TV Review: HOW TO GET AWAY WITH MURDER: Season 2, Episode 12: It’s a Trap [ABC]

ABC‘s How To Get Away With Murder It’s a Trap TV Show Review. How To Get Away With Murder: Season 2, Episode 12: It’s a Trap drops one of the show’s biggest bombshells so far.

Returning to the crisis established at the very end of She Hates Us, we find our heroes (and I use the term loosely) forced to reunite when a blackmailer threatens to send incriminating footage of the Keating Five to the police. Having just walked out on Annalise Keating (Viola Davis) in the previous episode, her students come back with their tails between their legs in the face of this extraordinary threat. Connor (Jack Falahee) attempts to hold out, correctly arguing that they wouldn’t be in this situation had Annalise not instructed them to stage an attempt on her life, but ultimately he falls in line like everybody else, leaving no one to challenge Annalise’s leadership of the group.

Suspecting that the blackmailer is fugitive Philip Jessup, the Keating Five reach out to Caleb Hapstall (Kendrick Sampson) in the hope that he will be able to get information about Philip’s whereabouts from his adoptive sister Catherine (Amy Okuda), but this is to no avail. In one of the program’s most daring moves, Annalise, instead of coming up with some convoluted scheme to get them out of their predicament like she always does, decides to let the blackmailer’s deadline expire. For a little under a minute, the group is huddled around the computer chattering amongst themselves about the wisdom of this course of action until their time is up. Nothing happens and Asher (Matt McGorry) is about to burst into a crude victory song when they hear a little ding on the computer. It’s a simple series of events but totally unexpected, which is always a good thing.

In the midst of all this, Wes (Alfred Enoch) and Laurel (Karla Souza) quietly leave the group to investigate the background of his mother Rose (Kelsey Scott) in Ohio. Looking into the details of an old case Annalise worked on, the two learn that Rose was asked by Annalise to testify on behalf of her client only for her to not show during the trial. Wes believes that she had his mother killed her leaving her hanging in court, but Laurel discovers something that tells a different story: a police report mentioning the possibility that Wes, then 12 years-old, killed his mother.

It’s shocking at first, but when you think about it, it explains so much about Wes. Why he was so quick to bludgeon Sam (Tom Verica) with the trophy and shoot Annalise after being told she had Rebecca Sutter (Katie Findlay). These acts weren’t crimes of passion: they were who Wes really was underneath the nervously-likable exterior. It’s a twist of the most cynical kind, and easily at home in How To Get Away With Murder.

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