How To Get Away With Murder I’m Not Her Review
How to Get Away with Murder: Season 4, Episode 2: I’m Not Her continues to navigate the aftermath of Annalise’s (Viola Davis) decision to fire the Keating Five.
The biggest takeaway from Thursday night’s episode is how unlikeable Isaac (Jimmy Smits), Annalise’s court-appointed psychiatrist, is. Although he was technically introduced in the ending few seconds of I’m Going Away, we only really got to see how short he is with his patients this week. When Annalise arrives for her appointment, he rushes her into his office with a terse “let’s go,” giving him the air of a pompous ass who believes he is more important than he probably actually is.
I get that someone as tough as Annalise needs a foil capable of holding their own against her, but Isaac feels more like an unnecessary obstacle than a worthy adversary. Admittedly, this becomes less pronounced as the program goes on and he begins to understand her, but it’s hard to shake off this first negative impression.
Much of Annalise’s discussions with Isaac revolve around her representation of Jasmine (L. Scott Caldwell), who fans might remember as one of the prisoners she was interned with in jail last season. Although she fights hard for Jasmine’s freedom, Annalise confesses that she believes she will be back in prison for something or other soon. What’s interesting about this admission is how conflicted it leaves us about her character. Is she a cynic who masterfully gamed the system to get a repeat offender out of jail, or is she an idealist who obtained justice for a woman who was never given a chance? It’s this kind of ambiguity that makes How to Get Away with Murder such compelling viewing.
With all this going with Annalise, it’s understandable that the Keating Five would get less attention. Granted, they receive more than they did in the last episode, but they’re far from the focus here. In as much as the show can be said to focus on a single member of the group, it’s safe to say that Laurel (Karla Souza) receives the lion’s share of attention here. Considering how underused she was compared to other characters in previous seasons of the show, it’s very much welcome to see that the writers have apparently decided to make her a focal point of this season’s story arc.
Faster-paced than I’m Going Away but only slightly more ambitious, I’m Not Her is a solid installment of How to Get Away with Murder that will leave fans, if not thrilled, then satisfied at the very least.
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