Did They Get Away With It In How To Get Away With Murder?

A Riveting Lead

In How To Get Away With Murder, obsession, lies, provocation, and cover-ups take Annalise, her two assistants Frank and Bonnie, and the students down a long, tumultuous path in this emotionally charged and captivating series. These events transformed the lives of everyone on the show, which became much more complex. The series made a major shift after season three, when it became more justice-oriented versus what was seemingly a crime-drama, with a new case every episode. Annalise’s pursuit of justice shaped the entire rest of the series, and all of the other characters followed suit.

Annalise’s character, the antihero, underwent a huge transformation and was very well portrayed as a fighter and crusader with a troubled history. Her complex history regarding traumas and moral based issues led her to alcoholism. She sought treatment for these dark aspects at the beginning of season six as her personal and professional life were some of the main focus of the series. While some viewed her as a hypocrite for her ideas throughout the show, it was known that she always did what she thought was right, and she usually was. We can view her as an anti-hero in this respect, but somehow she always made it out okay at the end, which has great appeal to the viewer.

Annalise’s character identified as a bisexual woman who denied a past relationship with a woman; she then went on to marry her husband, Sam Keating, in what she viewed as a story-esque picture of her life. While some of us expected to see her end her life with one lover in particular, as she had many throughout the show, we see in the end her holding hands with many people, of all ages, races and sexes. She ultimately lived and passed peacefully, and embraced relationships with whomever she wanted at the very end of the series finale.

Throughout the series, Annalise made her case for underprivileged people being mistreated in any way by a corrupt legal system, the LGBTQIA+ community, and also for people of color. Her performance was intoxicating, raw, and very compelling. She played a brilliant lawyer who, after a series of extreme cases and alcoholism, eventually challenged the U.S. Supreme Court in season four. Specifically, the case pertains to Nathanial Lahey Sr., who was convicted in a wrongful death suit with serious racial disparity regarding his sentencing.

More Time For The Same Crimes

In the fifty-eighth episode of the series, Annalise challenged the Supreme Court with Lahey v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. She wanted to make a change for other black prisoners who have had unfair trials which led them to have longer sentences than other white prisoners that committed the same crimes. In the landmark case, she argued that the underfunding of public defenders violated the ‘offenders’ sixth amendment right to counsel. The lawsuit was directed at attaining more for public defenders in order for them to better represent their clients.

Still, after a study in 2017, it was well-known and found that black males on average receive nearly twenty percent longer sentences than white men by judges who have made sentencing choices at their own discretion in ‘non-government sponsored departures and variations’ (( Washington Post )). Sentencing decisions are big proponents of the incarceration rate for blacks being over five times higher than whites at 2,306 inmates per 100,000 people vs. 450 inmates per 100,000 people for whites.

Three problematic trends were discovered in United States v. Booker:

“1) an increase in judge-made sentences imposed outside the ranges established by the Sentencing Guidelines; 2) shorter sentences for certain types of offenses, and 3) increased geographic and racial disparity in sentencing.” (( Justice )).

Within racial disparity in the United States, there is still, to this day, a decline in compliance with federal sentencing principles. Annalise’s life on How to Get Away With Murder was nothing short but full of dramatic twists and turns, and like her students was ridden with a guilt complex every step of the way.

Annalise’s Final Fate

The many deeply complex relationships between all of the characters gravely affected her overall persona, but we saw her continuously attempting to reconstruct her life while changing the world around her. The transformation from being broken down, almost losing her license, and running away to Mexico after being charged with all conspiracy and murders by the FBI, was remarkable.

She eventually faced all of her demons and once again defended herself in front of the court that ultimately found her innocent of all retaliatory charges previously raised. Annalise did not ever kill anyone herself, just helped mastermind the cover-ups and turns of events. At the end of the season, we see Annalise’s funeral and discover that she passed away as an elderly woman, not a younger attorney as we see in the photo in the flash-forwards along the season.

All of the students attended, and one surprise character was presented, Wes and Laurel’s now-grown-son, Christopher. Christopher looked identical to Wes, one of the main characters from the earlier seasons, and we will discuss this significance towards the end.

“Who I am is a 53-year-old woman from Memphis, Tennessee named Anna Mae Harkness. I’m ambitious, black, bisexual, angry, sad, strong, sensitive, scared, fierce, talented, exhausted – and I am at your mercy.“

(( How To Get Away With Murder. “Stay.” Episode 90. Directed by Stephen Cragg )).

Bittersweet Heartbreak

The depth of all of the characters in How To Get Away With Murder adjoins the story-line in great complexity and depth. If you think there possibly cannot be any more intrigue that the viewer can digest, vast arrays of information are all secretly connected, are revealed.

Frank and Bonnie were heavily relied upon and have devoted their entire lives to protecting and aiding Annalise with undying loyalty. We discovered Frank and Bonnie also had dark pasts themselves, in which viewers did not understand the depths of their past until the last episode before the series finale in season six. Both Bonnie and Frank are deceitful characters who were always cleaning up messes, intimidating witnesses (( even to the point of possibly murdering them )). Frank and Bonnie went through many love affairs themselves, like most of the characters in the show, and eventually found comfort in each other.

Ambition, Victims, And Murderers

The two ended up dying together after they were caught in the middle of all of the crimes committed. In retrospect, we saw them die for something of which they had no culpability for but purely due to their unwavering loyalty to Annalise and the students. In an interview, Peter Nowalk (( a writer and producer of the show )) explained that Frank and Bonnie’s lives were mostly lives of tragedy and messy situations.

They were unable to give them happy endings because “tragedy begets tragedy.” As Frank always wanted to fix the situation, he eventually sacrificed himself, and Bonnie died along with him in an accident. He viewed them dying together poetically, similar to Romeo and Juliet because they truly did love each other. (( Bustle )).

All of the characters had serious conflicts within them, either due to their individual traumatic pasts or because of the events that transpired after becoming enthralled with Annalise in the first place. The goal was for the students to go to a prestigious school and become great lawyers. Criminal law students Wes, Connor, Michaela, Laurel, and Asher became so involved in heart-pounding moments throughout How To Get Away With Murder, the students were all jumbled by one cover-up in particular that it spiraled out-of-control.

In the end, they had no other choice but to stick together with Annalise’s concrete plan. If the plan shifted significantly throughout the series, this would be the only way they would be able to escape accountability entirely. With that, the students went from rivals in a competitive law school environment, to creating unbreakable bonds and even romanticizing friendships together. In the series, we ultimately discovered the depths of how far Annalise’s ‘Chosen Five’ students go to eventually make the grade.

Was Wes Gibbins Actually Still Alive?

Wes was the main character that the show focused on early in the series. With a complicated history and deep ties from childhood to Annalise’s past, Wes was viewed as an outcast in The Chosen Five. We did not anticipate the series of events that would unfold, partly because of his “boy-next-door” charisma. Wes was ultimately the character who hit Sam over the head with a metal trophy, which led to Sam’s death. The guilt followed him throughout the first season and after attempting to confess it all, he died in a fire at Annalise’s home. Right before he was murdered, a short-lived but prominent affair ensued with Laurel, ending with her pregnancy with his child, Christopher.

At the end of the series, we ultimately saw Christopher, the now older version of Wes and Laurel’s baby boy, teaching the ‘How To Get Away With Murder’ Middleton Law Class. Christopher looked at the class and we saw the classroom had a special guest, Annalise, who he described as his mentor, and he smiled at her. This was a tremendous moment for the show, as we watched Annalise feel regret, and heartbreak over Wes’s childhood, the complicated relationship they had while he attended Middleton Law, and ultimately, his death. This had a profound effect on Annalise and the students.

“Let me help you. Let me help you. Because if you do, I promise you will get away with this.”

(( How To Get Away With Murder. “Hello Raskolnikov.” Episode 10. Directed by Michael Offer )).

Answering Unanswered Questions…Six Years of Plots and Twists

The series had an unrelenting pace with heart-pounding moments along with flash-forwards and flashbacks of what happened each respective night and the events that led up to them, carefully throughout the main arch of each season. In the end, the viewer humanized Annalise, Bonnie and Frank, and the students. Viewers saw them defining themselves, no longer by the guilt-ridden complexities of the crimes they committed and the obsessiveness of all of it that engulfed them, but with major conclusions allowing peace to pave the way for the remainder of their lives.

After the death of one last student, Asher, Michaela and Connor were pinned for his murder by the FBI. They began making plea bargains to only serve minimal sentences and/or probation if they incriminated Annalise, the FBI’s main target along the way. Yet, after Annalise found out, she re-devised her strategy in court and after the students turned on her, was able to corner them and prove her own innocence. Connor eventually ended up serving a minimum sentence in prison in order to protect his partner from any prison time, after not taking a deal.

Michaela was free. The show had many moving moments and was a definite thriller full of secrecy and doubt, ultimately delivering the positive outcomes the viewer is hopeful for. The complexity and strategic writing of the show did not leave any problems left unsolved; the suspense was recapitulated with many painful decisions, yet ended with a triumphant and sobering finality. All of the characters and stories had powerful messages, many that resonate with our everyday lives.

“That’s how you get away with murder.”

(( How To Get Away With Murder “Pilot.” Episode 1. Directed by Michael Offer )).