How We Got Away with Murder - 111: Best Christmas Ever

Episode Date: May 21, 2026

Matt turned 40 this week and Jack's Broadway show is officially open, and somehow they still showed up to recap Episode 11. Priorities. After the holiday break, Annalise resurfaces from a hotel drinking spiral and throws herself into a very intense case to avoid dealing with the Sam situation. The Keating 5 are getting grilled by police, Hannah is sniffing around and suspicious, and Annalise says the name of the show out loud in front of a classroom for the second time. A lot happening. On the podcast, Matt and Jack get into the Scranton Strangler parallels, Katie Findlay's sweet smile and humor shining through, Connor's Christmas flashback and the emotional manipulation disguised as a cute boyfriend scene, the casually terrifying moment where Frank offers to kill Hannah like it's nothing, and the soap suds. You can’t forget the soap suds. Plus, Asher takes a moral stand, Aiden and Michaela's engagement implodes, and the episode ends on Rebecca watching the news as Sam's remains are found. Real gamechanger.  We want to hear from you! Send us your show and episode questions with the chance to be read on the air during an episode: [e-mail] Matt & JackIG @jackfalaheeTIKTOK @jackfalahee X @RestingPlatypus REDDIT u/ItsMeJackFalaheeIG @mattmcgorry TIKTOK @matt.mcgorry X @MattMcGorry Facebook: @ActorMattMcGorryThank you to our sponsors:Hero Bread: This year, hit your goals without giving up your favorite bready dishes. Hero Bread is offering 10% off your order. Go to hero.co and use code JACKANDMATT at checkout.Omaha Steaks: Go to OmahaSteaks.com and use promo code JACKANDMATT at checkout for $35 off. Minimum purchase may apply.This podcast is brought to you by Podcast Nation.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

hey everyone my name is matt mccorry and i played the character asher millstone on how to get away with murder and i'm jack fallahy and i played connor walsh on that very same tv show and this is the how we got away with murder podcast happy birthday oh thank you thank you wow you turned you turned 40 40 yeah how do you feel it's so many mixed feelings it's such an interesting thing you know like disability with age is an interesting thing brings like different you know nuances to it but i had a good time i went to a an accessible uh dance party that happened to be falling on my birthday which was really cool yeah so i got to shake my my tushy uh my tuchus yeah which which you do very well thank you thank you i had uh two energy drinks in the span of four

hours which is um didn't fuck me up as much as i thought it would which is great but uh not something i want to do very often for sure um but uh yeah it was a nice time and i'm happy that it feels like spring has sprung in fact maybe even we skipped spring and we're now like in summer yeah it's like 80 degrees yeah yeah it's wild yeah how are you doing i'm good the show opened last thursday which was really exciting yeah the reviews came out and they're they're great like reviews you know you know you and i both have i'm sure our own relationships with reviews but it's almost funny that like it's the first time i've like been able to read them just because i don't know maybe because like i'm understudying and i'm like well like i have like a degree of

of separation from this in a way a healthy distance a healthy distance maybe but they were like rave reviews as they say which i'm really everyone's just you know everyone's worked so hard and like poured their guts into it and so i think reviews to a degree like matter in theater right because that's that is that does move the needle and like people buying tickets and And so I'm glad that people are going to come and see the show because it's, you know, it's a compilation of like many people's hard work and artistry. But yeah, it was fun. We had a little, we went to Katz's Deli for the party. Oh, that's right.

How was it? It was great, man. I hadn't been there. I think it's like the one tourist trap that I say is worth it. Sure. You know? but boy oh boy i was i was housing some pastrami and nice eating some sammies it was great love some pastrami had some uh family that saw the show yeah it's been really nice and

it's also funny like i feel like us as actors we have such a strong connection maybe with like this text this play but it's it's been surprising to me how many people in my life that are coming to see it that don't have that connection and are kind of going in blind. It's such a heavy piece of theater. But yeah, it's been cool. I'm excited to see. And I was reflecting that one of the nicest parts about it was my old NYU professor sent me a video of the students that are in the acting studio that I was in when I was at NYU. And they all like, you know, they sent this really nice video just congratulating me on opening night um and i got really emotional i was like watching it on the train going to work and uh had a public a public cry which was nice nice um but

i was like crying down i don't know if you've had this problem before but i was like crying down into my mask that i'm wearing on public transit and i was like they need to like create like little like receptacles so that you don't get tears on your N95. That's true. Yeah. I love that. Yeah. I love that.

That sounds really nice. That's so cool. Yeah. So both, you know, both good things, both birthday and opening night. We love to hear it. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. No death in this salesman.

That's right. All right. But today, we are recapping episode 11 of season one, Best Christmas Ever. You know it. This was written. I have, funny enough, my family, Falahi. We have a lot of like pillow, embroidered pillows that say Falalahi. Nice.

Anyway, this episode was written by Tracy Balamo and Warren Shue Leonard. It was directed by Michael Kattelman, and it aired on February 5th, 2015. And we filmed it in LA on November 13th, 2014 in Los Angeles. The City of Angels. The City of Angels. all right matt why don't you hit us with the log line you know i will coming back from the holiday break the keating five are immediately under pressure as police begin questioning them about sam all while being pulled into a new case involving a woman who claims years of abuse at

the hands of her husband and then in true how to get with murder fashion the episode ends with a huge moment bleep there's a spoiler in this so i'm bleeping it manually just want to give a content warning for this episode. There are storylines in the show about sexual violence. So just wanting to name that ahead of time for anyone that might want to miss this one or just take some special extra care around it. All right, let's jump right in. So we recap. Rudy is the freak who lived here before you we're calling back to uh bdsm apartment the scratches um and rebecca delivers that line to to wes uh we see asher asher thinks he and bonnie had fun and connor is calling annalise to say sister-in-law is in town i really like how uh now that we are past night x how much more

simple the recaps have gotten yeah you know it's like three three points you know yeah did it feel like a relief when you were filming too that you're like you don't have to keep track of so many things and keep doing the same thing over and over yeah yeah and i think there was like a lot of excitement too in getting past night x and it kind of just being like an open highway in front of right you know like we don't we don't know we can go in any direction right you know like alfie said when he was on he was like he's like you know typically the play just ends you know you after night x you know it's over and yeah yeah you're like well i get to see what happens next exactly yeah and i think that that was really fun for us and maybe more stressful for the writers

who then had to generate you know new ideas and and uh plot points and all that fun stuff but they do well here so our first scene Annalise is in a hotel drinking and eating room service it's the holiday break she is without her armor without her wig or makeup it's a really depressing montage I would say there's no dialogue it's just like we see sort of like the chyron of the dates flipping by and realizing that she's there for like a week and then it kind of starts to come to a conclusion when she's crying as the ball is dropping for new year's eve and yeah we we flash back to the the i'm so sorry don't be between her and wes on night x i feel like i don't remember seeing this when i watched the show and it's like a it's like a staycation from hell like you know

um like a yeah you know a relaxing sort of staycation it is really cool i'm actually just thinking about this now in terms of like a writing device a way of basically having time pass and having Annalise process what happened in a way that kind of buttons it up so that they can kind of move forward from there rather than kind of you know obviously she's still processing so she goes forward but like it's just yeah I don't know it's a cool way of like having a self-contained unit where you're like this time passes um and she's like fucked up and then you know um she's gonna put her game face on and kind of come back yeah i was gonna say too that like staycation from hell this is like it kind of flashed something for me knowing some people in my life

that struggle with addiction and having heard them have kind of similar staycations where they you know seclude themselves in a hotel room or motel room so that they can use and we see Annalise is drinking on display here which you know was kind of a reminder for me where I was like oh yeah like Annalise's uh relationship to alcohol specifically I think becomes more and more of a thing over the course of the show and this is the first time I think we really see like the ugly side of it you know we've seen her like drink out of uh trying to mitigate some sort of like emotional state uh in the first 10 episodes but this is the first where she's like on the floor of a hotel room with like you know those empty little uh single serving alcohol things

scattered around her i also really like this like shot inside the mini fridge like in this like low def camera i feel like it was like just a cool way of making things like look chaotic to match her internal state you know totally yeah this is like a very stylized opening yeah for the show which is cool and like we don't need those like night x flashbacks so like they can kind of it It was kind of like they could play around a bit, you know? Totally. So we cut from there. We go back to the house where Annalise is walking in

and there is a missing person sign for Sam on the gate. She enters to Bonnie who asks how her trip was, which maybe alludes to this idea that Annalise has told people she went somewhere where she didn't go. We go upstairs and we find Hannah Keating. Marsha Gay Harden is there. and hannah thinks that ak has been avoiding her and we quickly get this uh this lie of annalise was going to visit her mother um which obviously we saw seconds ago that she was not and yeah hannah

i think really i think this is good writing where she immediately questions annalise why sam would flee if she was married to this like batty uh defense attorney you know which is actually a really good i think strong point to make of like what do you mean like you're the best you're the best lawyer in the game like if he was implicated in some way he wouldn't like ditch town like he's got the best defense you can buy yeah yeah totally this was it yeah i really like this long introduction scene spans like multiple different like places in the house and you can definitely sense the sort of friendship and like history previous yeah the history between them you know which is really cool I mean if you're going to introduce Marsha Gay Harden it makes sense to

to do it in that way totally yeah we like track them through the house downstairs we get like Annalise finally like lashing out being like he was he was not the man we thought he was right And then she kind of gives Hannah this box of evidence that Annalise has put together proving that he killed Lila. And she leaves carrying the box to like go read through it herself and come to her own conclusions. And then we get the great hey there killer from Connor, which takes us into the classroom where Wes is walking up. Laurel's there, too. So is Michaela. It's cool. I think this is kind of the first time we see like, us standing at the top of the classroom. Yeah. You know, so just like for, you know, they built obviously the classroom set in a stage. But it was it was like this one story set where you could walk up these like wooden stairs behind, almost like scaffolding behind the set. and that's right and then you'd be like you'd enter doors and then be at like the top of the auditorium seating right and i just think that it adds like uh sort of like this dynamic yeah

like a new dimension totally like i i don't know why but i just always liked doing scenes up there where you would like have these like really quick back and forths and then you'd like walk to find your seats like it just makes you feel like you're truly at uh in a classroom at a university totally yeah and you know that like going into it like obviously it's planned that they're like well we're building this whole thing we're going to build like a landing area up here where we can have scenes because at this point we've only seen scenes like when we're in the seats basically we're down by like the chalkboard you know in the front yeah yeah and so yeah i like just seeing the work it kind of feels like the world's expanding a bit you know and so this is like the the keating for

coming together after their holiday breaks we see that michaela is wearing a fake engagement ring she immediately starts ranting like a lunatic i think about her holiday with aiden how how great it was in east hampton and new year's eve at the mayor's party just like full denial of what's going on this was hilarious she did she did such a good job so i mean i think funny i think she's so good throughout this entire episode her and carla that like really stood out to me yeah connor cuts her off uh to basically fill in the others that hannah keating the sister has arrived and they no one knew um and it's especially surprising i think for wes who thinks at this point like we're in cahoots with annalise and we should be like team players

annalise walks in and drops the title of the show for the second time right she says this is how to get away with murder the second semester where things get even harder than the first which surprised me i didn't think that we get uh the title of the show more than the pilot i didn't either in fact i'm sure we uh definitively proclaimed um we did in the pilot that it doesn't happen again so yeah yeah hit us in the comments jokes on all you yeah hit us in the comments where else we we are wrong which quick quick flag i saw comments on spotify that episode seven that just uh aired i like made the joke that i fast-forwarded through the west being vulnerable in bed with rebecca and people were like that's the scene where he shares that his

mother died by suicide that was like a major backstory plot point for for wes and i just like completely skipped it so i want to i just want to shout out the spotify commenters who who i literally read the comment i was like oh yeah that would have been important to know yeah yeah Well, if it makes you feel good at all, I watched it and I don't remember that. Yeah. Very cool. We'll be right back. Now back to class.

All right. We cut from there to Wes in Annalise's office, basically confronting her about Hannah Keating. Why didn't you tell me? Annalise like expertly is like, you have enough on your plate. You know, if I'm not telling you things, it's because you don't need to worry about them. Bonnie comes in and says that someone has walked in about a DUI and there's like this exchange about whether or not it's a genuine walk-in client or a looky-loo.

So it's establishing that with like the revelations around Sam and the case, there've been like a lot of like press and people just trying to get into the house. Annalise decides to have some fun thinking that it is a looky-loo and impresses the woman uh for wanting to see the home of the the middleton strangler which i always love when tv shows come up with like names of murderers you know right there's and it's the same as from the office where gosh where are they in the office what's the town the office scranton scranton yeah the scranton strangler is like a big plot point where toby is on a jury and he's really excited

and then it becomes this big case about the strength strangler so i thought it was funny that we have the the middleton strangler maybe maybe there's some office fans in the writer's room right anyway asher you you nailed this we're like asher like really enjoys seeing annalise like you know kind of go on the attack yeah yeah yeah and this one one chuckled at that line yeah totally god i miss this place yeah exactly god i miss this place is so good but the woman wants to talk alone she seems really desperate annalise tries to exit and then she stops her with my husband's holding two girls captive in our basement and yeah it's a great delivery this is uh the character is jackie groves played by jackie geary and i think this is a

perfect example of what we've talked about in the past where like jackie would have had to come on set maybe this is her first scene and anna lee viola is like on the attack like full court press and we're just all standing there watching like it's a big it's a big ask for a performance and she just she really uh keeps her cool and knocks it out of the park i think yeah no absolutely she does a great job i i totally forgot this whole story and i think because we're not like sitting in court for a long time or at least maybe i'm not in court very much for this yeah but this is a a heavy uh storyline become becomes more so yeah agreed yeah so we cut from there to north philly christmas day which establishes this is a flashback so we've seen the annalise flashback

at the beginning of the episode and now this is like you know the annalise the the motel room montage at the top of the episode i guess could have been chronological but now like that we're going in and introducing another christmas scene it's like oh we're gonna have flashbacks in this episode and perhaps they're all gonna be what the team was doing during the holidays rebecca gets the titular line off camera as we're transitioning into this scene yeah um and we arrive and rebecca is buttoning her jeans and sharing some really disturbing context about her uncle um which west doesn't respond to which i think is troubling as i know he's dealing with his own stuff but like as a partner if you know you hear that maybe your ears perk up a little bit sure but he seems very

fixated on this christmas card for rudy yeah the the previous tenant which we set up in the recap and wes is very confused why his family doesn't know that he's moved it's you know from rudy's grandma there's a 20 bill with the christmas card that uh rebecca wants to use to buy beer with and wes uh he wants to he wants to return it to the grandma so she knows that her grandson has moved sure and then i think katie does great with this line let's have ice cream for breakfast i freaking love an orphan's christmas and you can tell right that like they want rebecca to be soothing Wes in this scene and like acting like it's no big deal like we're okay like everything's fine and I think that like Katie's just such a good actor to be given that task because they're

like such a calming and soothing person totally yeah and I feel like we really see their personality shine through here yeah they're like sweet smile and humor and it's just you know it's like I don't know i always like seeing that it's never it's never jarring i mean i think sometimes it's like really great moments of like spontaneity where that comes out too you know like i was talking about this i think maybe the last one we recorded um so the audience wouldn't have heard it yet but with you you know there was a moment um and i was like oh yeah it's just like i don't know it really lights up the screen i feel like yeah yeah i agree we we kind of get to see katie be like a little squishy here, which is nice. Yeah, totally. Yeah. So we go from there, we quickly revisit like

Wes looking at the scratches on the wall from like a cool point of view angle. And then we immediately cut back to the new client interview with Jackie. And Jackie is giving this very sad backstory of marrying her husband very young. And due to her being unable to carry children, He began trafficking young women into their home, which is just awful, awful, awful, awful. And we go from there into Annalise's office. She wants to call the DA for a plea deal to protect Jackie from prosecution if they are able to help, you know, free these girls from their terrible situation. Yeah. And both Asher and Laurel kind of speak up about them not being down with that. And like, she's an adult and complicit in these two girls being captive, which I think is cool writing that like, because I don't know, like the kids, the kids, the students are like, finding their footing a little bit that they like are able to speak up and speak back to Annalise a little bit. Yeah, right. Push back a little bit. Yeah.

Yeah. And then Annalise has this, you know, line about like, she's finally doing the right thing, dot, dot, dot, like, and to me, I was just like, Oh, she's this is Annalise like talking about herself. And like, trying to smooth over some of the not great things that she has done. Right. Right. Interesting. I hadn't clocked that. But yeah, that makes sense. It just feels like, I don't know, it feels like a line that like, maybe was just written at face value. And then someone like Viola is able to like infuse with that extra layer. Yeah. Anyway, I thought it was tasty. tasty infusion tasty infusion and then she sort of whips it to you know the group saying what have none of you ever done anything bad that you need a lawyer for right which is a crazy manipulation yeah from annalise for sure kind of setting up like the stakes of what this is going to be You know, now that like people are able to weaponize night X towards each other in different ways.

Yeah. You know, we go to class, we're learning about plea deals and we intercut with the DA. Annalise won't reveal the name of the clients until there's a plea deal in place. The DA interrogation where Jackie's saying, you know, how she loved them. She cooked for them.

She cleaned for them. We then cut to like a swap raid on the house. And then we go back to class where Annalise says you can never trust the prosecution, even when they say there's a plea deal in place. So you record your clients. Right. And we see Bonnie recording the interrogation across the table from the DA, which seems super illegal. I was wondering, is it illegal? This has got to be.

This has got to be illegal. Also, this seems like TV magic a little bit. Like, do you have your phone in those rooms? Right. Maybe if you're an attorney. I don't know. But certainly, yeah. Because you can record the police, but maybe not in the police station in that environment.

In public, you can record the police. In the public, you can record anyone. But, like, I don't know, man. I think that, like, secretly recording, it depends. Like, there's different states where you have to have, like, two-party consent for people being. different for police at least in public but i mean in private yeah i mean in private like you you you need i don't know so just the added like i i'm pretty i would bet maybe that you can't yeah and i guess what would you do with it if it was illegal that you were recording it right like

it wouldn't be admissible to court right yeah anyway tv magic they're recording and then we go back to the SWAT team rescuing the girls and apprehending the husband I also feel like at this time there was a lot of if I'm remembering correctly a lot of prominent stories of women being like taken captive in this way like Kimmy Schmidt uh had like a humorous take on it like that's I think right like Kimmy's origin story but I feel like this was maybe in the news quite a bit and probably where this drew from this would have been that the this would have around the time where brie larson did the room right which funny tangent for a not funny subject matter i remember being i think at the golden globes and oh man what's that it's called the

room oh yeah yes right uh so this would have been yeah well wait this is before 2015 so we we actually inspired the movie room room would have been room would have been probably filming at the same time as this episode, which is interesting. My funny story still stands where we went to the Golden Globes. And I was at like some party. And I remember Jacob Tremblay, who would have been a child, like, I don't know, six. The baby. Yeah, he would have been really, he would have been very young, like, I think six or seven, maybe. And I just remember him walking up like with his father obviously he was a he was accompanied but he was he walked up to like the buffet one of the buffet tables and they had just put out the desserts and there was like a giant

a giant plate of chocolate chip cookies and he looked at his dad and he and he very sweetly was like can i have two and his dad was like you can have as many as you want because he like literally was nominated for a Golden Globe. Right. That's true. But great actor. I really like him. Yeah.

Yeah. Anyway, so yeah, I agree with your assessment that this was, this seemed to be like a topical thing that was unfortunately in the zeitgeist. Yeah.

And now a word from our sponsors. And we're back. So we go from there to the hallway of the DEA's office and Annalise and Bonnie run into Hannah. Hannah shares that they have a lead on Sam, a possible sighting upstate New York. and hannah thinks it's odd that annalise doesn't know about this and after she leaves annalise is

rather indifferent about it which confuses bonnie and raises suspicion and it also confused me yeah we can and we can definitely see bonnie see ak's reaction yes it seems like she can tell something is fishy totally yeah i think i think we're in those moments we see like oh bonnie knows annalise very well right like they we don't really know their history yet but like bonnie is you know got annalise's pulse for sure yeah we then flash back to west palm beach mansion yeah what a house i don't remember this at all me yeah yeah did we did we know as an audience remember that she's rich at this point no well we frank frank has a comment in the pilot or one of the first three episodes where he like remember he like calls her like a rich girl that went to

brown right right and it stuck out to us because we're like oh pete went to brown yeah um but we don't like that's not confirmed that's like that's frank like just making like a uh you know a generalization i think on like reading her as a person but we definitely don't know that she is as rich as we lives in this house yeah yeah totally also watching this i was like is this the exterior shot we don't see any like actors in the exterior shot so i'm like surely they didn't shoot this like would they you know what i mean like would they have like gotten like bought footage like b-roll footage from something yeah yeah i don't know or or is this like because it also doesn't really feel like an la house from the exterior right yeah no it feels it feels yeah

it does feel like kind of like florida specific yeah i don't know regardless they it sells the shit out of it yeah yeah but we go in and it's the castillo family christmas laurel have is having uh you know just a great time uh causing a scene at dinner embarrassing her father and verbally sparring with her mother-in-law question mark is this her mom i don't know i don't know i don't know either great yeah played by brin thayer we also meet her brother played by innis casey and laurel seems upset with you know they're they're just like having kind of like nothing conversation about like gossipy stuff and she she is very reactive to that and saying that you know it's obnoxious that no one ever wants to talk about real things or actually hear about her

time of law school yeah and uh yeah he basically tells her to get the heck out and she seems she walks away and carla has this great like sort of like half smirk that tells us that you know laurel was happy with that result right and then that immediately cuts us back to laurel going to frank uh inside the courthouse and telling him connor's car is a crime scene forensic evidence and he tells her to shut the hell up do not talk about this in a courthouse that is what gets you caught smart and he's got this great frank line of sit quietly at the kiddie table and know the adults are taking care of things so good might be my favorite line from the episode and it feels like a cool relationship shift too where like they're no longer you know

knocking boots and so he's just like kind of venomous with her yeah i also i really like uh i like when when i when you see reality acknowledged in this way where it's like it's like don't talk about this in the courthouse please god um i think you know it's cool the writers get to have information relayed and then you get to acknowledge it right and have someone totally do that but it solves like two problems at once you know yeah just cool i'm also wondering where the phrase knocking boots comes from because i'm like what boots would be knocking like what position would you have to be in for boots to be knocking that's a great question i don't know yeah you're like you have to be together it's got to be a cowboy thing if i had

guess should we look it up let's do it knocking boots etymology huh it was a popular in hip-hop and r&b during the 90s it likely originated from the imagery of boots placed under a bed shaking or knocking together during sex okay that makes more famously popularized by this by songs like candy man's knocking boots wow okay okay yeah i was imagining them on the feet during the intercourse which would have been harder to imagine how they would be knocking together i was imagining like a cowboy i don't know i don't know why but where would the boots be knocking i don't know yeah yeah i guess anyway yeah anyway okay let's keep her moving that's right uh so asher rocks up to frank and moral and asks if he wants to go to the squeaky

saying it's been a solid week since they blew some backs out yeah what yeah that does that mean what i think it means in this context i don't know man but if it does that is did it mean something else in 2014 like blowing the back out of a beer can like by drinking it so aggressively or something i don't know i don't know what is it i don't know i mean yeah it just is really graphic if that's what it means sure i don't know i it made me like kind of jump out of my seat a little bit totally especially as like new friends i'm like what do you mean did you like did you like have an orgy together like is this like is this part of uh oh boy deep dive i don't yeah boy boy boy boy boy i really like this this is a great performance by you though like even though like

all right son let me know yo yeah um i just think it's such good asher material thank you it's so interesting seeing them together especially when frank is one that coined the douche face uh right phrasing as well right i also like that in the charlie weber episode uh that we hear how method he went in playing frank and he like was emphatic about like frank really likes asher yeah yeah so i think there's like there is a genuine like level of friendship even though we find out later in this episode that it's not what it seems right totally and even in seeing this there was a moment And I was like, I'm not remembering this. I'm like, is this genuine?

Is something happening here? Yeah. Well, we heard it from Frank Delfino himself that he liked Asher. That's true. Case solved. Case closed. Okay, we go into court. The judge will not accept the plea until she hears from the victims in a private session.

We then go to the hallway where Annalise wants the Keating Five to establish Jackie was also a victim of Vince, the husband. so that the judge will accept the plea deal. They aren't, no one's really biting at this or jumping at this. And Asher has the great, I object to working on this case on moral grounds, which kind of, you know, I was like, good for Asher. And Bonnie says he can go to work, you know,

at another law office. And Asher hits her with this really intense threat of, oh, you're going to fire me when I can file a sexual harassment suit. And it is stone cold, very good delivery. that's a very serious allegation to be you know weaponizing totally yeah it's sort of the first time we see him i don't know uh maybe not entirely but it kind of feels like the first time we're seeing him like i don't know that seriously kind of like dropping in around something like that

like wanting to like fuck someone up you know totally it's just all very uncomfortable yeah i agree yeah you know which is good it's the point right yeah and we go from there to annalee's driving it looks cool i mean they've wet down the cars so it looks like it's been raining like it adds atmosphere to these shots even though it definitely you know it's in la where it hardly rains ever yeah um and so they for context like the the uh transportation you know department they would like come out with these big uh hoses and just like wet down you know we've talked about wedding down the road but they would like spray down cars and everything just to make it

yeah look get that production value totally baby and Hannah Annalise comes to you know she pulls over and we realize that Hannah has been following her by car and Hannah wants answers and Annalise is like does it feel

good to be right about me all this time you know because I'm at my boyfriend's I don't know it's very messy Hannah like does seem to love annalise yeah um like it does seem like a sister-in-law bond but yeah it's it it i'm not sure what to make of the relationship yet which is of course the point yeah i can't i can't remember like how much we see in terms of their i'm sure we find out more in terms of their past relationship

but like yeah yeah it's interesting even because when i think back to the beginning of the episode that like hannah was at this point hannah should know correct me if i'm wrong that sam was having an affair but was also expecting uh annalise to defend him um as well at the same time yeah yeah yeah i think it's also peppering in this suspicion that like of like the timeline of the infidelity and like confirming like her seeing that annalise is going to a boyfriend's house is does it confirm for hannah that like oh no like my sister-in-law was cheating on my brother and then you know like i think it's adding sort of confusion to the general uh timeline for hannah right yeah that makes sense as she's you know she's very much like a bloodhound in this episode

where she's just trying to get like all the information you know yeah yeah but we go from there to to nate and annalise in bed which i thought was really shocking that like she would be followed by her sister-in-law to nate's house and then go inside and have sex with him right she's presumably outside annalise asks about naya uh nate's wife and he says that he told her about annalise and that she wants him to be happy and that she said that i nate would tell her the same thing if i was in the hospital but i don't think she's right which is great delivery by billy like so yeah yeah um really really good stuff and i also like this generally because it kind of ties up the ethical dilemma for the audience where it's like oh if we're gonna see this relationship we

kind of we kind of need like the go-ahead from the the wife with cancer yeah yeah for sure yeah also i do feel like billy's body is rather distracting here you know like in just a relaxed context you know outside of like an intimacy scene you know i just couldn't help when like annalise puts her hands on his chest i imagine it's like touching the side of a mountain or something it hurts yeah exactly it's just like oh yeah it's just sharp um yeah yeah his abs are so defined that you could like you could like rock climb him like you could use like like finger holds true it's true oh my lord yeah wow billy brown the best the best there is i also just had a i had a flashback just now of like i being we've established would be hot all the time and sweat a

sweaty boy and so i don't they have these big industrial you know industrial they have these big industrial vents that would just shoot cold air into the studio right right right and i would always try and find one i mean they're huge they're like they're like three feet wide and you know they're 50 feet up or whatever but i'd always find one to just stand under to like get my my polar plunge and the only other person i saw do it was billy brown where he would just he would stand under them and just eat apples that's really funny so i just have him whenever i rarely saw billy on set because we didn't work together that much but whenever i did see him he'd just be under the ac eating apples which is so radical you'd always meet him there you'd have to

like stand back to back to enjoy yeah just back to back like getting cold imagine him eating the eating the cyanide and the apple seeds too you know probably yeah he's immune yeah totally okay we go to rebecca waking west up from a nightmare um he seems real real fixated on these wall scratches the transition to the scene with west having a nightmare by audio of him first also it felt very jarring to me like we're sitting we're like especially because we're like in bed with annalise and nate and then we hear like oh oh um yeah i was like what i was like what is happening i was like yeah so like another man in the corner of the room um yeah i was i'm confused yeah yeah and then i think we this is the first time we see the exterior of the building that

wes and rebecca live in which oh yeah you're right looks kind of cool actually looks nice yeah yeah and then yeah wes is eyeing those scratches on the wall i'm like does it make them horny i'm not really sure what's happening here um but it did make me feel like now at this point and i know someone told us in the comments that they will be addressed um but but if even if i hadn't heard that at this point i'd be like okay i feel like this is gonna have to be addressed now like like the yeah yeah i think so maybe i'm not i don't know 11 episodes in or however many in We go from the scratches to Grand Rapids, Michigan. We are in Connor's Christmas flashback.

He's chasing his nibblings around as Mr. Seamonster. We meet Connor's sister, played by Jennifer Christopher, who is lovely. And she has brought a hunky guy to Christmas for Connor to sleep with, which I thought was very bizarre sister behavior. Very interesting, yeah. Very different from my family Christmases. An offering. Yeah.

Connor says he, you know, he has a boyfriend. He's trying to be good. And she hits him with the, my slutty little brother is finally growing up, which I don't know, man. I guess some siblings talk to each other that way, but mine sure as heck do not. It's also bizarre, like getting a TV sibling.

Like we see this with Laurel in her Christmas flashback and mine where, you know, I mean, Jennifer was great. She would have been there for like literally six hours or something to shoot this scene. And you're just kind of like in a, you know we didn't build this set it was like we rented a house somewhere in la so we would like get into the passenger van you know like the 16 seat van and you drive to set together and you'd be like hey okay uh i'm jack you know because you're about to play you know siblings uh together

yeah which is just like a funny like uh being thrown in the deep end you know to try and get all this like family history and yeah sure did you does she ever come back on the show i don't believe so okay gotcha um no i don't think so we meet other family members of connor's but i don't believe jennifer comes back yeah also flagging i don't like working with kids yeah yeah yeah i mean they're great but like it's just like a lot of uh it's a lot of like extra energy that you have to put into the day where like i find myself i've seen you do this and i have a really hard time doing this just because i think i'm so i try and protect my energy on set i guess is a nice way of putting it but like with a kid like you kind of have to like go out of your way to like you know

entertain them and make them comfortable and like i don't know it's just like a big energy uh dump for me yeah uh for having kids on set yeah that makes sense yeah also should should we have children actors i don't know we can talk about that another time but child labor child labor like i don't know i don't know guys right right interesting yeah i was wondering connor samley being in michigan is that was that related to you being from michigan yeah i think so i think i think that was just like uh kind of what we talked about where like pete was just like oh this is like an easy thing to like ground this for jack in some way where like he knows he knows what it's like being from the midwest i kind of wish he'd put me in like wisconsin or something that's like not

actually my home state is like put your actual childhood home dude i mean grand rapids is like i have family in grand rapids like it is not far from where i grew up so it felt like a little too close to uh yeah it just felt a little too close where i was like i'm not connor like we don't need to do this pete right um we can you could put me in any of the other lovely midwest states i don't know for some reason i was like why do i feel like this is exactly what uh your family looks like on the holidays like your home and stuff i that might be entirely false but i actually was trying to think about that watching it i was like it's close like it does feel like a hollywood my my family is not this my family my family is more diverse looking than connor walsh's family and it's a

little bit less uh buttoned up like yeah you know my especially like my mom's side of the family it's like you know my grandparents were like working class and so that that just created i think a different sort of like vibe around the holidays which i i love honestly if you've ever seen the bear like that christmas episode feels a little bit like it's i think my the vecchione christmas is somewhere between the bear episode and this right right sure yeah this one felt more like the home alone yeah christmas yeah it feels like hollywood interpreting midwest christmas right yeah and it's like not wrong you know it's just like it's it's it's like a very polished version of it maybe for sure um also i enjoyed the part where the sister says that she won't

tell mom because she started planning the wedding and connor says gross and i just thought my my my how things change my my my without spoilers totally yeah um we go from there to coliver connor is putting his grandma's hat on oliver's head he is re-gifting his grandma's present which seems crazy uh connor made a fancy reservation um and oliver is like pretty reactive to why connor is love bombing him you know saying we're not dating last i heard you were supposed to be dealing with your drug problem and then connor has this look if you kick me out right now i can't guarantee that i won't cop an eight ball which is a cutesy cutesy manipulation it's a very cutesy gaslighting yeah exactly like not hurting some harm don't do that to your partner guys or

even someone that you're maybe casually dating that's crazy behavior and oliver lets him stay and to watch a movie or or some tv show that we create and uh connor grabs his emotional support pillow is a cute scene it is a cute scene yeah despite the uh love bombing and emotional manipulation um yeah yikes uh then we got cut to connor outside and his car is gone it is stolen i literally have zero memory of ever shooting that scene yeah i have i have completely deleted from my brain we then go to courthouse connor is telling the keating for his car was stolen laurel says he should ask frank oh wink wink connor thinks it's weird that asher and frank are quote butt buddies with i wonder what the etymology of that is as well

frank tells connor uh to report it to the police he's like what don't you want the insurance money um which i love yeah um thanks asher and frank they they look at something on his phone they're both smiling about totally forgot about all this right um and then i was like yeah i was like i feel like frank has some ulterior motive here but you can't just be personal but right um for sure yeah and i really like the scene where you're all trying to get frank to tell you what to do about connor's stolen car yeah um it's really fun and yeah it did make me wonder i'm like did frank steal it this feels like something within his wheelhouse of something yeah yeah um yeah we're starting to learn maybe more what frank does yeah uh we then cut to the

captive girls being interviewed played beautifully by tabitha morella and taylor robinson they're giving testimony establishing that Jackie would be nice to them and take care of them but then we reveal that Jackie did drug the girls before her husband would rape them yeah so we go from there to Annalise is confronting Jackie about withholding that information Jackie gives this like gut wrenching explanation of why she would drug the girls so they wouldn't have the memories of the assaults uh it's it's just like terrible and then we go to annalise's house where asher pushes back on why they're holding on to the case which bonnie shuts down i feel like asher here is like really he's testing bonnie by acting out and seeing like what his leverage is basically yeah for sure yeah

there's a lot of that this episode definitely um we then go to the kitchen where laurel gives frank props on taking care of the car um and that she also now understands why frank is hanging out with asher he's trying to keep tabs on him and he sort of like denies you know he's playing it cool as a cucumber and i think both of them are just great in the scene he's like what do you mean we like to blow backs out together yeah he's like what are you talking about the sleazy whatever it's my favorite place sleazy z's sleazy z's uh we got we got you know my cousin frank is behind the boy everyone in his family's name frank exactly um yeah uh we then go to wes uh listening to the recording that they made of the client illegally potentially and realizes that the

affirmation baby is not stillborn maybe alive yeah um so then annalise is confronting jackie about it she won't reveal where the girl is until she has her plea deal which is taking a page out Annalise's book where like Annalise wouldn't reveal the name of the client until they had the plea deal. Right. And that takes us to Fishtown, B.A. This is, it's just the best. I mean. Fun scene.

Yeah, marry whatever to you too. Right. Is incredible. Like it's so, it's so absurd that only Charlie Weber as Frank Delvino could make this work. Yeah. You know? Yeah. Marry whatever to you too. Right, yeah. It's so true.

you know i totally forgot that they asher went to fishtown like yeah for the holidays with frank i mean i guess because he's disowned by his family you know but i do remember the bards the bar scene the bar i think or at least the bar next door that they're where they're connected as boardiners and i know we uh we shot here a number of times um just ring a bell for you nope i went to a goth night at boarders it was really fucking fun too cool it's been a lot of different tv shows and yeah the place next door was filmed we also shot like a scene i think in a later episode in like a gay bar there like there were like uh like go-go dancers on the tables and stuff got it yeah and for all the misogyny in the scene i do enjoy the i do enjoy it camaraderie is is really nice i mean

you catching the peanut like yeah you guys are you know looking at girls across the way i mean it kind of yeah there's this alluding to you guys being eskimo brothers that i think is intense but like i guess just shows that like asher really wants to be friends with frank which is cute yeah yeah it's we get a frank signature what the hell yeah but yeah it's it is it is i do i do like definitely also cringe at it i mean like it's of course yeah right it's like this interesting thing where there's like a real desire to connect but under like patriarchy you know like men are often so uh self-limited in terms of like how often like how they're connecting right like you can do it through sports or like pursuing women you know yeah like drinking

a lot right exactly getting yeah getting blackout drunk so that you can put your arm around your buddy you know yeah but yeah like uh yeah asher like rates a woman numerically at the bar based on looks which i feel like at the time was more common although you know in our current uh clavicular worlds um you know i don't know you know who know that's coming back and and now for men uh too but uh yeah overall i mean that just there's like a fun sort of interplay um between them you know totally yeah i do like yeah i do like them trying to be friends but i agree that it's like i'm watching it now and i'm just like oh man i wonder even how much for asher is like performance under patriarchy totally yeah does he even subscribe to this like line of

thinking around women and their bodies you know or does frank like frank's not really like giving him what he's putting down either right you know right totally i mean yeah i mean frank makes the comment about the one woman i think where he's like basically he alludes to have her having already slept with her yes um you know but like yeah i mean i think also when you're deep in like patriarchy in this way too you don't even necessarily know for yourself how much of it is like yeah you know real or not yeah i mean i i looked back recently and found like something that i had written like 15 years ago where i was like because of the environment i was in i feel like said something that was like particularly uh it was supposed to be passed off

as a joke but like kind of like queer phobic and even even referencing back like even for me at that time that's not something that would have been in my normal sort of like language yeah but but because of like this group i was in i like you know was like trying to fit in in that way you know which of course doesn't excuse it but oh gosh i mean i've been guilty of that so many times i think you know um but yeah we definitely see that here and you're right this was a time where it's like yeah these conversations were like more unfortunately commonplace yes totally or at least yeah acceptable and yeah yeah yeah so we go from there to asher wanting to walk out on you know he he wants to protest which i thought was cool given that you then as an actor or as a

human being become such a right active right protester and this was the moment i knew i wanted to be an activist yeah no i'm just kidding you're like yeah right exactly right um and then bonnie sidebars with him uh yeah it's really great where you're just you you have a great performance where you out sure it's just like you hurt my feelings um and you end up like kind of apologizing for being a dick and all of that i just think it's really good work between the two of you yeah thank you i like that we could yeah that we could see him just have some accountability yeah here but totally also like hold you know this the simultaneous thing of like just kind of fucked up what you did you know and like yeah and be yeah just be a little more open and vulnerable

about like why it impacted him you know without just like you know i don't need jerking or being like entirely defensive and stuff so yeah it's interesting and i guess you know we'll see obviously how the relationship develops later but i imagine i can't remember but i imagine like i don't know seeing this moment of vulnerability and like accountability also probably bodes well for bonnie wanting to you know have him somewhat in her life you know yeah i agree yeah we go from there to annalise having this conversation with jackie i like i struggled with this one it was really hard to watch yeah annalise is asking her why she would turn in the husband after she pretends like the child has died and i don't really understand like the the line of questioning

here where i'm like well the guy's still holding two girls captive and like raping them so i i yeah it kind of like bumped for me like maybe i just don't understand it totally but like yeah she anyway she's pressing about this girl and like the whereabouts of the girl and jackie it just has this heartbreaking like she has a buddy a stuffed giraffe that she takes everywhere it's it's a really intense scene and annalise leaves and basically says to the group thank god i don't have a gun otherwise i'd shoot her myself which is also a very intense uh thing to say yeah and then congrats the da gave you the plea but you'll never see your daughter again and jackie gives the address of a cabin where the girl is and then annalise like stays i guess at the police

station overnight like waiting to get eyes on this the daughter to make sure she's been brought in and she is brought in and she's like disheveled and kind of like dirty but she's got like her little stuffy with her um and annalise can like finally rest i guess and then we go to all of us on the porch and we were all cold acting and laurel wants to have like a little group therapy session saying that you know this is kind of what gets us caught is like us not talking to each other not being honest uh and starting to like harbor secrets um and she kind of breaks the ice by saying she got back together with con her family sucks she missed the gang west tells them about the nightmares he's having he's scared he's scared he's going crazy uh you know connor then

i think astutely calls out laurel for continuing to play them in revealing to to annalise that they were going to take this plea deal you know that she's actually like not been honest at all and she denies that which is of course absurd because we just saw her take care of connor's car and like she is kind of puppeteering some stuff you know yeah so us as the audience like that's a very cool uh fracture i think to see in the group's uh synergy yeah and then hannah hannah keating walks up with the who are all of you yeah yeah i really like this scene me too yeah alfie does a really good job i think with talking about the nightmares and just like the fear of losing his mind and i think you do a really good job here you know playing the sort

paranoia and just like i don't know we get the feeling that like you know it's it's very tenuous the sort of glue and cohesiveness that is needed in this group to keep to keep this secret together it just it feels like the rope is like fraying you know and it's uh it definitely builds the tension you know yeah yeah um we go from there to gracie mansion where michaela is in a rock and red dress uh she sees aiden touching a guy and whispering and laughing and she crashes out accusing him accusing them of sleeping together uh aiden is understandably completely upset by this and they kind of get an aside and she i mean asia's so good in this where she's just like falling apart and say she'll be better i promise trying to keep her grip on things yeah yeah in

reality yep and he says they should postpone the wedding and she i mean she's so good i mean just seeing her walls crumble yeah and then we go from there to hannah uh chatting with bonnie about how none of the evidence that annalise has collected has really sold her it feels like inconclusive and that if, like, Annalise could get this stuff thrown out, no problem. So why is Annalise, like, so hell-bent on suggesting that this is, you know, as damning as she says it is? Right. She then weirdly, like, is kind of, like, manipulating Bonnie, saying, like,

I know how close you and Sam were, how much he meant to you, like, help me figure out the truth. And I, like, it's confusing me, like, does Hannah know? like the history between sam and bonnie right that's very awkward too yeah yeah um and i feel like at this moment give me also like a i don't know i occasionally have like flashes of a little bit more of a memory of like what happened the night the light it was killed too like little pieces of it um yeah yeah frank comes in and just sort of breaks it up with a stare which i liked And then we go to Annalise and Jackie.

Annalise has tricked Jackie. There was never a plea deal. You're going, because, you know, Jackie's like, well, maybe when my daughter's 18, she'll want to see me. And Annalise has this, like, you won't be out of prison by then. Yeah. Wow. Woo!

Woo! Intense. Oh, boy. Ice in her veins. Yeah. Ice in her veins. Yeah. We're going to Colliver.

they're chatting and oliver passionately kisses connor while he's still covered in soap suds from the dishes which i really liked like i think that that's like a very fun kind of messy you know tv moment yeah i kind of hated that he did that because i was imagining like the soap like getting in your ear and the sensory nightmare of it it's like a it's like a wet willy on steroids you know like with like dish soap in your ear canal i would i think i would like it really in like the passionate moment i think like i'm sure i hated filming it but i think that like if in my real life my partner like kind of pinned me against the wall with some soap suds i think i would maybe like that interesting yeah as long as it didn't get in the ear got it yeah yeah that's

what i was thinking yeah fair enough yeah okay yeah um yeah just get you some like little ear plugs yeah have some some bubble fun i love that yeah uh yeah no it's good it's a i think uh you know they're trying to figure out what they mean to each other and yeah Conrad I think is like so good totally he's always so good when he's like being vulnerable yes and we've seen him like really try to resist his attraction and connection to Connor you know for for a while now yeah so getting to see the kind of the top blow off it a little bit is nice totally we go from there to frank and ak where we realized we learned that frank has arranged the new york sighting of sam and that it costs some money whoo so like we now are getting a little bit of a fuller picture of

what frank does he he's the fix-it man where he has gotten rid of connor's car he's got some connects that can have sightings of people that are dead um he says of hannah she's snooping around everywhere it's making the kids freak out a bit she wants in her answers annalise you want me to handle it just say the word right and i'm like what what he's offering to kill hannah right because the kids are getting freaked out a little bit yeah and then i'm like wait this like this kind of sets up like a context like the context clues are like have they killed someone before totally like the casualness of it is like do you do you want me to kill your sister-in-law right and she's like she's like no like i i got it yeah you know

i'm like i mean they must have yeah not even one other person it feels like you know this is only like you know when you're like by 10 get the 11th one free you know sort of like yogurt punch card of like killing people for annalise you know what i mean like the casualness of it is is really wild and it feels very early too like she has no evidence at this point right she's just like i don't know you want me to kill her right right okay um yeah crazy frank you crazy crazy guy you uh we then go to annalise we go to annalise cooking for hannah and them just like talking about sam and the situation and it's just such a good scene between like two powerhouse actors actresses um they're like they're so good here and they're like they're so like they don't rush

anything like their their their energy just feels so like back and forth you know it feels like a good like ping pong match or something totally and then annalise basically explains to her that she tried to help sam cover his tracks which is partially true obviously right um and that he's gone and then we go to wes has bought a cd of ocean sounds cds remember those folks i mean i guess if anyone at this point like would have owned a cd player it's probably wes and rebecca that's true what does it what does cd stand for oh compact disc that's right yeah i was gonna say computer disc and i was like that's not right right compact disc um i use rain and thunderstorm sounds to sleep every single night really i do yeah i just bought this alarm clock that i really

really like to get my phone out of my bedroom and it has some great i've been listening to lakeside sounds oh nice which is i think the michigan boy and me yeah nice although i found like sometimes like i'll be listening to like like like sometimes they'll have like camping sounds and it's like really like soothing but then you'll hear like you'll get like a super loud owl right that's very charming i was about to fall asleep yeah that's hard like a bear roaming like yeah just He's tearing apart someone's tent. Yeah. He hears me yelling in the distance.

Velociraptors. Spraying a little acid on someone on their eyes. Dude, what's crazy is humans are so dynamic that there's probably someone that likes falling asleep to that. We contain multitudes. Anyway, he brings in this CD of not Velociraptors, and uh-oh, Rebecca's on her laptop watching the news, and human remains belonging to Sam Keating have been found.

great great way to end the app yeah that's uh i did not expect that to happen i did not expect that either and let alone so soon wowie wowie wowie damn pretty good we know they're gonna know he's dead now that's right oh my god everything's going to shit everything's going to shit christ i don't even remember what happens but that's a real game changer i don't remember anything about what happens next um but i i like it i like that hannah's around adding like a new uh tension to the group dynamic right i like that frank is getting messier and like more front-footed about what he does i guess um i like that the relationship between the keating four is like very tenuous and we don't know what's what connor is very mad at laurel i like

the the accountability from asher and bonnie and their their relationship repairing a little bit yeah yeah yeah this was a great episode i feel like it's it really there wasn't like a ton of like huge bombshells throughout except for this one at the end which is huge and i feel like they probably knew they were like we got this in our back pockets we can allow them to have some christmas time yeah you know and they're just like um and it's such a heavy case of the week too that like i feel like that carried so much emotional weight that like they didn't need a whole lot like i think it it's it's almost a lighter episode uh like emotionally for the rest of the cast because the case the week is so heavy yeah it's true like there's more comedy and stuff

maybe anyway i liked it next week's episode is she's a murderer oh boy who do you think said that i think it's about annalise oh maybe it's hannah maybe it's hannah oh saying she's a murderer about hannah lee you think you think about annalise hannah lee's name yeah yeah that's their ship name uh all you're gonna say hannah that's very good very very very very very good thank you i'm gonna say that it was bonnie yeah about who also herself also and about we don't need to guess about who i know i just but yeah also also annalise okay i feel like maybe she like figures it out and like she says something

to frank figures what out that annalise is like that sam's dead oh yeah like sam's dad yeah okay uh all right this was a great one thanks for listening guys as always you can email us at how we got away with murder at gmail.com um and please please please like follow rate the pod share it with a friend all that goes a long way subscribe subscribe on top of you guys listening to the ads which we really appreciate we want to pay everyone involved in making the pod yes um and that's you know where you guys come in so thank you so much yeah all right buddy i will talk to you next week catch you on the flip side catch you on the flippity flop bye love you that's it for today's show thanks for joining us and see you next week for a new episode

They drop every Thursday, and don't be late, because the professor doesn't like to wait. How We Got Away With Murder is an original production by Podcast Nation. Produced by James Brown and Alicia Panier. Audio production by Miles Carter. Original music by Elefante. We'll be right back.