How to Get Away with Murder Review: There’s My Baby (Season 2 Episode 14)

How to Get Away With Murder sets us up a thrilling finale next week. “There’s My Baby” is a great example of what a penultimate episode should be. It focuses on the questions, without tying up all the loose ends. Going into this week’s episode, some skepticism was understandable. How were they going to top last week’s reveal? But they did!

The first half of the episode moves a little slowly, with ADA Denver wanting to speak to anyone who may be on the security tapes of the night Sinclair was murdered. Naturally, that includes Annalise’s minions, and a line of questioning that makes viewers want to shake their heads.

The succession of interviews is especially laughable where Laurel is concerned. After one seemingly benign question about Laurel’s heritage (she’s from Mexico but lived in Florida before law school) Denver starts playing the “Latina Bestie Card,” but Laurel doesn’t fall for it.

The later half of the episode is much stronger. After a very drunk Annalise kicks her students out of her house —with a snarky remark about her house not being a homeless shelter—she tells Wes to go to her office, where she starts to give him the answers he’s been seeking.

In a flashback to ten years ago, Wallace Mahoney scolds Annalise for Rose’s death, saying that its her fault that their only alibi witness is dead. He then threatens her, saying that he was the only person who knew she was going to speak with Rose before she met her end.

Later, Annalise is talking to Eve, trying to figure out how they can keep Christophe from going to jail for his mom’s murder. Annalise has a plan, but she needs Eve’s help. When Eve doesn’t agree Annalise gets in her car to go to the federal building. While she is driving a truck driver blows through a red light and t-bones her car.

Now we get to find out what happened to Annalise’s baby. Annalise is brought to surgery for an emergency c-section. The doctors can’t find a heartbeat, but they say that doesn’t necessarily mean bad news. They deliver the baby and a neonatologist works on him, but the baby doesn’t make it.

The bittersweet scene that follows with Annalise, the baby, and Sam is heart-wrenching. Knowing what Sam and Annalise go through in season one, it’s almost shocking to see them hopeful and happy. Annalise regrets her decision to take the case. She says that if she’d stayed home things would have been different. A nurse offers to take a picture of the three of them so that they’ll have at least one photo.

This scene is the impetus for everything that Annalise has become. She blames her ambition for what happened to Wes’ mother and by extension her baby, but the line of reasoning isn’t made clear until the last five minutes of the episode, when the flashback rewinds a little and we see a little bit of Wallace Mahoney’s confrontation with Annalise.

After he threatens Annalise, she puts the pieces of the puzzle together.  Rose was afraid of Mahoney. Not just because of blackmail but because he raped her and Christophe is his child. When Annalise confronts him about it, he fires her.

Gaps you didn’t even know where there suddenly start to get filled in. Her talk with Eve and the accident all take place after that exchange and it puts the death of her own child into perspective. She protects Wes because she failed ten years ago and this is her penance.

This scene is handled so beautifully that Annalise never reveals her pregnancy or what happened to the baby. She keeps that close to the breast, looking at the photo the nurse took.  It’s hard to deny that both Wes and Annalise’s baby are intrinsically connected. Wes lost his mom, she lost her son, and both those loses, she feels, are her fault.

Despite having answered many of the questions, the series still has a lot to offer. Next week is the finale and it looks like they are setting up for a wild ride, with Wes googling his father, Wallace Mahoney, and Annalise packing a bag and going home.

Stray Thoughts

• Who else is waiting for Philip to play a larger part in this story? He seems to just show up and cause trouble. Anyone care to wager that the only reason that happened this episode was just so that Caleb could turn up as one of the dead bodies in the finale?
• Oliver’s comment that Frank and Laurel’s name combine to make “Flaurel” is one the most adorable comments ever. Come on, think of their characters—do they sound Flaurel to you?
• Um, Asher and Michaela might be a thing now?

What did you think of this episode of How to Get Away with Murder? Are you excited for next week’s finale?

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How to Get Away with Murder airs Thursdays at 10/9c on ABC.

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