guy just lost his father. So instead they’re plying Asher with liquor in the hopes he’ll pass out soon so the two of them can get back to having sex.

When that doesn’t work, Connor dangles an Xbox control in front of Asher’s face, all, “Oooooh, look! Video games! Don’t all you fratboy douches love this stuff?” But all Asher wants to do is talk about his preposterous theory that his father didn’t off himself but instead was murdered. A theory he also shared with Bonnie and, as we see in another flashback, was also what the statement he made to the police was all about after the shooting at Murder Manor.

Asher claims mysterious murders like this that look like suicides happen all the time, and Connor is all, “Yeah, sure … now if you all need me, I’ll be in the bedroom with some tissues and lotion watching the collected movie trailers of Zac Efron on YouTube.”

Back in court, there’s an expert on the stand, who is saying that half of ADA RBF’s injuries are consistent with someone who was thrown off a roof, while the other half are strangely consistent with someone who was run over, stuffed in a trunk, and manhandled by a bunch of clueless law school students.

Just then there’s a collective gasp. GASP! In groans Annalise, who had been tipped off by Laurel that she had been roofied out of testifying but now needs to show up or the court will throw the whole case out. So Annalise has dragged herself into court, and I’d say she looks like Death warmed over, except that paints too rosy a picture. She looks like Death in need of a week-long nap and a spa day.

She somehow maneuvers herself into the witness stand and does her best to testify against Murder Sister. But I’m sorry to say it doesn’t go so well. Partly because every time she sees Wes’s face she hears that Blanket Baby’s cries. And partly because her intestines and half a kidney have started poking through her surgical wound.

So she really screws up her testimony, at one point saying she didn’t in fact see anything the night of the shooting. Then she says Murder Sister “didn’t do it.” Murder Sister’s attorney gleefully interprets this as Annalise exonerating her of the shooting. But Annalise clarifies that she meant that Murder Sister didn’t murder her parents, and she knows this because Murder Sister told her this personally when Annalise was representing her.

The only trouble with this is that in revealing this, Annalise has violated client confidentiality, which invalidates the entire testimony. D’oh! We need a break!

During a much-needed courtroom recess, Annalise has a private meeting in her car with Murder Brother. This is surprising because he hates all of them with the passionate intensity of a thousand suns. Including Michaela, even though they’d been boning until seconds ago, but then she totally screwed up her promise to him to keep Murder Sister safe from harm.

But he meets with Annalise anyway, and she argues that her testimony is actually going to help Murder Sister. And suddenly she seems a whole lot more lucid and shrewd and I’m wondering if it’s possible her testimony was all an act. She tells Murder Brother that she can help save Murder Sister by making out that she’s weak and been controlled this whole time by the MIA Murder Cousin, who everyone knows is really the one who murdered their parents.

But she needs Murder Brother’s help in convincing his sister to go along with this plan. And for some reason he does and for some reason it works. So that the next time they’re in court, just as the judge is about to announce her decision, Murder Sister stands up and announces, “I totally shot Annalise! For reals!”

She winds up getting a plea deal for five years in a minimum security prison, which still strikes me as a really bum deal for her, like the worst thing that ever happened to Murder Sister was ever hiring Annalise and co. as her lawyers, you know?

Nevertheless, the gang decides to celebrate, and I don’t know which I’m drooling over more – the sight of Frank in a tank top or the heaps and heaps of pasta he’s serving up.

But not joining in the celebration is Wes … because he’s busily searching Annalise’s house for any evidence from his past, something along the lines of a mysterious locked box that says, “Christophe Files. DO NOT READ! This means you, Christophe!”

Later on, Annalise finds him passed out on her guest bed with a bottle of Mrs. Nate Kill Pills on the night stand. She assumes he offed himself, but then he’s all, “JK. I’m fine. But I totally get why my mom killed herself. I just want it all to go away.”

He demands Annalise tell him what she knows about his past and his mom, and as he approaches her she gets guarded, all, “Where’s a good, old immunity trophy when you need one?” as she grabs some random inferior statue and holds it up in defense. Wes is shocked and upset that she thinks he’d hurt her, demanding she fess up what she knows.

Flashback to the Wigs of Yesteryear! 10 years ago. A younger Annalise approaches a woman at the playground (the same woman who presented her with Blanket Baby in Annalise’s hallucination). The woman introduces herself as Rose and says she’s watching her son, Christophe, who is NOT a blanket baby and happily playing in the playground.

The biggest shock of this flashback is that young Annalise is preggers. Very, very preggers. Please let it be Famke Janssen’s!

Back in the present … Annalise, alone, happily cradles a baby. The camera cuts back and we see – psych! There’s nothing there. Ruh roh! If I’ve learned anything from watching Allie McBeal (because I am indeed that old), it’s that no good can ever come from chasing ghost babies.

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