How To Get Away With Murder Review: Live. Live. Live. (Season 4 Episode 8)

On How to Get Away with Murder Season 4 Episode 8, “Live. Live. Live,” Annalise finds out about the Keating 4’s plans and subsequently ends up delivering Laurel’s premature baby, while Simon’s accidental suicide throws a wrench in everyone’s plans to take down Laurel’s father.

I’m simultaneously going through the proper channels to send the writers my therapy invoices as I type. Can you believe what a powerful series they’ve created? Obviously, we can’t forget to specifically thank the amazing writers of this particular episode: Peter Nowalk (creator) and Joe Fazzio.

I haven’t been this invested in characters since Laurel Lance from Arrow, and before then, since Willow and Buffy from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Everything about this episode is absolutely perfect. I would not change one word.

Laurel sets all the events that go down in this episode by over estimating her and Michaela’s abilities to take down a Goliath (her father).

And since my review of How to Get Away with Murder Season 4 Episode 2, I’ve battered her for her manipulations, for her faulty plans, and the inevitable ruination of everyone’s lives.

These grievances still stand. However, her resilience in her last scenes must be admired. Did you all see her strength in trying to get out of the elevator and stay conscious long enough to save her baby?

I hate the show for forcing me to watch this scene and spiking my blood pressure, but I have to appreciate it for its cinematic brilliance. Karla Souza brings her A game.

And as usual, Viola Davis trying to save the baby as Laurel lays unconscious is also phenomenal.

While Viola gives CPR to the premature baby, all I could hear is my heart pounding in my ears, and all I could think is if this baby dies, it’ll be the end of Wes’s Legacy. If this baby dies, it’ll be the end of Annalise. If this baby dies… If this baby dies….

Unconsciously, Laurel’s manipulations have gotten to me too.

And although they are manipulations, that doesn’t take the truth out of her words. This baby has come to symbolize so much in this narrative that, at the end of the episode, my heart literally stops when the screen cuts to black

But then, we hear a baby cry and a sob immediately tears from my throat. There is no way I’m the only one with this reaction.

How to Get Away with Murder does it again with its best episode this season. What an earth moving end to a nail-biting episode.

Speaking of nail-biting, did you guys guess that it was actually Simon on the operating table and not Connor? The surgery scene isn’t as earth-shattering as it would have been if it were Connor, but it’s not free of any emotional reaction though.

The writers make sure of this when they show us a bit of the Simon under the antagonism and jealousy. He is just like Connor, Laurel, or at times, Michaela, projecting his fears onto others and making their lives hell to make himself feel better.

Simon is a DACA child scared of losing his livelihood. He’s also an LGBTQIA+ member unsure about his sexuality and nervous how others will receive i‎t. How to Get Away with Murder does a good job keeping us slightly conflicted.

If Simon survives, he has a chance at citizenship. I‎t will be one life that the Keating 4 hasn’t completely ruined.

However, if he makes i‎t off of the operating table, he’ll either blow the whistle on everyone, or he’ll blackmail them all for countless episodes.

I don’t know about you, but the heavy, heart-wrenching drama in every episode is sapping all of my energy.

But who knows, maybe Michaela will be able to single-handedly fend him off by plastering on her fake smile and threatening to feed him his balls again. So far, it has worked twice this season and counting.

Speaking of my favorite queen with OCD levels of control issues, Michaela is another female character who owns this episode. I enjoy her fetus-Annalise moment when she takes control of a plan gone wrong after Simon shoots himself.

Immediately, she grabs tissues, cleans up Laurel, sends her on her way, and resets the scene that Asher stupidly disrupts.

It is almost laughable that his gut reaction is to grab the gun. They’ve been the murderers so many times that it’s reflexive to confiscate the murder weapon immediately, so it doesn’t implicate them.

Aja Naomi King also brings the feels with her acting chops. Her reactions always put me in the moment. It’s hard to separate her scenes as acting to give it a critical eye because she’s so dynamic in front of the camera.

Her gasps for breath as Oliver walks up to Simon’s body, her frustration at how the plan goes awry because Laurel and Asher switch up everything last minute, etc. It all absorbs you in the scene.

She wants so badly to pull everything off so that everyone can be okay that you can literally smell that desperation in her sweat. It’s depressing to know that she’ll crack under the pressure as she looks through the baby window and doesn’t see Laurel’s baby.

They’re newbies to this baby thing.

Michaela’s stress most likely keeps her from realizing that premature babies go to incubators in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. However, now, I understand the emptiness she feels looking through the nursery window.

I’m with Annalise, Laurel, Michaela, and the rest of the Keating 4: the baby must live.

Stray Observations:

• Connor keeping it real with Laurel and Frank is what I live for.
• Annalise and Isaac’s agnst gets so thick; it wouldn’t let me catch my breath.
• Now we know why Bonnie is all up in the kool-aid in the mid-season finale: she’s waiting for Annalise to ask her for help.
• If any of the Keating 4 fix their mouths to attack Annalise after this, I’m calling for heads.

What did you guys think of How To Get Away With Murder Season 4 Episode 8? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!

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

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