Annalise Keating insists that she’s done nothing but protect her five-star law students, since they caused the death of her cheating husband, but for some reason they don’t seem to believe her. The lengths she’s gone to to keep their behinds covered would be commendable if the professor weren’t also erasing that moral line—and encouraging them to do so—at almost every opportunity. Here are five reasons they’re struggling to trust her:
1. Annalise is an awful teacher.
To be honest, she seems to be teaching her Keating Five a lot. The question is, what is she teaching? Will any of it transform them into successful lawyers? Maybe … if she can keep them out of jail. She has them running from the law instead of learning about it, scared that they’ll end up behind bars before they can pass the bar. As for Frank, he seems to have learned a few things from Annalise, including how to manipulate the Keating Five. Wes thinks he’s located Rebecca’s body after confronting Frank’s friend Bruno, but it’s a setup. When Wes opens the suitcase he thinks contains a corpse, it’s filled with cash.
2. Annalise trusts no one.
Who can blame her, considering that she was abused as a child, her husband impregnated a student and her students killed him? However, her spying on the quintet doesn’t really seem to be helping. Frank clones the students’ laptops without their knowledge. He also gets rid of Levi, as Annalise instructed, by filling Rebecca’s foster brother’s car with meth. It just so happens that the Keating Five are on the scene as Levi is arrested. (Michaela’s taste in men remains an issue.) Not only does Annalise not trust anyone, but she also acts on her paranoia with no chill.
3. Annalise keeps secrets.
As a child, Bonnie was abused by her father. That’s the secret revealed three weeks before Annalise is found shot at the Hapstall mansion. She shares the (accurate?) info with Bonnie’s lover, Asher, who—because of all the secrets—nearly blabs all he thinks he knows to the prosecutor. Annalise claims that she keeps her students in the dark to protect them, but their suspicion seems more harmful than the truth could ever be. Where would she be now had she told the truth about her husband’s accidental homicide?
4. Annalise lies.
We all lie at some point in time, but Annalise does it often and seemingly with ease. Not only that, but she has no problem supporting others’ tales, too. When Bonnie tells Asher that she’s the one who killed Sam, Annalise jumps right on board. She confirms the lie for Asher and then tells Nate the same story. Will Bonnie end up in jail, convicted of a murder she didn’t commit? Well, she did commit murder—just not that particular one.
5. Annalise pushes boundaries.
How many times has Annalise stared deeply into Wes’ eyes? One time is too many when it comes to a professor and her student. She also pushes boundaries in court as she struggles to get the Hapstall aunt’s testimony thrown out. Oliver—whom Connor loves—illegally plants audio to implicate the siblings’ racist relative, but that evidence is thrown out.
Speaking of boundaries, the propriety of allowing your students practically unhindered access to your home remains in question. Of course, the biggest boundary buster happened much earlier when Annalise decided to take her students out to a nightclub. Where they do that?
While Annalise clearly has issues, so far, it seems, she has been looking out for her students, but they can’t be blamed for questioning her motives and authenticity. Let’s hope they also can’t be blamed for the hole in her chest. There seem to be plenty of other suspects to consider for that apparent crime. Only one, however, left the scene drenched in blood: Bonnie.