Television

Standard Of Review: The Mid-Season Finale Of 'How To Get Away With Murder' Is Predictable And Underwhelming

Television critic Harry Graff really was not very interested in what happened to Annalise Keating (Viola Davis) in the mid-season finale.

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All season long, How to Get Away With Murder has teased its audience with numerous flash-forwards showing lead character Annalise Keating lying on the floor of the creepy mansion owned by her rich clients the Hapstall siblings (I cannot believe any human being actually lives in that house, which looks like it should be inhabited by Count Chocula) with a gunshot wound to her stomach.  Over the course of the season, the flash-forwards gradually revealed that at the time of the shooting, nearly every major character is present at the mansion or nearby, and that ruthless prosecutor Emily Sinclair is lying dead near the mansion’s front lawn. How to Get Away With Murder clearly desperately wants its audience to be overcome by anticipation, wondering “who shot Annalise?” The answer to that question was finally revealed in the show’s mid-season finale, which aired on November 19, and was both predictable and underwhelming (this review will contain spoilers up through the November 19 episode).

In 1980 (before I was born, but I will take Wikipedia’s word for it), fans of the hit series Dallas were whipped up into a frenzy, wondering “who shot J.R.?” (I am reluctantly putting a spoiler warning here, but if you need a spoiler warning for a thirty-five-year-old Dallas episode, I don’t know what to tell you). Dallas was one of the most popular shows on television at the time, and the third season finale ended with the shooting of main character J.R. Ewing (Larry Hagman) by an unknown assailant. Throughout the ensuing months, CBS went on a marketing blitz, asking viewers to posit the identity of the shooter. Even the candidates for the 1980 presidential election were asked about their theories. The fourth episode of the fourth season, in which the question was finally answered, was a ratings bonanza, with a Nielsen rating of 53.3 (nowadays, obtaining that kind of Nielsen rating for anything non-football related would probably require the cast of Star Wars to team up with some zombies from The Walking Dead to sing “Hello” by Adele).

Since then, television dramas have tried their best to repeatedly surprise their audience with a buzzworthy twist, such as killing or almost killing a major character. While this sort of ploy is occasionally shocking, it has been less effective as of late because audiences are more likely to expect it (for example, any time a character on The Walking Dead contemplates his or her future, that character is probably not lasting until the end of the episode). Moreover, many shows will immediately undo their twist, as characters that seem dead are miraculously alive (for example, that popular show that I won’t name but whose billboards featuring a supposedly dead character are dotting New York City right now).

How to Get Away With Murder has also followed the trend of teasing an upcoming twist via a flash-forward. Lost and Breaking Bad are two recent shows to employ this tactic. However, while flash-forwards may be effective in generating buzz, they water down the twist itself. Breaking Bad is my favorite show of all time, but even I will admit that the flash-forwards that began each half of its final season served no dramatic purpose, and only enabled intelligent audience members to accurately guess what would happen in the series finale.

That exceedingly long introduction is my way of saying that I really was not very interested in what happened to Annalise in the mid-season finale of How to Get Away with Murder. Viola Davis is the show’s star, acts the hell out of every episode, and gave one of the best awards speeches ever at the 2015 Emmy’s. The show could have a hundred flash-forwards showing Annalise shot, stabbed, or undergoing the Ludovico technique and being forced to watch every Walking Dead scene featuring Sam Anderson the annoying child; the chances that Annalise is going to die are about as good as the chances that the Philadelphia 76ers will win the NBA Championship this season.

As with Breaking Bad, the flash-forwards also undermined How to Get Away With Murder’s finale. In a vacuum, the final act of the mid-season finale should have been extremely exciting, as Annalise has to quickly formulate a plan to prevent Asher from going to prison after he killed Sinclair with his car, while at the same time attempting to deal with the realization that her client Catherine Haptstall might be guilty of murdering her parents but that her other client Caleb Hapstall might be innocent. However, I was bored throughout this entire sequence, as I was a step ahead of all the characters and was merely waiting for someone to shoot Annalise.

Moreover, because this twist was initially revealed in the season premiere, I was able to (correctly) predict that Annalise would request that one of her sycophants shoot her as part of a larger plan. I seriously doubted that virtually every character on the show would conspire to murder Annalise in cold blood unless she did something as horrifying as stating that she wanted to see the hit film Creed because she loves the song “With Arms Wide Open.” Lo and behold, I was correct, as Annalise requested that one of her students shoot her in order to frame Catherine for Sinclair’s murder. Additionally, the fact that Wes – incensed at Annalise for lying to him about Rebecca Sutter’s death – shot Annalise in the stomach, instead of the leg, should have been a big emotional moment. But this scene lost a lot of emotional weight because I knew what was coming.

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As How to Get Away With Murder enters the back half of its second season, I have many ideas to improve the show that I will explain in greater detail in a few months. But the mid-season finale illustrated one of the show’s greatest weaknesses – a fondness for “big twists” and flashforwards that actually undermine the show. As it moves forward, How to Get Away With Murder should eschew big twists and flash-forwards and focus on what it does best – depicting law school as something one does in one’s free time between murders.

Harry Graff is a litigation associate at a firm, but he spends days wishing that he was writing about film, television, literature, and pop culture instead of writing briefs. If there is a law-related movie, television show, book, or any other form of media that you would like Harry Graff to discuss, he can be reached at harrygraff19@gmail.com. Be sure to follow Harry Graff on Twitter at @harrygraff19.

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