SPOILER ALERT: This story contains details about the Season 3 finale of ABC’s How to Get Away with Murder.
One mystery ends, another begins: Tonight’s two-hour season finale of ABC’s How to Get Away With Murder revealed Wes’ killer while leaving viewers wondering, well, who is Wes’ killer?
“Isn’t that what you want, to find out who killed Wes and make them pay?” asked Viola Davis’ Professor Annalise Keating early in tonight’s double episode. She was talking to her (mostly) loyal gang of students, but she might as well have been speaking directly to this season’s viewers. “Now let’s get to work.”
The murder of law student Wes Gibbons (Alfred Enoch) — the central plotline in recent weeks — had entangled just about everybody on the show, from Annalise to her fixer Frank Delfina (Charlie Weber), with Wes’ maybe-pal and classmate Connor Walsh (Jack Falahee) another possibility. Toss in a body that wouldn’t stay put, a crooked assistant district attorney (Milauna Jackson), maybe even Annalise’s elderly mom (Cicely Tyson), and the regular cast of characters had turned into a roundup of usual suspects.
But tonight’s season finale of the Shondaland production brought in a ringer. With 15 minutes to go, the killer was revealed to be a new-to-the-show criminal played by Nicholas Gonzalez, best known for his roles on Pretty Little Liars, The Flash and Bordertown.
The killer, though, has a connection to one of Keating’s students as well as another familiar character. Read on for details.
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Although tonight’s episodes took some plot detours as Keating and her gang tried to take down the district attorney, the recent hints that Connor was the killer were dispatched pretty quickly: Connor did indeed sneak onto the crime scene unbeknownst to his pals, but he was trying to save classmate Wes, not do him in.
Then it was Annalise’s turn to get cleared, with the prof finally revealing to Connor that she didn’t kill Wes, though she certainly did a number on Connor’s psyche (“I know you’re paranoid and broken and haven’t trusted anyone since you were a little boy,” she told him).
Then it was on to Frank’s murder trial, some perjury, a little deal-making, the solving of the arson, the return of Annalise’s archenemy Sylvia Mahoney (Roxanne Hart), a kidnapping involving the nefarious district attorney Todd Denver (Benito Martinez), some revelations about the murder victim and, with 40 minutes left to go, the appearance of Denver’s criminal lackey Dominic, played by Gonzalez, who delivers a key bit of evidence.
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Later, the punk delivers something altogether bigger: the crime’s solution. Jabbing Wes with a sedative and then smothering him — think Tony Soprano offing Christopher Moltisanti — the murderer does the deed, but why?
Although there’s a development that’s most likely a red herring involving Sylvia Mahoney’s rapist son Charles (Wilson Bethel), the big reveal in the final seconds was the connection between killer Dominick and one of Keating’s favorite students (and Wes’ girlfriend) Laurel Castillo (Karla Souza).
Dominic, it seems, has more than one boss. We see him taking orders for the arson from none other than Laurel’s villainous dad, played by Esai Morales.
So why the fire? Why the murder? That, it seems, is for Season 4 to answer.
The first part of tonight’s two-part finale was written by Joe Fazzio and directed by Jet Wilkinson. The second was written by show creator Pete Nowalk and directed by Bill D’Elia.