How To Get Away With Murder Review: Episode 1×13 - “Mama’s Here Now”

How To Get Away With Murder Gets Realer Than Ever, Tackling The Heaviest Of Societal Issues

Be warned folks, this week’s How To Get Away With Murder is not for those with sensitivities to the more difficult topics to discuss, from rape culture, racial bias in the “justice” system, and misogynoir. Annalise’s mother is back in town, and if Cecily Tyson playing her isn’t enough reason to celebrate, we’re going to get a whole lot of insight into Annalise’s background. But what revelations will Annalise herself get getting on the worst pieces of her past? With Annalise feeling ill and therefore temporarily out of commission, it’s up to Bonnie to handle the case of the week. A timid young nurse, Jolene Samuels, is accused of raping a man. If that weren’t scandalous enough, just wait till we get to the big twist of this case! While Connor and Oliver continue to make strides in their romantic reconciliation, Wes and Rebecca’s relationship might finally be on its way out. Wes is continuing to dig into the truth of what really happened with Rudy, the former tenant of his apartment, and spoiler alert! It’s all connected! So let’s get discussing, shall we?

From ‘Winterbottom’ To ‘Ice Cold’

Bonnie must take charge of this Jolene Samuels case. She flubs her opening statement by saying the jury must find Jolene guilty when she should’ve said, “Not guilty.” The first order of business is to discredit the witness claiming to have seen the alleged rape take place between Jolene and Chad Samuels. They’re able to do so after finding that he had a small stroke on the day he claimed to have seen the rape. But things take a bad turn when the prosecution shows through some tech research that Jolene admitted on an online forum that she had a sexual encounter with one of her patients. She tries to use the uncovered secret of Chad being gay to incriminate him but it only makes her look discriminatory. All the while, Asher is routing for her to succeed and eventually, Bonnie is able to get Jolene off when Asher finds that Chad had repeatedly visited the hospital’s legal department before filing the claim. With a bit of help from Oliver’s hacking, Bonnie proves that Chad and the hospital lawyer, David Tucker, are involved and conspired to go after Jolene so they could use the settlement to run away together. Following this victory, Bonnie celebrates by hooking up with Asher in the parking structure.

“They chose my client, knowing she was timid and would make an easy mark.” ~ Bonnie

If we’re being entirely honest, our first reaction when we learned that Bonnie would be the one handling all the courtroom action instead of Annalise, we groaned. This is much the same reaction the rest of the characters in the show had, too. But it made Bonnie’s journey to victory all the more compelling because of how much she had to prove. It’s been a little unclear just as to who Bonnie is and what exactly her character is meant to be contributing to the narrative, given how strong the material has been for so many of the other lead characters. Though we’re not entirely sold quite yet on rallying behind Bonnie, seeing Bonnie champion for a woman accused of this crime and symbolically for herself (clearly our selected quote wasn’t just a moment of Bonnie standing up for Jolene), certainly helped improve our opinion of her. Though it was also cute to see Asher being Bonnie’s personal cheerleader, we’re still disgusted by his previous threat to her and we’re going to need to see a whole lot more grovelling and proving of worth before Asher’s entirely back in our good graces.

Mama Knows Best

What’s better than one power-house actress mic-dropping left and right with phenomenal performances? Why, another power-house actress to play that character’s mother, of course! Following Annalise’s voicemail plea for help to her mother, Mama showed up and turned up all the levels! Ophelia Hartness is a great woman that had such rich character and depth despite only appearing in this one episode (so far) that we could hardly believe that we were given such a gift on an already spectacular show. Ophelia proceeds to begin tidying up Annalise’s house while dishing out advice to Annalise about cleaning herself up both literally and figuratively. Annalise is quite a wreck after everything happening with Sam and then with having to put her lover, Nate, behind bars for Sam’s murder. All of this emotional stress is triggering the deeper pains Annalise has been harbouring and bringing them all to the surface. There’s a whole lot of baggage she’s been carrying around and now, it’s time to hash things out with her mother.

“Don’t you know a VIP when you see one?” ~ Ophelia Hartness
“VIP?” ~ Bonnie
“Your boss came out of my V and her daddy’s P, so show a little respect for her mama.” ~ Ophelia Hartness

Unsurprisingly, it’s more directly stated that Annalise was sexually abused when she was younger. The culprit was her uncle and Annalise resents her mother, wanting to know if she knew about the abuse and why she didn’t intervene to stop it. It ignites quite the row between them, but eventually Ophelia tells Annalise the truth. Ophelia sacrificed the home she had loved so much and allowed it to burn down to the ground with Annalise’s uncle passed out inside so the the abuse being inflicted on her daughter would stop. This was one of the most powerful moments on the show to date, which says something considering how hard of a punch this show packs with every other monologue. Cecily Tyson and Viola Davis worked so beautifully together and the writing for Cecily was something to behold. When Ophelia gave her speech on how men destroy and take the things they want, and spoke about the sexual violence that has run rampant in the lives of herself and the other women in her family, it was entirely apparent to us that this had commentary on misogynoir sewn deep into it. There was so much we learned about Annalise herself and we can now see how much she gets from her mother, as they are both flowers blossomed from trauma. Once Annalise learns the truth, she is able to heal some of the damage she has had done unto her and her strength is reinvigorated so she can carry on looking after her students as well as begin working on getting Nate Lahey exonerated. This was all thoroughly compelling to watch and once again, Annalise Keating proves herself to be one of the most brilliantly rich characters we’ve ever had the good fortune to watch.

Wising-Up Wes

Wes’ suspicions about Rebecca and Rudy have not subsided in the slightest. He’s still busy at work trying to uncover what really happened to the ex-tenant of his apartment and determine the truth about Rebecca. Having some connections to law enforcement now, he is able to access the arrest report of Rudy which shows that he didn’t have a nervous breakdown like what Rebecca said. Instead, he was found belligerent, out and about, and under the influence of drugs. Don’t forget that Rebecca is known as a drug dealer, among other things. Also, this whole snatch-up of Rudy happened on the night of Lila’s murder. Rebecca continues to be as shady as they come, by going off-book and telling the police that Nate Lahey had threatened her for not agreeing to plant incriminating evidence in Sam Keating’s house. Wes lets Laurel in on what he has learned about Rebecca and Rudy, and Laurel uses a fake ID to fake her way into the psychiatric facility Rudy is at with Wes posing as her husband. A brief questioning of Rudy regarding how he got there, as well as showing him a photo of Rebecca yields one word: “wet.” Immediately, Wes recalls the water tank in which Lila’s body was found. As for the shady sulker herself, Rebecca has hacked the location of Wes’ phone and learned that he is at the hospital. Dramatic enough for all of you?

“Wet.” ~ Rudy
“Wet?” ~ Laurel
“The water tank.” ~ Wes

We’ve made no secret our disdain for the lack of substance in the character of Rebecca, as well as the baffling mess that has been Wes and Rebecca’s relationship. But it would seem that the writers are moving towards remedying this and the relationship between these two is on its way out. This is more along the lines of the Wes that we had too-briefly fallen for before it all went off the rails. Having Wes play detective is a much greater use of screen time as well as Alfred Enoch’s abilities. This makes him something of a hero we can rally behind and hopefully an indication of the long-term plans of character development we will see from Wes in the season(s) to come. It’s also nice to see him working alongside Laurel, as the whole Rebecca debacle has often removed him from being a cohesive part of the group. With the undoubted bombs that will go off in the finale, Wes will need support to get through it all and it would be great to see him form closer bonds with everyone else in the group.

Final Verdict

This was another fantastic episode from the How To Get Away With Murder cast and crew. Writers Erika Green Swafford and Doug Stockstill infused so much excellent commentary that gives the show greater depth than anything else we watch. It beautifully handled and addressed matters of misogynoir, rape culture, and the wrongful imprisonment of black men running rampant in American prisons. For Michaela to be so concerned about Nate’s wrongful arrest and to be so forthright about it to Annalise was exquisitely crafted. We’d be remiss if we didn’t again give praise to Cecily Tyson and Viola Davis for the masterclass they gave on How To Give Next-Level Performances. It was also nice to see the further development of Connor and Oliver’s relationship, though we can’t help but be weary of this happiness since it’s probably going to blow up in our faces and wreak all kinds of emotional havoc on us. Still, Jack Falahee and Conrad Ricamora are just so precious together that we’ll enjoy the good times while they last. Director Mike Listo also carried the torch well by putting in the footage of truths to accompany the lies Rebecca told. We can hardly believe that our favourite show is about to finish its season and we’ll have to wait all those months for new dramatic revelations!

Questions, Comments, Concerns…

• Ugh! Nate’s stripping down and looking GOOD doing it and I can’t even be happy about it! HTGAWM writers, why must you hurt me like this???
• Cicely Tyson!!! GODDESS!!! THIS VIP LINE I CAN’T STOP CACKLING!!!
• This whole case is creepy and weird and I don’t understand the point of it at all.
• Viola David and Cicely Tyson in this scene… I swear Kanye wrote the line “Bow in the presence of greatness” about THIS MOMENT.
• Oliver, you are beautiful! Don’t you go selling yourself short like this! *cries for Oliver*
• Ooooooo Michaela is working the hell out of this vanilla latte!
• Never liked Rebecca. She’s been shady with her gargling speech since day 1.
• OH… this is HEAVY. Now I know why they’re doing this case. This isn’t just commentary on rape culture, this is about misogynoir.
• Connor trying to lie like he’s not completely head-over-heels for Oliver, you’re not fooling anyone!
• ANNALISE’S MAMA IS THE BOSS! Getting away with murder is in Annalise’s blood! HOT DAMN!
• Oliver pouting because he wants that ass, and Connor wanting to wait till Oliver’s sober *HEART EYES*
• Laurel! Where did you get that fake ID???
• Well well well, it’s Rudy! This is bound to be good!
• What’s Annalise playing at coming to see Nate like this! Did she hand him something? *waits* YES SHE DID WHEEEEE!!!
• “Wet” THE WATER TANK! YEAH! THE WATER TANK! CALLED IT!
• Someone call Maggie Q up because Rebecca is a total STALKER.