Friday, January 19, 2018

My Review of How To Get Away With Murder's 4x09: "He's Dead"


Written by Abby Ajayi
Directed by Jet Wilkinson

Laurel: "Tell me you wouldn't be that stupid."
Frank (re Dominic): "He's dead."

Given the title of this episode, the he in question really could've been either Laurel's newborn baby or Simon and things certainly were looking bad for both in the last episode that aired in November but it turns out that the he in question actually turned out to be Dominic.

In the space of this episode, we barely learned that Dominic was to Jorge what Frank has been to Annalise all this time and it seemed oddly fitting that Frank ended up being the one to kill him as well after the latter goaded him about Laurel and turned out not to have the missing hard drive either. This was also the same Dominic that despite killing Wes last season also tried to warn Laurel about going through with her vendetta against her father.

I know the actor has commitments to another show but it's a pity that Dominic was bumped off, just as he was getting a bit more interesting as a character. The being in love with Laurel bit didn't surprise me but the fact that Wes actually called him and referred to himself as Christophe was something I didn't expect to happen on the show. If it means getting more Alfred Enoch for the remainder of this season, then I'm intrigued to see how that pans out as the gang are now aware of that last voice message.

As for Laurel, there was a lot of gas lighting being thrown her way this episode what with Jorge able to bribe an entire hospital into handing over a premature baby to him and even Annalise herself was pretty powerless to stop him as well. This episode kept throwing hints about Laurel's mental health, which I get will be better explored in the rest of the season but I am hoping we don't have to wait too long for her to get her baby back.

As for Simon - how the hell did he actually survive that gunshot? People have died for less on this show but dramatically, Simon being alive is going to cause more problems for the Keating 4.5 than him being dead ever will and I do find it interesting (if a little hypocritical) that Oliver seems determined to protect Simon from the rest of the gang as well. Besides, Connor was the one who told the gang that going through with Laurel's plan was a bad idea and none of them listened to him.

The rest of the episode then saw Bonnie managing to get Asher out on bail as both her and Annalise continued to be awkward around each other along with Isaac also getting the brunt of Annalise's temper. Her comment about his daughter's death was pretty uncalled for, even in the stress of the situation but I don't think Annalise is wrong about him being a terrible doctor though.

- I think we can safely assume given Tegan's scenes with Michaela in this one that the latter won't be working at Caplan & Gold any more. I do hope Tegan is kept around though.
- They didn't credit Alfred Enoch for his appearance as far as I could tell for this episode. Then again, it would've been a massive spoiler if they had.
- Given what the remaining episodes have to do, I'm intrigued to see how they're going to be able to fit in a crossover episode with Scandal as well.
- Chronology: From where Live.Live.Live. left off.

He's Dead wasted no time in things spectacularly going to pot for nearly all of the main characters here. In some ways, this did feel like it should've aired back in November as opposed to now but it cleared up all the remaining flashbacks pretty well and the set for more chaos to boot.

Rating: 8 out of 10

No comments: