How to Get Away With Murder Review: Always Bet Black (Season 3 Episode 3)
It’s ladies’ night on this episode of How To Get Away With Murder, “Always Bet Black,” as we’re reminded of the sundry problems of Annalise and her Keatings before the mid-season’s big reveal.
Case of the Week
Toby Solomon, the Call Girl Creeper
Character of Focus
- Annalise
- Bonnie
- Laurel
- Michaela
The case of the week is probably more of an E plot in the grand scheme of things. It seems as though “Always Bet Black” serves only to introduce problems that would come up later, which is essentially what filler episodes do. They also serve to give us more insight into characters without being as dramatic as their sweeps week counterparts.
Each woman at the firm gets equal screen time. So what do we learn?
We’ll start with Michaela.
The writers pull a little bait-and-switch here. Just when we think we’re going to discover what Michaela could possibly have in common with some slimy meninist (the way Connor found common ground on his case last week), the guy goes around and admits to another murder, and Michaela’s removed from the case.
Additonally, we’re reminded of her well-to-do bisexual ex (bisEXual?), who is now happily married with a house in Martha’s Vineyard. Turns out, Michaela’s not as over the relationship as she’d like to think (if your ex were independently wealthy, would you be?), something that will inevitably cause some drama between her and poor Doucheboo. Of course, rather than dealing with these emotions head on, she decides to steal money from a client and go to Atlantic City.
This is not the most logical of plot lines, and it does not have any real relevance to any particular arc. How does this storyline come about?
“How do we get these guys into a club setting?”
“Picture this: Michaela steals a client’s money and goes to Atlantic City to blow off steam.”
“Eh. Weak, but we got nothing else until the next episode, so run with it.”
I would say that it seems out of character for her, but How To Get Away With Murder has been two season of characters doing things that don’t entirely make sense just to move an episode along.
Bonus to this storyline: Bonnie finally finds out about Michaela and Asher.
Next, we have Laurel who goes down to Miami to visit her father, Joseph Adama, and find out what he knows of Frank’s whereabouts.
After weeks of build up, we bring Laurel’s father back into the picture for the anticlimactic battle of the century! Again, the purpose of a filler episode is to throw some character information at the audience that’s not terribly status quo-altering, and in this episode that information is the fact that Laurel was kidnapped at 16 and ransomed for an amount that her father refused to pay, blaming on the government.
Talk about awkward teenage years.
Does that make this father/daughter tiff more interesting? Yes.
Does it make this episode more interesting? No. Can’t wait to see how it pans out, though.
Bonnie gets some really nice moments here as we’re made to recall ever so subtly that she exists and that she killed Rebecca way back in Season 1.
The moment with Annalise in the office, the two of them commiserating (or jointly lamenting) the ethics attorney/client privilege in the face of a grisly unsolved murder, is a quiet moment where two great actors are allowed to just act. No dramatic reveal, nothing we don’t know already, but still heartbreaking.
Bonnie seems to be slowly working her way back into prominence, particularly with the reveal that she isn’t the dead body.
Okay, so far, not dead we have: Oliver, Bonnie. Which leaves… God, I can’t even think of someone I would want to see dead. At least Arrow had Laurel.
And of course, there’s Annalise.
Again, this is her show and while we still have no idea who’s defacing campus with Annalise’s de-face, nor are we any closer to finding out who set her house on fire, we do see that her relationship with Nate is getting stronger (or more tenuous, who knows with her?).
Wait. Crap. Is Nate #underthesheet? Crap.
Murder of the Week:
Janie Sherman by Skeeve Rogers
Baseball Bats to the Face:
- Annalise gets a lot of great lines in this episode: “Does it have bacon in it?” “The president can suck it.” “Make sure our client isn’t trying to purchase Michaela.”
- As a callback to the season premiere, Annalise is still suffering the professional consequences of a very turbulent second season.
- Wes’ birthday is coming up soon. If the fall semester just started on the show, that puts him somewhere between Virgo and Libra. #vitalinformation
- Billy Brown again meets the shirtless quota (with bonus sweat!) much to Oliver’s delight.
- Gentle reminder that if someone starts insulting you, walk away. Do NOT hit them with a bat.
- “I never said we were friends.” Ouch. I’m sort of over this breakup.
- Is it possible Doucheboo is becoming the heart of the group?
- “Asians arent my type.” Lord, I don’t have the time and space to go into the gay “it’s just a preference” foolishness, but suffice it to say there’s a difference between being attracted to a certain type and purposefully excluding them altogether.
- Meggy is more than Wes deserves. I’ll say it until I’m blue in the face. Flee, girl.
What did you think of this episode of How To Get Away With Murder? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
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How to Get Away With Murder airs Thursdays at 10/9c on ABC.
James A. Windley
James A. Windley, Writer, Virgo, Loaded couch potato. James' love of television began at the intersection when Saturday morning cartoons met to Xena: Warrior Princess syndications, and his head has been a mess ever since. He loves superheroes, drama (in life, not television), and misses when very special episodes were a thing.