Nice try, Frank (Charlie Weber). Everything is always about Annalise (Viola Davis), and you know it. She’s still rotting in jail with her signature steely exterior, “losing it,” technically, but only the cinderblocks know. As her cellmate bullies her to sleep, a slight eyebrow flicker is the only evidence of the Lady Keating’s emotional distress. She can even handle getting called “Boy Killer” once or twice, because it’s just not accurate. But when A.D.A. Atwood (Milauna Jackson) triggers Annalise with the ultimate truth bomb — “You get vulnerable, broken people into your clutches and you devour them” — she finally breaks. You know what? She will accept that razorblade from her other cellmate, the nicer one. And she’ll take that thing to her own head in a tearing-out-the-weave scene that rivals Season 1’s epic cleaning-off-the-makeup scene in raw emotional power and face shakes. Our prisoner is not a fancy lady, not here. She’s a vulnerable, broken person trapped in her own clutches. “Bonnie, I deserve this,” Annalise croaks after their dim plan to let Frank take the fall for All The Murders backfires.
Actually, if anyone “deserves this,” it might be Bonnie (Liza Weil). Episode 11’s blue-tinted flashback reveals that Bonnie was the one giving orders to Frank on the afternoon of the fire. After Wes (Alfred Enoch) got into Frank’s car, the pair had a heated passive-aggressive threat-off in which Wes was all “You killed my father” and Frank was all “You took my girl.” Crying on the inside, they fought about Laurel and Rebecca — but to no one’s surprise, this was really about Annalise, so take that, episode title. Anyway, Frank and Wes continued to taunt each other until the tension of being basically the same possibly unlovable nightmare person got too hot to handle and Wes stomped away. Frank phoned Bonnie: “We got a puppy problem. He knows Rebecca’s dead.” (Is anyone else in disbelief/annoyance that this is all hurtling back to Rebecca?) “Just don’t lose him,” warned Bonnie.
Maybe Frank did lose him. Maybe Wes wandered into a pit of self-loathing and that’s where he died. We still have no idea what happened between 4:30 p.m. and the fire, and bleary eyewitness Laurel (Karla Souza) might not either, but we can assume her sudden, tearful recollection to police that Frank was the one she witnessed exiting the basement’s storm door just before the explosion is a bona fide, Bonnie-induced lie. Laurel’s claim that Frank knew she was pregnant with Wes’ baby that night is definitely a lie, as Laurel didn’t even know about the baby until she woke up in the hospital. Bonnie and Laurel assume that placing Frank at the scene, with motive, will be the final nail in his self-constructed coffin. NOPE. Thwarted! No one really believes Frank did it. He’s charged with Wes’ murder, all right, but as a co-conspirator to Annalise.
AdvertisementADVERTISEMENT
It’s like no one even cares about Wes! (They weren’t even that great of friends, as Jack Falahee’s Connor reminds us.) The D.A.’s office is refusing to let Annalise out of jail due to the mountain of evidence it’s compiled against her for the murders of Sam, Lila, Rebecca, the Hapstalls, and Emily St. Clair. It’s beginning to look a lot like A.D.A. Atwood somehow orchestrated this whole Wes situation to finally bring Annalise down for everything else. Anna’s saving grace here, as usual, could be Nate (Billy Brown), who knows about both Wes’ alternative-facts autopsy and Laurel’s pregnancy fib. Nate is a shining beacon of truth in the parking garage, and Atwood is in over her pretty big head.
Meanwhile, in the world beyond government buildings and hospitals, Michaela (Aja Naomi King) steps up like never before as the new Annalise stand-in. Or as Connor aptly puts it: she’s gone “entitled crazy person” on all of their asses, calling out President Hargrove on the university’s mistreatment of Annalise (“She is a brilliant, empowering force of legal nature!”) and stunning Oliver into submission to hack the DA’s office (“All you need to know is: Sam deserved it.”) She’s like Mussolini, but that’s okay because he’s the one who got things done, right? Someone needs to be the hero here, and Bonnie’s silent spiral into further madness makes her a very unlikely candidate.
At one point mid-episode, Bonnie nearly kills Connor (who honestly might have it coming) with a single stone-cold glare after learning that Connor filled Oliver (Conrad Ricamora) in on the broad strokes of Sam’s murder for no apparent reason. Ugh, that’s just what Bon Bon needs right now — another compromised millennial with a conscience. Disgusting. Later, Connor and Oliver agree tenderly and fearfully in the midst of a tight spoon that they really, really need each other, now more than ever.
AdvertisementADVERTISEMENT
Oh, and the heretofore inconsequential bobblehead known as Meggy (Corbin Reid) keeps spying on Laurel in the hospital when she isn’t even supposed to be working! Could Meggy have killed Wes in a tepid rage of wanting more screen time? Could she be spying for the DA’s office? Is she ADA Atwood’s less vivacious half-sister?
We’ll see. For now, Bonnie’s the most likely new suspect in viewers’ eyes, even if no one on the show ever notices her. We see you, Bonnie. Just don’t look at us.