Categories
New Show Recap

New Show Recap: How to Get Away with Murder 1×13, “Mama’s Here Now”

You see that title? Mama’s here now. Oh yes she is and Mama’s going to lay down some truth this week. But first, let’s check in on Detective Nate. Remember how last week’s episode ended with him getting arrested for Sam’s murder? Well this week’s episode starts out with him being strip searched (thank you, HTGAWM writers, for that visual treat) and booked into the local lockup.

Laurel checks in with Frank and thanks him for planting the ring. Connor shows up at Oliver’s place with a bottle of fake champagne to celebrate his “sobriety.” And Rebecca’s getting called in by the police after they discover that she’d been on the phone with Nate the night of the murder.

Meanwhile, Mama just strolls right in to Chez Keating, lecturing Frank and Bonnie about leaving the door unlocked, going on about all the murderers and criminals they’ve got around here. “I’m sorry, ma’am, but we’re not taking on any new clients right now,” Bonnie tells her. New clients? Oh honey, no. And then Mama drops the best line of the whole season down on them.

Don’t you know a ViP when you see one? Your boss came out of my V and her daddy’s P. Show a little respect for her mama.

Now how is it that a grown woman can be reduced to feeling like a child all over again the minute her mother walks through the door? We’ve all been there, right? Sometimes all you need is for mama to show you some tough love and that’s exactly what Miss Ophelia Harkness is doing for her daughter right now.

So while Annalise is recuperating and wallowing in the tragedy that has become her life, the Keating Five are going to be working on a new case. They’re representing a nurse charged with raping her patient. But, wait, if Annalise is holed up in her bedroom cave, who is handling the case? Bonnie? Oh. Ok then. Apparently she didn’t send in enough box tops for her law degree. But we’ll cut her some slack for discrediting a key witness.

Meanwhile, Miss Type A Michaela is bugging Frank about how they’re going to get Nate out of jail. She knows Annalise isn’t going to let him go down for this so she has to have a plan because she’s Annalise Keating.

Back at home, Mama Ophelia is cleaning out the closets — literally and figuratively. She starts pulling out Sam’s suits, which ends up being the catalyst to getting Annalise out of bed. “These are a man’s possessions. They’re not just cheap hand-me-downs that you put in the poor box at church.” Uh oh. Looks like we’re going there. Mama Ophelia kindly reminds her daughter, in a way that only a mother can, that they were poor once, that even after their house burned down and they had nothing, Mama Ophelia made sure Annalise was fed and clothed. “I took care of you. I protected you,” she tells her. “Did you?” Oooh, honey, I know you’re grown and all but you can’t sass your mama like that.

Wait, what? Did she call her Anna Mae? Oh so not only is she too good for the poor box, she’s too good for the name Anna Mae too? “I wiped your ass and I will call you anything I want.” Well then. Now that Mama has shut that down, she asks her “Did you do it? Did you kill Sam?” She doesn’t get an answer. Then again, maybe NOT getting an answer is just the answer she needed.

The rape case is still on. Apparently a tech expert found an account on a “dirty secrets” website belonging to the nurse and apparently the nurse laid out the details of the rape on the website. Still, she swears that she only had consensual sex with her patient and that he initiated it. Bonnie is losing her grip and ends up screaming at the Scooby Gang for not listening to her.

Wes checks in with Annalise and asks for her help and advice on Rebecca before Mama kicks him out. At the police station, Goth Barbie and her braids are throwing Nate under the bus, telling the detective that Nate asked her to plant evidence and that she refused. Connor is back at Oliver’s, enlisting his help with this rape case. Being the tech genius that he is, Oliver finds the alleged victim’s profile on that “Humpr” gay hookup app. But, see, a victim’s sexual history or orientation can’t be used against them in a rape case.

Aw, look at Bonnie pretending to be Annalise, sitting at her desk and drinking her vodka. Not in a million years, Bonnie. So while she’s trying to be something she could never be, Michaela is taking a cue from Connor and using her sexual charms to get info. She pretends to be a nosy stenographer to get info out of the Assistant DA on Nate’s case and learns that Rebecca ratted Nate out. And Wes is putting the pieces together. He goes digging into the whereabouts of Rudy Walters, the guy who used to live in his apartment. Turns out that Rudy is in a psych hospital.

Annalise finally rolls out of bed and heads downstairs to the kitchen, toting a bottle of vodka, where Mama Ophelia is cooking.

Listen, some of the deepest conversations between a mother and daughter happen in the kitchen. It starts out as just chatter but it doesn’t take long for things to get really real. “Men were put on this planet to take things.” “Women were made to give love, to nurture, to protect, to care for.” And there she goes again, Anna Mae talking back to her mother. “You’re showing your ass, Anna Mae.” Whoa, flashbacks to my Nana. I haven’t heard anyone use that “showing your ass” phrase in a long time.

I feel like this section might need some trigger warnings because Annalise/Anna Mae is about to drag those skeletons out of the closet and dance all around that kitchen with them.

“Did you know?”

“Uncle Clyde is dead!”

“DID YOU KNOW WHAT HE DID TO ME?”

“He’s DEAD! Did you hear me? The Lord made sure he got what he deserved.”

This scene is intense. This scene left me trembling, sitting with me knees pulled to my chest, hoping to keep my guts from spilling out all over the place. Sorry, I can’t even describe it. All I can say is that we end up finding out how Annalise and Sam met. He was her psychologist. She went to him to deal with childhood trauma. She went to him so she could leave Anna Mae behind and become Annalise.

Back to the rape trial, Bonnie is finally starting to prove herself. They reach a plea deal and the hospital’s attorney confirms that the hospital will be paying the settlement. And that dude totally just screwed himself. He and the alleged victim are lovers and this was all a scam to get a big paycheck that the loverboys would split. I guess winning a case gets Bonnie all turned on because she pounces on goofy Asher in the parking garage, completely unaware that Frank is sitting a few feet away in his car.

Everybody gets to meet Oliver, agreeing to play along with the whole drug problem story. Wes tells Laurel about the mysterious disappearance of Rudy. He’s questioning his feelings about Rebecca. FINALLY!

Mama Ophelia goes up to tell Annalise she’s leaving in the morning. As Annalise is sitting on the floor, between her mama’s knees, Ophelia combs out her hair and tells her a story. She tells her about the house on Peachtree, how proud she was of it, how she loved the porch swing and the garden. She tells her how Uncle Clyde stayed with them for a while because he had nowhere to go, and how one night she woke up to find Clyde coming out of little Anna Mae’s room. She tells her how she took the kids to her sister’s house and left Clyde passed out drunk with a cigarette hanging from his mouth and how the house burned down that night and how sometimes all you’ve got left is a long match and some very flammable hooch. So if Annalise did kill Sam, Mama understands.

The next day Wes and Laurel, pretending to be the sister of Rudy Walters, take a trip to the psych hospital. And Michaela is sitting in on Nate’s hearing, waiting for it to start when Annalise walks in. Michaela is worried about Nate. “He’s innocent… and black.” Annalise sends Michaela away. She’s got this. And there’s a knowing glance between Nate and Annalise. This is all part of the plan, right?

At the jail, Annalise meets with Nate. Words are exchanged but is it all part of the act? I mean there IS a camera in the room. They know they’re being recorded. Annalise thanks him for killing Sam and slips him a note. “Fire your lawyer,” it says, with a phone number listed underneath. Meanwhile, over at the psych hospital, Laurel and Wes notice scratch marks on the wall in Rudy’s room, identical to the scratch marks on the wall of Wes’ apartment. They try to get something out of him. Wes shows him a photo of Rebecca and Rudy finally utters one word. “Wet.”

Oh by the way, Wes? Your girlfriend knows you’re there. She’s tracking your phone via GPS. Watch your back, son.

Alright, that’s it for this week. Next week is the TWO HOUR season finale. Are you ready for this?

By April

If I had a dollar for every time I got distracted, I wish I had some ice cream.

3 replies on “New Show Recap: How to Get Away with Murder 1×13, “Mama’s Here Now””

That scene alone could win them each an Emmy. And I’m really intrigued with Bonnie now that she’s being more fleshed out. I feel like we caught a glimpse of her back during that one scene where she was on her knees apologizing but then she clammed up again. And Rebecca is…well, she’s just not right.

Leave a Reply