How to Get Away with Murder

From the desk

Why How to Get Away with Murder still plays

Filed by Tessa Quinn · Spoiler-Free (Mostly)

Somebody already buried the body; the group chat is on the board. Peter Nowalk's Shondaland thriller premiered on ABC September 25, 2014: brilliant defense professor Annalise Keating and her students improvise a life of cover-ups, flash-forward murder board as house style. Viola Davis as a network gravity well — the first Black woman to win the Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series. The Keating 5 — Wes, Michaela, Connor, Laurel, and company — learn law and loyalty the hard way. (From here: mild. The syllabus is the murder.) Lana can have the gown. **The ship is the cover-up.**

Six seasons (2014–2020), ninety episodes, Rhimes's Thursday dominance extended into pulp academia with awards heat. Mid-season murder reveals were the sport. Representation and pure soap thrills under one brand. Billy Brown, Alfred Enoch, Aja Naomi King in the orbit. Twists stack until morality is just another case file. When you want network thriller that never pretends to be tasteful first, Annalise is the closing argument. Tastefulness was never the fandom's ask.

What the timeline decided at 1 a.m.: (1) the pilot buries a syllabus, Davis as gravity, flash-forward boards on night one; (2) *It's Time to Move On* titles the lie a cover-up requires, loyalty still the board; (3) *I'm Going Away* as a disappearance joke, thriller grammar still the weekly sport; (4) *Say Goodbye* naming the farewell tour, last lecture announced; (5) *Stay* as a six-season plea as closer, historic Lead Actress filing the cover-up that started in class. Item five is where the chat cries. Item one is where somebody spoils the board in the subject line.

Davis's historic Emmy is not a carpet sidebar. It is the non-negotiable fandom fact. (Spoiler-free, mostly: the win is public; the mid-season reveals are nuclear if you are new.) The tags wanted the twist factory. The replies wanted Annalise. If the image desk is busy with a look, the watercooler is still on the murder board.

I need sleep and a rewatch of the first board. See you in the tags arguing which mid-season body was the sport. HTGAWM did not need a silent-film silhouette to make Thursday industrial. It needed Davis, a class of killers, and a brand that treated pulp and a barrier break as the same hour. Poll: which Keating 5 are you. Don't lie.

Episode guide

How this series is filed

TV Flash files How to Get Away with Murder (2014–2020) on ABC as the episode guide: 90 listed hours across 6 seasons, 2014-09-25–2020-05-14 from “Pilot” (S01E01) to “Stay” (S06E15).

Open the episode guide · S01E01 Pilot · S06E15 Stay