How To Get Away With Murder: He Has a Wife Review

Dead bodies don’t lie, or at least that’s the hope with Lila’s exhumed body atop the coroner’s cold metal table. Her gelatinous-covered face, tranquil, as if asleep. Six months ago, Lila and Rebecca thought the world lay before their feet. Six months later, the doctor stitches up her corpse after performing an autopsy.  

Lila and Rebecca, unlikely best friends forever, share cocaine and girl talk on the rooftop that later had a special meaning. No one is who and what they seem on How to Get Away with Murder. People can defy stereotypes. The sorority girl can honestly be friends with the Goth girl from the other side of town without an ulterior motive. No slumming here, their friendship is the stuff of summer road trip movies. There are times when people need to step outside of their comfort zones and face the truth of the lies that lull them to sleep at night. It isn’t always a reflection in the mirror that shakes humans down to their core, but a polar opposite. This is the foundation of Lila and Rebecca’s friendship. 

Annalise, Bonnie and Sam made an odd trio during the bedroom interrogation scene. An intimate place to lay bare what has gone wrong in their marriage. Is it all about sex that their marriage has disintegrated as Big Mama from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof would have us believe? 

Tonight’s case-of-the-week is a sleepwalking suburban mom accused of murder. I wonder if the group field trips will remain part of the show after the winter break. I get that Annalise is a law professor, but they sometimes seem forced Scholastic outings with the Keating Five squeezed into one room. Each student has a unique personality and gift, but lumped together they are resigned to a cage fight. Perhaps that’s the reason after all, to see who will fight harder or dirtier to help the clients and Annalise win the case.

The students together in one location appear disjointed, rather than a cohesive unit with complementary parts and functions. College is a competitive place, but I think a better lesson would have the students cooperating and learning from each other. Annalise has been an erratic mentor at best. 

I’d like to have seen earlier and more instances of Annalise in control, as when she said to Wes, “I learned my lesson about keeping secrets from you.” 

On the opposite end of the spectrum, partners in crime Nate and Rebecca lurking in the shadows, conspiring to convict Sam. A jilted ex-lover will do whatever deemed necessary to feel vindicated. An alley cat will scratch and claw its way out of a rumble.

I’m over Annalise lashing out at her subordinates and students. Bonnie didn’t deserve being called out in public. Later, she popped out of an adjoining room like a jack-in-the-box while Bonnie and Sam are talking was comical. Peek-a-boo! She was determined to catch them doing or saying something incriminating, but fell short. 

I don’t buy Annalise’s too often emotional mood swings as a wife. How long will she feel guilty for having been Sam’s previous mistress? I don’t accept her blaming the state of her marriage and Sam’s affair as reasons for her possibly losing the sleepwalking mom’s case. Find the switch and turn it off. Only so much can happen in a hour on television, but it might have been helpful to see flashes of her trying to repair her marriage, yet failing at each attempt. Is karma at play with Sam and Annalise? 

Broken wives and lives are a theme in this episode. “Bad things happen when you have sex,” Lila said. I’d amend that to say, bad things can happen when one has an affair with a married man or woman. Elka, the dead nanny, should have kept her hands to herself, and remembered the man of the house had a wife.

Michaela isn’t the polished gem she would have us believe. Lynn Whitfield, doing her best Diahann Carroll as Dominique Devereaux on Dynasty, sets the record straight. How did Michaela come to her current poise? We’ll have to wait until after the winter break to discover the answer, if ever. 

Bonnie the Protector, steps up and dismisses a threat that would have further destroyed Annalise’s grip on reality. Bonnie has always desired Sam, but satisfied herself with the court jester, Asher. She didn’t deserve to be fired. Who else will stand sentry for Annalise? Annalise would do better with an alley, even a mousy one. What we have instead is her life spiraling out of control, and everyone within arm’s length paying the price and having to cover for her. Wes finally shows fear that Annalise could be a dangerous adversary is a bit late in the season, but a desirable sight all the same. 

The jigsaw puzzle is coming into focus with Annalise orchestrating DNA testing of all the men Lila slept with, but we all know that Sam’s the father of the unborn fetus. Annalise has a point to prove, and once again, teach a lesson. 

We now know how the statue made its way back to Annalise’s house, or at least that Michaela stole it from Asher’s apartment. Hopefully the buildup to the winter finale pays off with a well-written episode and the identity of Sam’s killer. Stay tuned.

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