How To Get Away With Murder, “We’re Not Friends” (1.5) - TV Review

How To Get Away With Murder, Season 1, Episode 5, “We’re Not Friends”

Oct 23, 2014, 10:00p.m. (EST), ABC

It’s rare an episode in a season comes along where I don’t wish something was left out. But in this episode I really don’t wish anything was left out because everything was important and entertaining at the same time. I do wish though that there was one student that hasn’t yet been explored, and I wish we could see more of him.

The episode is a completely foreshadowing of the death of Mr. Keating from the opening scene where Annalise is yelling at him about his photo being on the dead girls phone, to the end when Wes looks at the wallpaper in the Keating house. All of these scenes have a purpose in foreshadowing the flash-forward scene when Mr. Keating is dead and the students are trying to dispose his body.

Viola Davis is fierce in this episode. The opening scene when Annalise is confronting her husband about his photo on the girl’s phone is visibly stunning. It’s as if Annalise uses make-up to cover up her life, to put on a fake face that is strong and can not be broken. When this scene is happening with her husband though her wig is off and her face is stripped of make-up. This shows her true self, she isn’t trying to cover anything up anymore. She is confronting him and we finally see the vulnerable side to Annalise, maybe the only true side of her. This scene is foreshadowing the death of Mr. Keating by building of the suspicion around him being the murderer.

Even the secondary plot in the courtroom this week reflected the death of Mr. Keating. The teenager that shot his father to protect his mother only made me wonder about the reason why the students killed or are helping the killer get rid of Mr. Keating’s body. This plot is foreshadowing the possible reason behind his death. Is he dead because one or more of the students were using self-defense, or maybe Annalise was using self-defense as she did in the opening scene but this time it escalated and ended in murder. I didn’t start thinking about the possible relation between the teenager’s motive and the motive the person might’ve had in killing Mr. Keating until the end scene between Wes and Rebecca.

The heightened anxiety that came along with the intense conversation between Wes and Rebecca on the phone only furthered my suspicion of Mr. Keating. Rebecca never thought Mr. Keating was involved with her dead friend until she saw the wallpaper in the Keating bedroom and has decided to leave the city to ‘save’ herself. Rebecca is going to the extreme of leaving because she found out Mr. Keating was the one having an affair with her friend. This had me thinking that maybe she will or someone else will have to use self defense in order to save themselves from Mr. Keating, and that’s why he’s dead. She also states that she doesn’t trust Annalise and warns Wes. After Wes confronts Annalise with his knowledge of Mr. Keating’s dirty picture on the phone the episode ends on an intense note. These two scenes are combined together to end the episode with a complete foreshadow of the possible reasoning behind Mr. Keating’s death.

Everything this episode had was great but I hope that in the next coming weeks we will see more of Asher. He seems to be coming in as comic relief when the other students become too intense in their work or with each other. We have gotten the back story of all the main students, but not him. This may be because he’s not apart of the death of Mr. Keating but I still believe it is important to give him a backstory. Plus, he is my favourite character because he’s different from the rest of them. I want to know why he is different from the rest of them.

This is my favourite episode of the season because of the amazing structure of the writing. Everything is linked together to foreshadow the flash-forward scenes that are shown in every episode. I can’t wait to see what the rest of the season has to offer.