“How to Get Away With Murder” focuses on criminal law professor at Middletown Law School and practicing defense attorney Annalise Keating (played by Viola Davis.) She refers to her class as How to Get Away With Murder and writes that on the chalkboard on the first day. She is tough, abrupt and painfully pointed. She doesn’t stand for excuses, or whining or lack of preparation. She presents the students with a case: The Aspirin Assassin. The assistant to the CEO of a corporation is charged with killing her boss, also her lover, by giving him aspirin, to which she knew he was allergic. The wife knew of her husband’s indiscretion. Each student will have one minute the next day to present a defense. First, they meet the client: The teary-eyed assistant, Gina. The class goes to Annalise’s office to hear her story. The office, also Annalise’s home, is an old Victorian-style house, dark and oaky. There are two associates who work for the firm: Frank and Bonnie.
After Gina tells everyone that she loved her boss and is innocent, Annalise tells the group that each year, she brings her students in on one of her cases. This would be it. Whichever four shine brightest get brought in to work for her firm. The winning defense for this case, not only gets the job, but a statue of Lady Justice that sits on a shelf there. The next day in class, the pool for the potential winners is cut down after each member of class presents a plan. Those left standing go to court the next day to watch. There are four overachieving and probably ruthless front-runners (Michaela, Laurel, Connor, and Asher) and one hard-working, likeable kid named Wes. Michaela comes running into court while one witness is being cross-examined. She interrupts and gives Annalise evidence that completely discredits the witness’ testimony that she saw a yellow pill on the desk of the victim the morning he was given the aspirin.
Wes is at home reading documents and thinks he has an idea on how to win. He races over to the office late at night to share it. When he walks into Annalise’s office, he finds her having sex with a man. As he is leaving, she gets dressed and chases him down. He shares his idea, which she shoots down immediately. Connor tracks down an IT guy at the CEO’s agency. He flirts with him, has sex with him, and gets him to hand over an incriminating email from the CEO’s business partner telling the CEO to step down. Since it was illegally obtained, Annalise says she thought it was listed in the evidence. She hands it over to Bonnie who also tells a white lie to suggest that the email was there for all to see all along. Laurel notices the wife and Gina interacting in the bathroom in a very familiar way. She suggests to Frank later that the wife and the defendant might have been in on it together. Frank lets on that he already knew, which means the firm knows they have a guilty client. The two get into an argument ending with Frank suggesting Laurel is naïve and self-righteous and Laurel telling Frank he’s a misogynist.
Later, at a party we meet Annalise’s husband, Sam, a professor of psychology. It’s not the man Wes caught her with earlier. We learn that he’s a cop named Nate. Wes and Annalise make eye contact, acknowledging the secret between. In a small room off to the side, Wes assures her he won’t say a word. She cries to him, is slightly inappropriate in the way she touches his shoulders, and explains that the marriage has been under pressure over talk of having a baby. He is uncomfortable and escapes leaving her alone and upset. The next day, there’s damning evidence that Gina bought Aspirin. So despite all of the efforts of the students and Annalise, the defense is in trouble. Annalise is livid. She rips into Gina for lying and into Frank for not doing his job and spending too much time chasing undergrads. Annalise calls Nate, the cop, to the stand. It is revealed his wife has cancer. She is hard on him. During her questioning, he is forced to say that the police in Philadelphia have a history of doctoring surveillance tapes.
It works. Gina is set free. The next day in class, the four names of those joining the firm are announced: Connor, Asher, Michaela and Laurel. And Annalise adds a fifth: Wes. He approaches her after class, asking if he was given the job because he saw her with her boyfriend, saying that’s not how he wants to land it. She doesn’t like the accusation and gives him one second to rethink his answer. He does and agrees to join. Another storyline weaved into the hour: there’s a missing student on campus. The “Missing” posters of her say her name is Lila Stangard. Wes has a strange neighbor named Rebecca, who is at first stand-off-ish and plays loud music, then has a screaming match with a boyfriend that Wes sees and tries to help out with. She’s not interested in his help. Later she is friendly, dropping off a bottle of booze as an olive branch. Inside Wes’ apartment, there are strange scratch marks on the wall. Later Lila’s body is found in the water tank on the roof of a sorority. This upsets Rebecca’s boyfriend, who shows up at her apartment in a panic. Sam is watching the report of the body discovery on the news. It was his student. Annalise sits down on the bed beside him. He’s clearly upset. She says she is sorry and “I betcha the boyfriend did it.” She looks at her husband and then straight into the camera.
Also peppered through the show: An event that takes place Three Months Later, well after the Aspirin Assassin case is done. Wes, Laurel, Michaela and Connor have a body and a murder weapon—Lady Justice—they’re trying to dispose of. They either witnessed or committed a murder at Annalise’s office and they’re getting rid of the body, first wrapping it in a carpet in the office. We’re not let in on their involvement, just witness to them racing around in the dark with a body. On campus, it’s bonfire night, so there are fires, noise and partying everywhere. As they are on the run with the body, Laurel gets a call from Frank, something that is curious to the others. They call her out on it, but she doesn’t reveal why. Though there is much in-fighting among the group on how to handle their body, they ultimately agree to set it on fire to destroy the DNA and return the murder weapon cleaned up back to the house. As the match is lit, we see that it’s Sam who is dead and wrapped in the carpet.
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