‘How To Get Away With Murder’ Season 3 Winter Finale Recap: ‘Who’s Dead?’

The ninth and final episode of the first half of season 3 begins with a cross-cut between one of the last few scenes of last episode– where Bonnie, (Liza Weill), and Annalise (Viola Davis) were respectively yelling at Frank to not kill himself and kill himself–and Annalise assigning her class to asses Ted Bundy’s case, and attempt to convince her that he doesn’t deserve the death penalty for raping and killing 30 women.

‘How To Get Away With Murder’ Season 3 Winter Finale Recap

We learn that Frank doesn’t actually use the gun to kill himself in front of Bonnie and Annalise, after the former essentially says it would devastate her if he died.

Annalise returns to her alcoholic ways, and her barber (Mary J. Blige) tells her that a woman came into the shop. Annalise deduces this woman is A.D.A. Renee Atwood (Milauna Jackson), whom she then confronts about stalking her and investigating her. Atwood denies this and tells Annalise to get out of her office after the latter threatens to exact revenge on her and destroy her.

Annalise also attempts to get Nate (Billy Brown)– who is now dating Atwood and works for her– to reveal to her whether Atwood is investigating her or not. Nate vehemently says no, and he and Annalise fight…again. Nate calls Annalise an alcoholic, and says it’s not his job to help her get better and sober. After this argument, Nate breaks up with Atwood, saying he doesn’t want to complicate things further.

Wes (Alfred Enoch) is again shown to be the anonymous source who gives up Annalise at Nate’s police station just a few hours before Annalise’s house becomes submerged in flames. He does this after he and Laurel (Karla Souza) get into a fight during Annalise’s law class end-of-semester, post-exams party. The fight starts when Wes becomes angry with Laurel for telling Frank that they are dating.

The on-and-off couple of Conor (Jack Falahee) and Oliver (Conrad Ricamora) also continue fighting after having recently broken up again.

Michaela, (Aja Naomi King) meanwhile, is shown to have problems of her own, as her mother comes to town to ask her if she can crash at her apartment for a few weeks until she finds a new place to live. The reason for this? She split up with Michaela’s father. The person who invited Michaela’s mother? Asher, (Matt McGorry), of course, who was already shown in last week’s episode to suggest to his girlfriend that she should at least try to reconnect with her estranged mother.

Michaela, nevertheless, refuses to do this and treats her mother like scum, telling her mother she owes her mother nothing because she never truly raised her– Michaela claims she raised herself.

The night of the fire at Annalise’s house, just a few hours before the massive conflagration, Annalise calls the Keating 5 and Oliver and tells them to meet her at the law clinic, although Oliver is already there. Annalise tells Oliver she needs him to hack Atwood’s office in order to erase any incriminating evidence against her.

Laurel, who appears to still be rather drunk from the post-exams party at the University, goes to Annalise’s house alone instead of the clinic, and almost immediately afterwards, an explosion goes off and the fire begins.

After Annalise rushes over to see who is under the sheet and being carted into the ambulance (howling in misery as she sees who it is), we are shown, via a flashback of just a few hours prior, of a medical examiner showing Nate the half-burned body of the ‘unidentified male’ who has died in the fire. The sheet is pulled back and we finally learn that the fire victim is… WES!

At the hospital, Bonnie informs Oliver, Michaela, Asher and Conor that Wes has died, and the four are utterly shocked and devastated, almost paralyzed with fear. Conor is the last to arrive, as he was sleeping with Thomas (Oliver’s ex-boyfriend whom he found on the gay dating app Humpr). Laurel, who is again revealed to be pregnant and brought into the emergency room due to injuries sustained from the fire, sees the news of Wes’s death in the fire on TV from her hospital bed, and cries alongside one of the nurses attending to her: Meggy (Corbin Reid), Wes’ ex-girlfriend.

The medical examiner tells Nate that Wes was dead even before the fire, and a flashback shows Wes leaving the police station before completing his anonymous tip to rat out Annalise, without anyone noticing. It is implied– from what the examiner says– that someone killed him as he left the station, although he is not shown to be killed at all. So somebody killed Wes after he left the police station and then dumped his body in Annalise’s basement and set her house on fire?? If so, who? Could it be Frank? We’ll have to find out when the series returns in January!

How To Get Away With Murder will return on Jan. 19 at 10 p.m. ET on ABC.