How to Get Away with Murder opened where it ended last week, with the nightly news revealing that the charred remains found in the landfill were that of Sam Keating (Tom Verica).

How To Get Away With Murder Recap

Connor (Jack Falahee), ever the most paranoid of the group, is convinced that Annalise (Viola Davis) led police to the remains and is setting them up to get caught. Wes (Alfred Enoch) and Rebecca (Katie Findlay) try to calm him down to no avail. On her way to meet the others at Wes’ apartment, Laurel (Karla Souza) phones Frank (Charlie Weber), who freaks out on her about calling him, warning her that all of their calls and movements are going to be monitored. Meanwhile, Annalise and Hannah’s (Marcia Gay Harden) dinner is interrupted when police show up at the door, informing the two about Sam’s remains. Hannah breaks down in tears and accuses her sister-in-law of her brother’s death. “She killed him. She tried to hide it,” she yells through sobs. “She’s a murderer. She killed my brother. Arrest her. Arrest her goddammit.”

The next day, Annalise is on her way to work when she gets a call from Nate (Billy Brown), who wisely invested in a burner phone. When she gets onto campus, a detective shows up to speak with her and questions her lack of obvious grief. Finally back in her classroom, she kicks out the substitute professor and begins her class. This class lesson: the fifth amendment, or as Annalise puts it, “When in doubt, shut your mouth.”

Back at the Keating residence/ law offices, Frank walks in to find Bonnie (Liza Weil) picking up a broken glass and crying. She explains that she’s upset because Annalise doesn’t trust her anymore – and worse – that Sam ended up dead the same night that she told Annalise that he had tried to kiss her. When Annalise gets back to the offices, she wants to know about her mobster client Leo, who apparently is considering dropping her as his brother’s lawyer because of her own potential legal woes. She goes to meet him, promising that her issues won’t affect her ability to defend him and his brother.

At first it looks as though Annalise won’t be able to keep her promise to Leo, but then Laurel ends up finding the rat. At court the next day, Annalise interrogates the police and then presents the man who checked the container with the heroin. He admits he was instructed to check it during the random stop. He further reveals that he was promised a green card if he looked there. Who promised him? Prosecutor Hobbs. Annalise wins the case.

While Annalise is working, Hannah is at the police station trying to convince the detectives to charge Annalise with Sam’s murder. She tells them that Annalise, contrary to what she told them, had known about Sam’s affair with Lyla for months. She also claims that Annalise was brought up around violence and likely has a predisposition towards it herself. When that fails to catch their attention – and after she sees pictures of Sam’s burnt remains – she asks, “What if she threatened Sam’s life,” adding, “I’ll testify to whatever you need me to. Search that house.”

Hannah’s badgering of the detectives eventually pays off, and she’s going to testify in a hearing that Annalise threatened Sam’s life in order to earn them a search warrant. Bonnie is sent to argue against the search warrant. Up on the stand, Hannah claims that she witnessed an argument between the married pair in which Annalise threatened Sam’s life and injured him with a paperweight. Though Bonnie tries to poke holes in her testimony, she loses her motion to block the warrant, and police are deployed to the Keating residence. Outside, the law students are gathered together, clearly worried. When Hannah arrives, she wonders aloud why the promising soon-to-be lawyers would still be attaching themselves to a potential husband killer. Spotting Hannah on her property, Annalise accuses her of having some inappropriate feelings towards her late brother.

As police sweep the home and office, they find the scales of justice on the floor. Just as they’re about to look them over, Bonnie – who’s still not supposed to know anything – swoops in an reattaches them to the trophy without raising any suspicion. Annalise, peering over the banister, watches as the forensic team sprays the patch of floor on which Sam bled and died. Thanks to her scrubbing, nothing shows up. Bonnie catches a look between Annalise and Frank and starts putting things together, including that the trophy was the murder weapon.

Afterwards, Annalise, with all of the students back in her house, pulls Connor aside to try to calm his fears. She sees a part of herself in Connor, the part of them that is the worrier, and understands he’s finding it difficult to trust her. But, she explains, the odds are better for all of them if they trust her.

Later, Bonnie comes into Annalise’s office and drops the trophy on her desk. She knows the trophy was the weapon. She knows that the carpet is missing and why. She also knows that the wood remnants found on Sam’s body will lead police to the wooded area behind the school. She even knows that Analise is trying to protect her students. If she doesn’t want to go down with them, Bonnie tells her she needs to start talking to the police. Drinking some vodka, Annalise contemplates her options, realizing how much she’s promised her students to help them before placing a call, saying, “I need you right now.”

When the detectives show up at her house the next day, Annalise agrees to chat with them and goes to the station. There, they tell her that they found a ring in the woods. It’s the one she gave Sam on their wedding day. They inform her there’s a print on the ring. She asks them whose it is, but she already knows because she had Frank place it there. It’s Nate’s. As her boyfriend is arrested for murdering her husband, Annalise goes crying to her bed and picks up the phone, “Mama, I need you.”