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'How to Get Away With Murder' Review: Season 2, Episode 15: Finale

By Casey C. Sullivan, Esq. on March 18, 2016 | Last updated on March 21, 2019

It's been a bumpy, bumpy ride through this season on How to Get Away With Murder, but we're glad we went along for it. (The 'twincest' neologism alone made it worthwhile.) And now we're done.

Last night's episode marked the end of the season, but it didn't exactly feel like closure. Here's your spoiler-filled lawyer's guide to the How to Get Away With Murder season two finale.

It's Twincest Time

The case of the Hapstall/Menedez Twins has driven much of this season, but it's not exactly solved in the finale. When last we met, Catherine Hapstall had confessed to shooting Annalise and Phillip Hapstall was on the lam, sending threatening videos, and tackling Annalise in Wes's apartment.

Now, the A.D.A. knows that the Keating Kids were present at the Hapstall mansion when Annalise was shot and A.D.A. Sinclair's body tossed off the second floor balcony. There's a warrant out for her arrest.

A quick look at some hacked security footage from the district attorney's office (you're magic, Oliver) shows that Caleb Hapstall had been informing on Annalise. The news comes just as Annalise gets a threatening call; moments later, she's in the A.D.A.'s office, being threatened in person.

And here's the closest we get to a conclusion for this plot line: to counter the A.D.A.'s accusations, Annalise says that Caleb killed his mother.

Phillip, it seems, wasn't sending videos to extort the Keating crew (forget that demand for a million dollars). Instead, he just wanted help. When he caught Annalise in Wes's apartment, he handed her data taken from Caleb's fitness tracker. That data, Phillip claims, shows that Caleb had killed their mother, placing him, heart racing, at the scene of the crime.

"Are we supposed to believe any of this?" Connor asks when the news breaks. Probably not, but it's a good story -- and it might have been enough to cause Caleb to commit suicide. (Yep, Caleb is dead in a tub of blood.)

Also, props to the HTGAWM writers here. While we frequently mock the show for getting law school and the law wrong, this episode finally did something right! Michaela thought to look for an informant using a very law school-y mnemonic. (FUJISAW. The I is for informant.) And the Fitbit piece is actually taken straight from recent legal headlines.

Burying Baby

Much of the episode takes place before Annalise reveals the newest Hapstall twist, however. Having confessed to West last week -- and sent him on the way to meet his evil father, Wallace Mahoney -- Annalise fled back home, where she's known as Anna Mae.

It's a nice peak into Annalise / Anna Mae's background. She's got a close-ish relationship with her sister, a domineering but doting mother, and a very strong dislike for her deadbeat dad. But despite the troubles at home, the trip is one of healing.

After Annalise's mother complains about her lack of grandkids, Annalise confesses that she had a baby who died. "His name was going to be Sam." (She also confesses to feeling almost suicidal, asking "Don't you ever feel like it's all too hard?")

Annalise and her mother bury the dead tot, and hopefully some of Annalise's suffering, in the yard. (Symbolically.)

Speaking of Annalise's dead baby... We learn this episode that Frank was bought off by one of Mahoney's henchladies. He placed a bug in her hotel, which lead to Mahoney overhearing that she was going to come clean about Rose's testimony.

Enter speeding truck, a T-boned rental car, and Annalise's lost child. Frank confessed his role to Sam, who withheld the info from Annalise. Now they're both gone.

Just Kill Westophe Already

Shonda Rimes, stop torturing this poor boy. After seeing his mother die as a child, thinking that he might have committed matricide, and shooting his psuedomother Annalise, Wes is in need of a parental figure that won't leave him covered in blood.

But the show won't let him have it. Season two closes with Wes traveling to New York to meet his rich, rapist father. He waits, puppy dog style, outside Mahoney's work, approaching him as he goes to his car. "I think I'm your son," he says.

Why would you think that, an unsympathetic and strangely nonplussed Mahoney asks. Just as he spits out "Annalise Keating," Mahoney is shot in the head, his blood splattered all across Wes's face.

We're pretty sure Annalise's name is a curse, sort of like "Beetlejuice" or "Bloody Mary." Say it three times and a minor character is killed and a major one is permanently scared.

So let's stop saying that name for now. See you next season!

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