How to Get Away with Murder Review: “It’s About Frank”

Last week’s episode of How to Get Away with Murder ended with a couple of huge events (including the revelation that Laurel is pregnant at the time of the fire), so let’s jump right in and see how things continued in last night’s episode, “It’s About Frank.”

The episode opens with Laurel in surgery in an attempt to save her life. As Meggy explains what’s going on to Oliver, Bonnie gets a secret call in which she reveals to the other side that Laurel is pregnant. As she’s on the phone, the episode flashes back three weeks to Bonnie dealing with the aftermath of Frank murdering her father at the end of last week’s episode. Unbeknownst to anyone else, Bonnie has indeed found Frank and thanks him for what he’s done. The development adds another wrinkle to the evolving Frank story this season, and I continue to be impressed with the way that the writers are dealing with him being so far away from the rest of the gang.

A chunk of the episode consists of a flashback eleven years earlier to Annalise and Sam’s first encounters with Frank. It’s really cool that we’re finally getting a history for Frank (after what last season similarly did for Bonnie), and I like how heavily involved Annalise is with his history. Every single character on How to Get Away with Murder has such a rich history with Annalise (even when they don’t realize it), and it adds an endless amount of dimensions to their stories. All three performances are stellar during the exploration, and it’s always nice to have Sam (creepy as he may be) back for an episode.

“It’s About Frank” may, obviously, be largely about Frank, but it’s also got a heavy focus on Annalise. This woman has been through so much over the past couple of years, and it’s so important for her to finally start dealing with this. Just like Frank, a lot of her personal demons and worst moments involve Sam, and Viola Davis gives a standout performance as we learn more of what she’s experienced over the years. It’s great that the character is finally starting to face her demons head-on (starting with the obvious alcoholism), and I’m excited to see this avenue explored more throughout the season.

There was quite a lot that happened in “It’s About Frank,” but the episode was really more about developing the characters of Frank and Annalise while giving the actors some scenery to just absolutely chew up. Narratively, this was just an average episode, but the performances here bring things up exponentially. “It’s About Frank” may become a fan-favorite episode of How to Get Away with Murder, and we have Charlie Weber and Viola Davis to thank for that.

What did you think about this week’s episode of How to Get Away with Murder? Let us know your thoughts in the comments down below!

[Photo Credit: ABC]