‘How To Get Away With Murder’ Season 3, Episode 13 Recap: New Suspect In Wes’ Murder

Once again, so much happened in this episode it’s difficult to decide where to begin unpacking it all.

We begin with Annalise Keating (Viola Davis), who has now been released from jail, receiving a call from Nate (Billy Brown). Nate confesses to her that he was at her house the night of the fire/Wes’s murder, and says he feels responsible for Wes’s death, but Annalise refuses to believe he had anything to do with it.

In a flashback of that night, Wes (Alfred Enoch) and Nate unexpectedly run into each other at Annalise’s house and both say they want to talk to her. Wes says he just wants to make things right with her, while Nate advises him to step away from all this and stop defending Annalise because she’s not a good person. Wes says he will never stop fighting for her because she has “protected him even when he doesn’t deserve it, because he has done terrible things to her.” However, he does not specifically say what these “terrible things” are when Nate asks (we know shooting Annalise and ratting her out are two of them). While still at Annalise’s, Nate receives a phone call from the Philadelphia police station and lies when asked whether he knows of Wes’s whereabouts.

The Keating 4 plus Oliver continue to struggle with how to deal with Wes’s murder. Laurel (Karla Souza) suggests going after the Mahoneys because she is convinced they were implicated in Wes’s murder, and becomes angry with Annalise when she says they should be careful and not jump to conclusions because the Mahoneys are dangerous people.

Laurel hires a private investigator to look into the Mahoneys, and he finds that one of them– a woman– requested a DNA test for Wes, probably to find out whether he was really Wallace Mahoney’s son. Laurel jumps to the conclusion that the family must have killed Wes after they discovered he was in fact related to them. Though she clearly didn’t want to have to admit it, Annalise finally reveals to Laurel, Asher, (Matt McGorry), Connor (Jack Falahee) and Michaela (Aja Naomi King) that the Mahoneys killed her unborn child years prior as a way to explain to them how dangerous this family is after Laurel continues to insist on attacking them. Previously, only Wes and Bonnie (Liza Weil) knew that Frank colluded with the Mahoneys to kill Annalise’s baby.

Asher tells Michaela– whom he is still dating– he is becoming more convinced in his suspicions that Connor is the “anonymous source” who told the police Annalise was guilty of the fire and Wes’s murder, using Connor’s repeated suggestions– both implicit and explicit– that there remains a possibility Annalise actually is guilty and everyone is defending her for no valid reason. However, Michaela refuses to go down that road and tells Asher to keep his mouth shut.

Middleton University President Soraya Hargrove (Lauren Velez) calls Annalise and even asks to see Ms. Keating to see how she’s doing now that she’s out of prison. However, Annalise quickly realizes Hargrove is faking her concern, and was simply doing this at the request of Assistant D.A. Renee Atwood (Milauna Jackson), who offered her custody of her children over her husband in exchange– a case Annalise had offered to help Hargrove with before she was arrested. Hargrove asks Annalise if she would probably do the same thing if she had children,and walks away, as Annalise remains frustrated at Atwood’s continued attempts at ruining her life even now that she has been released from prison on bail.

Annalise reaches out to the Pennsylvania’s state Attorney General and demands, both in a letter and in person, that the AG investigate Atwood for poorly handing her case by showing both “personal bias” against her and “tampering with the evidence,” that evidence being Wes’s body, by having the body moved. Annalise even threatens to sue the AG’s office, and enlist’s Oliver’s (Conrad Ricamora) help to leak an article theorizing there is a conspiracy between the state government and Philadelphia’s D.A. Office to keep Wes’s body hidden and unjustly incriminate Annalise. However, when the AG sees this article with Atwood’s photo, she furiously calls Annalise and retaliates with a threat of her own: “stop with these absurd conspiracy theories or you’ll be thrown back in jail, and might even get the death penalty.”

Frank (Charlie Weber) continues to work with Bonnie to help prove Annalise’s innocence and in a court case, uses the sixth amendment– which refers to the accused’s right to a speedy, public and impartial trial– as well as the fact that Atwood and Nate were in a relationship to suggest the judge investigate Atwood for a possible forgery of Nate’s signature on the document stating Nate moved Wes’ body. The judge accepts and demands Atwood turn over her entire log of phone calls, text messages and emails from the night of Wes’ death and the night his body disappeared, giving Annalise and Bonnie hope.

Assistant D.A. Todd Denver (Benito Martinez) becomes furious at Atwood for compromising their case by bringing her romantic life into it, by seeking to get revenge on Nate.

Despite Michaela’s insistence that he keep quiet, Asher finally tells Bonnie that he believes Connor is the anonymous source– in front of Connor, who vehemently denies this. Michaela eventually ends up backing up Asher, and after saying “you would believe your stupid boyfriend,” Connor angrily returns home.

There, Oliver reveals to Conor that he has discovered something disturbing after going through his copy of Annalise’s phone files that he kept after she asked him to erase the files just before her arrest the night of the fire. Oliver tells Conor he has realized that Conor borrowed Thomas’s (the guy he slept with) cellphone to call Annalise and then checked his voicemail, and that this was hours before the fire. Thus, Oliver realizes Connor did not go straight from Thomas’s apartment to the hospital where Bonnie told them all that Wes was dead. Connor left Thomas’s hours before the fire.

In a brief flashback, we see Connor the night of Wes’ death– in what looks like moments before the fire, as the house is not up in flames yet– attempting to perform CPR on Wes, who is lying on the ground apparently dead already.

Did Connor see Wes in his final moments of life and try to save him?? Or was he simply pretending to save him to hide the fact that he was involved in Wes’s murder, either directly or indirectly??

Tune in next Thursday at 9 p.m. on ABC to find out who killed Wes on the two-hour season 3 finale of How to Get Away With Murder! 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gzd6GvuVC6s