Shonda Rhimes has become synonymous with successful dramas. Rhimes’ production company, Shondaland, produced its first series in 2005 with Grey’s Anatomy. The medical drama continues to air on ABC and was renewed for a 19th season in January. Shondaland has also produced Grey’s Anatomy spin-offs, Private Practice and Station 19. In 2017, Rhimes signed a deal with Netflix, allowing Shondaland to continue to produce a range of dramas, which now include Bridgerton and Inventing Anna.
2014 was a massive year for Shondaland. The production company premiered its newest series, How to Get Away with Murder, which took ABC by storm. The addition of How to Get Away with Murder to Shondaland’s ABC lineup birthed TGIT or, “Thank God It’s Thursday,” which would air Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal, and How to Get Away with Murder back to back. How to Get Away with Murder was created by Peter Nowalk, who previously worked on Grey’s Anatomy and Scandal. The legal thriller starred Viola Davis, Billy Brown, Liza Weil, Charlie Weber, Tom Verica, and Cicely Tyson.
How to Get Away with Murder follows Professor Annalise Keating (Davis), who teaches at Middleton University and works as one of the most sought-after criminal defense attorneys in Philadelphia. She works out of her home with her trusted employees Bonnie Winterbottom (Weil) and Frank Delfino (Weber), who sometimes work outside the law to get the information they need. As the series shows, the history between the three runs deep and rather complicated. This only grows more complex after Annalise begins her annual competition in her classroom, in which she chooses four of her students to intern for her.
The pilot of How to Get Away with Murder explores the likely choices for Annalise’s future interns, who come with conflicting personalities. Michaela Pratt (Aja Naomi King) is a recently engaged student with hopes of emulating Annalise. Connor Walsh (Jack Falahee) is a confident and slightly cocky man who, very early on, demonstrates he too is willing to go outside the law to get into Annalise’s good graces. Laurel Castillo (Karla Souza) and Asher Millstone (Matt McGorry) both hail from largely successful families, but neither of them hopes to rely on their names to make a career for themselves. The outlier of the group is Wes Gibbins (Alfred Enoch), who, unlike the others, was pulled from the Middleton waitlist shortly before the first day of class, leaving him far less prepared for Annalise’s requirements than the rest.
How to Get Away with Murdertransports its viewers through time, using a compilation of the past, present, and future to string together the secret-infused crimes that riddle each season. These crimes bind these characters together, but the guilt they harbor also threatens to tear them apart. Each season of How to Get Away with Murder revolves around a different mind-bending trouble that always seems to find one of the series’ core characters. Some seasons include multiple high-scale crimes that only make the terrain these characters are operating within that much more dangerous.
Season 1 uses the atmosphere of the Middleton campus to introduce the case of Lila Stangard (Megan West), a student of the university who has been missing for several months. By the end of the pilot, Lila’s body is found in the water tank of her sorority house. As Annalise watches the report on the news, she makes the ironically confident statement, “I bet you the boyfriend did it.” The pilot also transports viewers several months ahead, where Michaela, Connor, Laurel, and Wes argue about the best way to get rid of a body in Annalise’s house. They decide on burning the body and the glimmer of the flame reveals the victim as Sam Keating (Verica), Annalise’s husband.
This revelation in the pilot episode weighs on the rest of the entire series. Some of Annalise’s students deal with the memories of that night better than others, and some remain entirely unaware of the night’s occurrence. Several other characters are met throughout the duration of the series, including Detective Nate Lahey (Brown), an on-again-off-again partner of Annalise; Connor’s boyfriend Oliver Hampton (Conrad Ricamora); Wes’ neighbor Rebecca Sutter (Katie Findlay); and Annalise’s mother Ophelia Harkness (Tyson).
What makes How to Get Away with Murder such a worthwhile series to binge doesn’t solely rely on the committed crimes and the twists it provides. The haunting personal lives of each of these characters, as they slowly come unwound through the trauma they experience together, is at the heart of the series. As much as these characters butt heads, they ultimately force one another to confront some of the most detrimental moments of their lives, through equally traumatizing crimes. The performances of the entire cast are phenomenal throughout the entire series, through both individual scenes and work as an ensemble. Davis' performance in the series earned her an Emmy in 2015.
As impressive as Davis is as How to Get Away with Murder’s leading character, Weil, Weber, King, Falahee, Souza, McGorry, and Enoch all give performances that will leave some wondering why they haven’t seen them in other significant projects. Some of them may appear familiar to some viewers: Weil played Paris Geller in Gilmore Girls, Enoch played Dean Thomas in the Harry Potter franchise, McGorry appeared in Netflix’s Orange is the New Black as John Bennett, and Souza starred in countless Mexican sitcoms and telenovelas before seeking English roles. Whether their previous work rings any bells, their characters in How to Get Away with Murder are simply unforgettable.
How to Get Away with Murder is now streaming on Netflix.