‘How To Get Away With Murder,’ Season 3, Episode 8 Recap: ‘No More Blood’

Wow… What a viscerally powerful episode, especially at the end on Thursday’s episode of How To Get Away With Murder.

‘How To Get Away With Murder,’ Season 3, Episode 8 Recap

We began — AGAIN — with Annalise Keating (Viola Davis) in jail immediately after her being arrested following the fire at her house. Bonnie (Liza Weill) visits her in jail and informs her of the ‘anonymous source’ who ratted her out. We all know at this point, of course, that this source is Wes (Alfred Enoch), although nobody seems to know this just yet. Annalise certainly doesn’t, since she asks Bonnie to ‘look her in the eye’ and promise her that the source isn’t her, and Bonnie assures Annalise that she isn’t the source. Nothing seems to indicate Bonnie knows the identity of the source at the start of the episode.

The scene then cuts to one week before the fire, when Bonnie wakes up Annalise in her house and informs her of Frank’s return to Philadelphia. Frank (Charlie Weber) goes to visit Laurel (Karla Souza) at her apartment, and tells her he loves her and wants to make things right, but just like Bonnie did, Laurel rejects him, says she doesn’t trust him, and angrily tells him to get out. Franks tells her the same thing he told Bonnie: ‘I’m scared what I’ll do if I’m alone tonight.”

Bonnie calls Laurel, but Annalise then takes over the phone and talks to Laurel. After asking Laurel if she’s safe, Annalise tells her to warn Frank that if he comes anywhere near her house, Annalise will kill him. Annalise orders Laurel to tell this to Frank on the phone so she can hear it, but Laurel doesn’t do it. Instead, she warns Frank of this after she hangs up. Frank stays the night at Laurel’s apartment, after initially wanting to go over to Annalise’s house to talk to her and ‘make things right.’

Wes’s lawyer gives him a subpoena that orders him to testify as a witness in a hearing for the murder of his father, Wallace Mahoney, in New York, a crime that Mahoney’s other son Charles is currently being accused of. Annalise and Bonnie warn Wes that if Charles’ lawyer provides a solid alibi for proving he is innocent (phone records, security camera footage, a person who was paid off to say he/she was with Charles at the time of the crime), Wes could be in major trouble for lying about his original testimony.

Bonnie goes to visit Frank at Laurel’s and tells him Annalise needs his help by following Charles Mahoney’s lawyer in order to eventually find the alibi. In the process of doing this, Frank unexpectedly runs into a woman named Lisa Cameron and sees her talking to Charles’ attorney in a store. Frank stops dead in his tracks and seems to think she looks familiar, and a flashback reveals Lisa is a woman he met at a bar years ago and then slept with. Lisa then gave him money as an incentive to kill Annalise and her baby.

Bonnie calls Michaela, (Aja Naomi King), Conor (Jack Falahee) and Asher (Matt McGorry) to Annalise’s house to inform them that Annalise is enlisting Frank’s help on the Mahoney case and to help Wes no go to jail for lying on the stand. Michaela and Conor both angrily refuse to continue being involved with this, and lash out at Wes, Laurel and Bonnie for their continued association with Frank, whom they say ‘started all this’ (by killing Sam Keating’s mistress Lila Stangard back in Season 1).

Wes suggests providing the defense with his medical records from when he was in the psych ward as a strategy for delaying his hearing. Bonnie agrees with this idea, saying the defense wanting Wes to submit to a psychological evaluation could help him.

Bonnie informs Annalise that Frank told her about Lisa, and Bonnie reveals to Annalise that Lisa worked for the Mahoney’s way back in the day and is the one responsible for Annalise losing her child in the staged, two-vehicle car crash.

Annalise has Frank tail Lisa, but warns him not to kill her or harm her or her young daughter in any way. ‘No more blood,’ she says. Frank sneaks into Lisa’s house, hides in her daughter’s closet but then sneaks out while the mother and daughter sleep and tells Bonnie he didn’t hurt them. Annalise even threatens to turn them all in (the Keating 5, Bonnie and herself) if Frank hurts Lisa.

Wes, accompanied by Laurel, goes to the hospital to get his medical records. There, his ex-girlfriend Meggy is shown to still be working as a nurse and she expresses resentment for Wes dumping her for Laurel.

After Wes’s lawyer finds out that Charles’ lawyer has received Wes’s medical records, Wes’s lawyer confronts Annalise about this, accusing her of slipping those records. Annalise denies this in typical bad-ass fashion, and tricks Wes’s lawyer into breaking attorney-client privilege by making him reveal to her that Wes has ‘mental health issues,’ and thus should be submitted to a psych evaluation in order to be considered a reliable witness.

Laurel enlists Nate’s (Billy Brown) help with Wes’ case behind Annalise’s back. It is then revealed, during the trial, that Nate sought help in the police department to plant a bug in Charles’s pre-paid phone while Charles was in jail. The person who made the call? Frank! Frank called Charles from Lisa’s apartment the night he broke in using Lisa’s home phone number, but didn’t say anything. The phone record that shows Lisa and Charles were romantically involved, something that was already previously known since Lisa admits it on the stand, thus serves as the counter-alibi.

Wes is cleared and Charles Mahoney returns to jail, and the latter’s mother cries while talking to the press outside the courthouse, saying she is shocked that her son is going to jail for a crime he did not commit.

Oliver (Conrad Ricamora) continues to pry Conor about the Wes/Charles Mahoney case, but Conor repeatedly tells him that he wants nothing to do with that and simply wants to focus on school, work and his relationship with Oliver instead. After the gay couple have yet another fight about their disagreements and lack of love or care for each other, they break up yet again.

After this is all over, Frank finally goes to visit Annalise at her house. Annalise returns home that night, and before walking in to find Frank sitting on her living room couch, she finds Bonnie sitting on the doorstep and tells Bonnie to go home so she can speak to Frank alone.

Bonnie leaves and Annalise and Frank finally talk, the mood laced with tension, anger and fear. Both cry, as Frank desperately begs Annalise to believe him when he says he just wants to make amends, but Annalise says she can never forgive him for killing her unborn son in the car crash. Frank pulls out a gun and presses it to his own throat, promising to kill himself since he sees no other option. He waits several, long seconds, and after Annalise–filled with tears– begins maniacally yelling ‘Do it!’ I wont’ stop you, or feel guilty! Do it’ Bonnie runs into the house and begs Frank not to pull the trigger, but the scene ends there.

We fast forward again one week to the night of the fire, and Bonnie rushes to tell Asher, Oliver, and Michaela about what has happened at Annalise’s house, though we still don’t know if Frank is alive or dead. The trio tell Bonnie they know the news said there is an ‘unidentified male body’ inside the house,’ and Oliver is filled with dread, and asks Bonnie if it’s Conor. However, Conor is shown having sex with Oliver’s old boyfriend, Thomas, who refused to date Oliver after he found out he had an STD.

Next week, we will finally know who is under the sheet! Is it Frank? Tune in to find out!

How To Get Away With Murder airs Thursdays at 10 p.m. ET on ABC.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OelqpDs7qMI