Saturday, November 12, 2016

My Review of How To Get Away With Murder's 3x08: "No More Blood"


Written by Morenike Balogun
Directed by Jet Wilkinson

Frank: "Let me fix this."
Annalise: "What's taken you so long?"

Well, this was certainly a doozy of an episode. Let's see, on one hand you've got the further devolvement of Connor and Oliver and then you've got Frank and his somewhat hamfisted attempts of making amends with Annalise. Which to talk about first.

Okay, going in with Connor and Oliver. Personally, I'm siding with neither of them here. Both of them raised valid points about the other and both of them dealt with things badly. Oliver had no right to hack Connor's computer to find out about Wes and Connor himself made things far too personal as well.

I liked that the end of the episode actually revealed that Connor was alive. I thought he was going to be but I assumed it was going to be in next week's mid-season finale and while I thought he might have slept with someone, I wasn't expecting it to be Thomas. That was a seriously cold thing for Connor to do as the episode made it apparent that he wanted to get back at Oliver for rejecting him again.

I definitely empathise with fans frustration over the depiction of Connor and Oliver this season. They broke up so fast and then got back together, only to break up again and Connor to pull off a rather spiteful (even for him) act certainly adds a little insult to injury. Then again, there's the back half of this season to hopefully bring things back for them if the show wants to. Then again, maybe they don't. Who knows right?

As for Frank, his attempts to make amends seem to be going from one extreme to the other. This week, he clocked onto the woman who originally paid him to betray Annalise and had to be talked down by both Annalise and Bonnie in order not to kill her. Instead Frank then played his part in using the woman's previous relationship with Charles Mahoney to help Wes out.

Then there was the scene at the house where Frank came close to killing himself in front of Annalise with the latter egging him on and Bonnie trying to diffuse the situation. A beautifully played scene between all three of them and one where I found myself feeling bad for each of them as well. Of course by next week though, Frank very well may end up dead though.

As for the rest of this episode - I quite liked the Wes/Laurel/Frank scenes and it certainly seems that with all the machinations of this episode, that things have actually further intensified with the Mahoney case. I can see that playing more of an active role later in the season. As for Wes ratting out Annalise, we still weren't given a motive for that just yet.

- Asher and Connor really do like wearing Michaela's bathroom. Asher also got called out on his obsession with gay sex and he answered Michaela's phone to her mother.
- Hargrove sought Annalise's advice for getting access to her kids and Simon needled Oliver on not knowing everything in the Keating 5 inner circle.
- I'm guessing Laurel finds out she's pregnant earlier in next week's episode prior to the fire.
- Chronology: A week until the events of the fire.

No More Blood is another fantastic episode. Yeah, I know things well spectacularly bad for Connor and Oliver but at least we can take solace in both of them not being under the sheet, even if their relationship is currently dead. As for who the body is, well it can only be either Frank or Nate at this point.

Rating: 8 out of 10

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