Viola Davis dominates a show filled with secrets, cover-ups, and a little too much information.
by Andrea Braxton
If only summarizing the pilot episode of How to Get Away With Murder was as simple as: law students do whatever it takes to impress a tough professor.
Unfortunately, that only scratches the surface of the truckload of information heaped on the viewer in this episode.
Let’s start at the beginning, in which a group of students debate about how to dispose of a body. This scene leads to all kinds of questions. Who are these students? Did they kill this person or are they just covering up a murder? Why are they making vital decisions by flipping a coin? And most importantly, how are they going to get away with this? A few minutes later, we find out that all of this is happening three months in the future. From that point on, the show had my attention.
In the present (where the majority of the episode takes place) the viewer is introduced to Professor Annalise Keating (Viola Davis). Professor Keating is a sexy, manipulative hard-ass with questionable morals, and it’s great to see Viola Davis, or any middle-aged black woman for that matter, in a role that doesn’t involve servitude or childcare. Professor Keating is commanding in the courtroom and the classroom, but it seems that she has less of a grasp on her personal life.
The student in Keating’s criminal law class with the most screen time is Wesley Gibbons (Alfred Enoch), the likeable underdog in a sea of cutthroat overachievers. The viewer identifies with every one of Wesley’s bug-eyed stares of surprise throughout the episode, because we, too, just want to know what the hell is going on.
Wesley is one of the students debating about the body in the first scene, and his partners in crime are also in the class. To give a quick rundown, there’s Connor Walsh (Jack Falahee), a know-it-all tool. There’s Michaela Pratt (Aja Naomi King), who wants to be a Professor Keating duplicate. There’s Asher Millstone (Matt McGorry), who is already forgettable, at least at this point. Finally, there’s Laurel Castillo (Karla Souza), a student who enjoys helping the less fortunate and spying on people in the bathroom. By the end of the episode, they all earn the privilege of working for Professor Keating’s law firm through creative, and sometimes illegal, means.
Viewers also meet Professor Keating’s associates, her professor husband, and her detective boyfriend, and as Wesley struggles to impress in class, we are introduced to his mysterious neighbor, Rebecca (Katie Findlay).
It’s a lot of characters for a pilot, and somehow the writers also managed to cover a law school class, a court case, a body disposal, a missing girl, and a marital affair in one episode. Yet, as with every other Shonda Rhimes show, I want to keep watching. This show doesn’t quite measure up to Grey’s Anatomy and Scandal (yet), but there’s enough mystery to make the show interesting.
Hopefully Viola Davis gets more screen time in future episodes, because her phenomenal performance is what holds the show together. And I’ll admit that I’m a sucker for last-second plot twists. Despite the overload of information in this episode, I think this show can be a hit.
Andrea Braxton graduated from the University of Missouri in 2013 with a bachelor’s degree in journalism and an English writing minor. She lives in Baltimore, MD and works as an editorial assistant for an educational publishing company. Andrea wrote recaps for TV shows for the VoxTalk blog, and if she could, she would watch TV all day. She’s addicted to Netflix and any show with a good cast and tons of drama. She has a publishing blog at http://abraxtonwriter.wordpress.com.
Photo courtesy of Nicole Rivelli/ABC
