In the season 2 finale of How to Get Away with Murder, “Anna Mae,” Annalise spends time with her mother (returning guest star Cicely Tyson) instead of dealing with the recent drama in her life, but the experience helps her find some much-needed closure. Meanwhile, Wes looks into his connection to the Mahoney family, and Frank tries to come to terms with everything he’s done since coming into Annalise’s life. By the end of the episode, we finally learn who killed the Hapstalls and two more people are added to the show’s ever-increasing body count.
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Answers and Even More Questions
Since I imagine you are just as impatient as I am to get answers to the season’s biggest mysteries, here’s what you need to know right off the bat:
Caleb killed the all three of the murdered Hapstalls
Philip is apparently innocent of everything
Caleb and Wallace Mahoney are both dead by the end of the hour
Frank was somewhat involved in the death of Annalise’s son
That is a lot of information to process so let’s see how it all came to light.
Annalise Opens Up to Her Mother
Annalise spends the episode hiding out with her family in Memphis. We meet quite of few of Annalise’s relatives — because Annalise’s mother calls them all together for a celebration in honor of Annalise’s homecoming — but the most notable of the bunch are Annalise’s sister and father. Annalise and her sister seems to get along well enough, but Annalise has a very negative reaction to seeing her father arrive at the family gathering. She is upset to learn that her mother has apparently been seeing her father again, so much so that she eventually disappears from the party in order to avoid him.
The next day, Annalise and her sister argue over whether or not it is a good thing that their mother has their father back in her life. Their argument is interrupted when Nate arrives! Nate tells Annalise about the cops looking into her but Annalise is not worried since they have not issued a warrant for her arrest. Nate wants Annalise to come home and she lies about the real reason she ran away. Annalise’s mother then convinces Nate to stay for a meal.
Nate stays for family dinner and everyone questions him about his life. Eventually the subject of children is brought up and we learn that Annalise’s family never knew she was pregnant and lost the baby. Annalise’s father makes a comment about parenting being a full-time job and Annalise not-so-subtly suggests that he would have no idea. Annalise’s sister provides a distraction before things get too out of control and her father eventually leaves.
That night after dinner, Annalise finally tells her mother about the son she lost. Her mother decides that the best way for Annalise to heal is to hold a sort of funeral for the baby. Annalise’s mother has her write a message to her son which she then buries in the backyard. It is a very moving scene and gives Annalise a chance to grieve for her son in a way she seemingly never did before.
The next day, Annalise has a tense chat with her father where she makes it clear that she does not trust that he will stick around this time. (It seems like every man in Annalise’s life has hurt or disappointed her at some point. No wonder she’s had such a hard time letting Nate in.) Annalise shares a nice goodbye with her mother and sister before heading back to town to deal with her current crisis.
The Keating 5 Try to Help Annalise
Back at the Keating house, everyone is freaking out that Annalise has gone missing. Bonnie has Oliver look into her whereabouts while Laurel breaks the news to Frank that she told Annalise about Frank killing Lila. While Frank reels from the news, Bonnie announces that Oliver was able to track Annalise down and she is in Memphis with her family.
Not long after that, Nate stops by the house to tell them that the DA is getting an arrest warrant for Annalise but he does not know for what charge. The warrant has not been made official yet so Annalise still has some time. While Nate heads to Memphis to see Annalise, the students look into the warrant to find out what the police plan on charging Annalise with.
Thanks to Oliver’s hacking skills, the students are able to view the warrant but most of the information is redacted. They realize that the code on the warrant suggests the information is being withheld because there is an informant in the case. The students go through video surveillance and eventually discover that Caleb is the informant.
Michaela is able to get through to Annalise and tell her about Caleb ratting her out to the DA. Luckily, Annalise has a plan. It turns out that when Philip attacked her in Wes’ apartment, he told her that Caleb was the one who killed his mother, aka Catherine and Caleb’s aunt. Philip even has proof of Caleb’s guilt because Caleb was wearing some kind of fitness device on the night his aunt was murdered and it showed Caleb being in the exact location where his aunt was killed.
Annalise returns to town and heads straight for the DA. She tells him all about Philip’s evidence as well as Catherine’s willingness to testify that she lied about Caleb’s alibi on the night their parents were murdered. Apparently, Catherine is so in love with Caleb that she lied about his being home that night. Caleb apparently killed all of his relatives and set up his siblings so he would be the only Hapstall child to inherent his parents’ vast fortune.
Annalise tells the DA that he can keep coming after her for obstruction of justice or he can take down a serial killer who has been pulling the wool over everyone’s eyes for months. The DA hesitates until Annalise tells him that Philip is ready to turn himself in for questioning. Shortly after speaking with Philip, we see a news broadcast that the police are turning their attention to Caleb as the one responsible for the Hapstall murders. We also see that Caleb reacts to this news by taking his own life. Yes, Caleb killed himself when the truth finally came out.
Frank Runs Away
Throughout the episode, we get flashbacks to 10 years earlier explaining Frank’s role in the car crash that cost Annalise her baby’s life. Frank is approached and seduced by a woman working for Mahoney Sr. She gives him a bag full of money and the opportunity to be more than just “Annalise Keating’s bitch.”
After Annalise makes it clear that she only hired Frank because Sam guilted her into it, Frank decides to take the opportunity he was given and he plants a bug in Annalise’s hotel room. Because of the bug, the woman working for Mahoney overhears Annalise telling Eve that she is going to the police about Mahoney’s role in Rose’s death. The woman calls Mahoney Sr. and he orders her to take care of it. Yes, as many fans suspected, Mahoney Sr. caused the “accident” that killed Annalise’s son.
We see Frank arrive at the hospital after Annalise’s “accident” and he learns about the baby’s death. Frank is visibly upset and confesses everything to Sam. Frank wants to come clean and tell Annalise everything but Sam tells him to keep quiet. This secret is apparently what Sam held over Frank’s head to get him to kill Lila.
Frank apparently reveals all of this to Bonnie off-screen and Bonnie tells Annalise everything when she returns home. Annalise is devastated that Frank and Sam let her spend all of these years blaming herself for the baby’s death when it was really Mahoney Sr. who killed her son. Annalise tells Bonnie that Frank needs to go and when Laurel stops by Frank’s place that night, we see that he has already left town with the blood money he apparently never spent in all of these years.
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Wes Meets His Father
As the episode begins, Wes tells Laurel that Annalise told him Wallace Mahoney is his father. Wes knows that Mahoney lives in New York, but Laurel warns him against tracking the man down. Wes being Wes ignores Laurel’s advice and heads to New York to confront his birth father. Alas, Wes barely gets out anything more than a statement about being Mahoney’s son before Mahoney Sr. is shot in the head right in front of him. Are there any other relatives out there Wes could watch die next season?
While I imagine Wallace Mahoney’s murder will be the main storyline next season, we do get a possible hint at a suspect in this episode. Before Frank leaves town, Laurel tells him that Annalise said Mahoney Sr. is Wes’ biological father. (Though I think it would be too simple for Frank to be the one who killed Mahoney.)
Other Happenings
— Asher and Michaela have a chat about their bathroom hook-up and they both decide to pretend it never happened. But before they put it behind them, Asher wants Michaela to know that he enjoyed their time together and they end up making out. Michaela eventually puts a stop to things because, “we’re not these people.” Later in the episode when the truth about Caleb is revealed, Asher makes it a point to check on Michaela. I still do not know what I think about these two, but Asher is at least a step up from Michaela’s last love interest.
— Before he heads back home, Nate checks on Annalise after that awkward family dinner. She reminds him that he once said he wanted to know her and Nate jokes that things might be just as bad when she meets his family. I hope things settle down enough for these two to have some nice moments together next season.
— It turns out that Connor got accepted to Stanford but Oliver calls the admissions people posing as Connor and tells them that he no longer wants to transfer. I wonder how long it will take Connor to learn that Oliver lied so they wouldn’t have to leave town.
What did you think of the season 2 finale of How to Get Away with Murder? Are you surprised Caleb was responsible for all three murders or did you suspect his guilt? Were you as pleased as I was to see Annalise’s mother again? What you do think about a potential Asher/Michaela romance next season? Who do you think killed Mahoney Sr. and will the investigation draw Frank back into the Keating fold? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section.
How to Get Away with Murder will return to ABC with season 3 in the fall.
(Image courtesy of ABC)
Contributing Writer, BuddyTV
