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How to Get Away With Murder Recap: May Day

How to Get Away With Murder

I Love Her
Season 4 Episode 5
Editor’s Rating 4 stars

How to Get Away With Murder

I Love Her
Season 4 Episode 5
Editor’s Rating 4 stars
Photo: Mitch Haaseth/ABC

I’ll be honest: I would happily watch 45 minutes of Jimmy Smits facing off against Bonnie or Annalise. The other five minutes could just be filled with Annalise doing victory dances. I require nothing else from this show.

This week, Michaela continues to reluctantly scheme, Asher continues to model over-the-top eagerness, Conor is brooding, and Laurel is doing whatever the hell it is Laurel does. The Keating Gang’s plotlines appear to be moving forward, but I’m not sure I care anymore. I am deeply invested in Annalise’s recovery, though, and the class-action suit and the extended flashbacks to the moment when Bonnie and Annalise met REALLY explain a few things. The episode starts with Bonnie running to Jimmy Smits’s office in the rain without a hood or an umbrella. She’s finally done something to May and she reveals to Jimmy Smits that she didn’t come for his help, but to hurt her. But whoooo could this alleged May person be? How can Jimmy Smits help?

We flashback to 2002 and see Annalise arriving to the court house. She was on the defense team for a pedophile rapist. Bonnie is arriving at the same time and she has sad long hair because she’s the star witness. She looks at Annalise and everyone knows it’s about to go down.

Back in the present, Conor and Oliver are living in squalor to show how aimless Conor is. His house is messy, just like his mind! Michaela picks Oliver up for work and he throws a little unemployed dig at Conor on his way out. Oh also, Laurel is having sex with Frank and it’s shot in a VERY HOT way. I’m interested in this story line only for sexy reasons. Plot-wise, it’s a snooze. Laurel hops off Frank when she gets a text from Bonnie.

Meanwhile, Annalise is turning on the charm to talk to former clients of the public defender’s office and explaining that the public defenders didn’t have enough money for a proper defense. She’s laying out all the potential benefits: Your case could be retried, more public defenders will be hired, you may be entitled to damages, and you might even clear your name. Just think of all the innocent people who will be saved! She’s able to get 24 people to sign on and she needs 16 more to present her suit.

It’s 2002 again. Bonnie is on the stand in the trial, and let me tell you, this one is a doozy. She was repeatedly abused by her father, who would take her places and just … leave her around for other men to assault, like the councilman on trial. She was pregnant, she passed out during labor, and woke up to discover her baby was gone. Everyone on this show has lived the plot of at least three Lifetime movies. Annalise is assigned to cross-examine Bonnie and she struggles with exactly how to handle such an impossible and awful task — especially since she wants to be made partner.

At home in 2002, Sam is watching the first season of American Idol when he interrupts Annalise’s research to give her hormone shots. They’re trying for a baby and Sam is still alive. What a time. Sam tells her it might not be worth it to take on this case.

It’s 2017 again and Nate takes a break from watching American Vandal to get assigned a task from Bonnie. More than 20 prisoners don’t have assigned lawyers on file and Bonnie thinks it’s Annalise’s doing. Nate tells her that maybe Annalise is doing the right thing for literally the first time in her life and to let it go. Of course, Bonnie is physically incapable of that.

Michaela is at work, where her high-powered lawyer/mentor/boss bitch Teagan Price gives her a pair of beeeeeeeeeauuuuuuuttttttttiiiiiiiiifffffffffuuuuuuullllll Louboutins as thanks for all of her hard work. It won’t be long until she’ll be getting an offer and buying her own shoes. Then Laurel calls with trouble: She wants Michaela to screw up her job by breaking into Teagan’s files. Never trust a friend that wants you to screw up your job for them.

It’s time for Annalise to cross-examine Bonnie. There’s a lot of fun things to snark on about this show, but damn, did they go there and deliver some awesome courtroom drama. Annalise tries to argue that maybe Bonnie’s memories are distorted or that she even has false memory syndrome. She wants to go slowly so she doesn’t alienate the jury, but the rest of the defense team tells her to go on the attack. Annalise launches into a line of sensitive questions, asking if the pregnancy was actually a hysterical pregnancy. She finishes up by forcing Bonnie to say she’s not 100 percent certain that the councilman assaulted her because she only remembered the attacks when she heard his voice on TV. She even drops in, “He has a family, he has children” to make her feel really bad. Oof.

Then Oliver and Michaela do some stuff with some files, looking for some stuff to give to Laurel and blah blah blah. There are no real consequences for them trying to sneak into the files.

Jimmy Smits finally realizes that Bonnie has such deep feelings for “May” that she can’t handle them and pretends to hate her. Bonnie says she was just looking for someone, anyone to take care of her after everyone else had raped or hurt her. Conor leaves his apartment after a busy day of feeling sorry for himself and goes to see Annalise’s sad hotel house. She drafts him to help her with her crusade.

Laurel is inviting Frank over to Wes’s apartment and he says he can’t bang her there. He asks if the baby could be his, and Laurel screams that the one time they slept together when she was with Wes was the biggest regret of her life. Y’ALL. C’MON. She throws Frank out.

Jimmy Smits asks Bonnie to start repeatin, “I love May” until she’s convinced herself it’s true. Bonnie starts to remember all these memories: when Annalise first approached her to go to law school, the first time she met Sam, that one time they kissed weirdly.

Annalise finally gets all 40 prisoners to sign on to her class-action suit. Then she starts to get calls that the DA offered each one a better deal, a plea bargain, or a work release. It turns out Bonnie was taking apart Annalise’s case from the other side. Bonnie goes to meet Annalise and Annalise screams at her for ruining the best thing she’s tried to do in a long time. Bonnie calls her selfish and says she’s just going to throw away everyone else … just like Annalise threw Bonnie away. So it’s not about Annalise, Bonnie. It’s about you. Annalise says she never thought Bonnie was trash.

We find out that gas station conversation between Bonnie and Annalise is what prompted Bonnie to run to Jimmy Smits’s office. She’s finally accepted the truth, saying “I love her” while she’s got a real bad snot nose. If I was an actress on TV, I would not let them show me like that. Maybe I’m not ready to fully sacrifice myself for the art, but DAMN, that nose was snotty. As she keeps talking about “May,” Jimmy Smits puts it all together.

May is Annalise. Annalise is May.

Jimmy Smits screams at Bonnie to get out because whatever help she needs, he can’t give her.

Laurel looks at the tiny little snippet of evidence that Michaela and Oliver gave her. Asher calls Michaela to find out where she is and she lies, saying she’s at work. He’s outside the apartment and can see her. He knows something is up.

We flash forward to TWO WEEKS LATER. Bonnie is asking where the suspect is. In jail. We cut to see who’s in jail … and it’s Asher crying!

How to Get Away With Murder Recap: May Day