A Mid-Season in review: ABC's How to get away with murder!

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Review: “How To Get Away with Murder”

How to Get Away With a Confusing Plot:

5 reasons for reasonable doubt and 5 reasons for strong defense.

MAJOR SPOILER ALERTS!

            One of the most anticipated fall television series, How to Get Away with Murder aired on September 25^th starring critically acclaimed and Oscar nominated actress Viola Davis.  With all the teasing advertisements, the show created a large amount of anticipation especially with myself.

I live for murder mysteries. I have seen over 125 episodes of Crime Scene Investigation and watch an episode everyday. So I thought that this series would live up to its premise and I was not prepared to be disappointed.

Basic plot

The best defense lawyer and law professor, Annalise Keating (Davis) teaches at a prestigious Ivy league-type university in Pennsylvania. Her course as she calls it is “Criminal Law 100: How to get away with murder” (not creepy at all). Keating teaches an auditorium full of over achieving students who go out of their way to impress her. She then chooses five of her top students to assist her in her private practice. The “privileged team” of the students who go above and beyond to once again impress her. If they achieve this they are awarded a trophy. Yes, a group of law students are after a trophy and will stab each other in the back to get it.  The plot follows Wes Gibbins (Alfred Enoch, aka one of the only hot guys from the Harry Potter film franchise), a stunned (he always looks stunned) student that miraculously ends up with the trophy and as part of Keating’s “privileged team”. On campus a pretty girl, Lilla mysteriously disappeared and is found dead in a water tank on the roof of a sorority house. Lilla is also a student of Keating’s husband, Sam.

Here are 8 things about How To Get Away with Murder: 5 things that prove that the series is indeed, well thought out in addition to highlights of the series: Reasonable doubt and 5 things that prove that the series is disappointing, Strong Defense.

Reasonable doubt

1.     Wardrobe: Gibbins has a wardrobe to dream of. She always wears statement jewelry and great suits: highlights include episode 4 where she wore a peplum top and a matching pencil skirt. For a top defense attorney one would hope that she has a great wardrobe to go along with her great reputation.

2.     Couples: In the series, Gibbins an African American woman is married to Sam, a Caucasian male causing them to be a biracial couple, which is still a statement even in a television series from the year 2014.

3.     A different view: In other legal dramas, we normally see the other side of the courtroom, in that we see the cases from the view of the crown not the defense such as in the Law and Order series. However, it is only recently that we see it from the defense perspective as in the Good Wife. Additionally there are not many current television series that feature “the life of a university law student” which, by the way the writers of the series make a lot more interesting than I thought it would be.

4.     Horribly relatable: In the pilot, Gibbins enters the lecture hall where the class is held and does not find anywhere to sit and no one to sit with (every liberal course I have ever attend week-after-week). In addition, due to the fact that all the students want to impress Keatings they choose to interrupt the literature to show their knowledge on the subject…no I cannot think when that happened during my lecture at all (not).

5.     The finale. That moment when Annalise is sitting in the chair…..

Strong Defense

1.     Confusing. Flash Forwards (!!!): Every. Single. Episode. And the next scene after a commercial break. Opens with a “Flash forward” aka what happens in future episodes…aka who all Keating’s “privileged team” choose to murder and the events that occur after and up to the murder. Why would you want to tell your viewer what happens in future episodes? Talk about spoiler alert! And it is so confusing that I have trouble telling the difference between a flash forward and what is happening on the show in the “present”.  May I also add that the “flash forwards” lack continuity…it’s a puzzle that doesn’t fit properly (that will probably never fit together).

2.     How to get away with murder…Literally: In episodes #2 and #3, the two clients that Keating defends both get away with murder. As one escapes during recess and the other did committed murder in another country and yes, got away with it. Additionally, in the “flash forwards” the “privileged team” says that they think they can get away with murder…maybe they will indeed, if Keating agrees to defend them all. “We are smart enough to get away with murder, destroy all the forensic evidence”. No. No you won’t. Especially after one of the members of the “privileged team” leaves her HUGE engagement ring at the murder scene…her engagement ring. How does one lose their engagement ring committing a murder?

3.     Kill for your neighbor: As you too can conclude, “This show would be amazing without those ‘flash forwards.’” Yeah no duh. In one of the “flash forwards,” it is revealed that the “privileged team” murdered Mr. Keating to keep Gibbins creepy neighbor, Rebecca (Katie Findlay, who played the annoying bff of Carrie in The Carrie Diaries) safe. Why would you risk your life (and the death penalty) for your neighbor who looks like a Lisbeth Salander wannabe? And why would your fellow law students help you? And murder your professor’s husband? It is hinted that Mr. Keating may be involved in the murder of Lilla who was one of his students. In the present, Rebecca is being tried for Lilla’s murder with Keating defending her…if Keating couldn’t get her off who can? #lostcause

4.     Unbelievable: To impress Keating students go as far as to break the law: hacking into computers and sneaking into prison just to name a few, to get the information they need to help Keatings with her current cases. As one of the character’s partners says in the latest episode: “For someone who wants to practice law, you think nothing of breaking it.”

5.     The fatal (pun intended) flaw of the students. The fact that each student in the finale did not call 911 and went to their partner’s house after the murder…do you really want your partner to go to jail with you?

You be the judge (punny). Will you tune into How to Get Away with Murder?

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