Hit them and they’ll hit you back, literally and figuratively. Through pimp slaps, suspensions and black eyes, this was the week of stellar clapbacks, with nearly everyone slinging shade.
This episode of How to Get Away With Murder begins with Annalise crying up snot in a jail cell. She is rocking and moaning like she missed her last chance for passage on the Underground Railroad. Why the tears? ’Cause the person under the white sheet (whose identity remains a mystery to us) is dead, and because Laurel (who is pregnant) almost died in the fire with this person.
Next, we flash back to four weeks earlier, when the fun clapbacks begin.
1. The University Clapback
Uh, remember last week when Annalise pimp-slapped her client? Well, a courthouse camera recorded it, and her law license kinda gets suspended. Oops. So, Annalise has Oliver do some cyber-digging, and it turns out that a board member at Middleton University sent the video to the district attorney’s office. Ouch. The university’s president gladly informs Annalise that no license means no tenure, and that she (and not Annalise) will always be the HNIC. Double ouch.
2. The “You’re Just a Booty Call” Clapback
The courtroom is packed with lawyers and spectators. Asher sweats ferociously at the defense table, as nervous as a pig at a county fair, while Laurel grills Michaela, as haughty as a vegetarian snubbing meat. “We’re calling him your boyfriend, now?” Laurel inquires. “God, no,” Michaela replies, her answer dripping with disdain. “It’s just sex.”
Sometimes—and if you’re Asher, it’s all the time—sometimes you’re late to the party and the last to realize that to some people, you’re just a piece of pork.
3. The Celibacy Clapback
Connor gets back at Oliver for dumping him by getting on HumpR (a dating app) and humping two guys (at the same time), but not before he checks their IDs (’cause of statutory rape) and their condoms (’cause of STDs). Connor “nonchalantly” mentions this sexual escapade to Oliver and asks for a second chance, but Oliver is the man and refuses. Essentially he’s like, “Yeah, I know you’re one of the few men who would date an infected guy like me, but nah, I’m good.” Talk about strength of character.
4. The Double Clapback
Eve saunters back into town, looking like a shiny red apple in a tight white dress, and Annalise tries to take a bite. Nate interrogates: “You sleeping with Eve?” It doesn’t go well. Annalise admits that she never asked him to move in and calls him “a little bitch.” Uh, not the thing to say to a black male cop. … Nate blasts her with the kind of clapback that you give someone you are done with: “You’re an alcoholic. You’re a cancer. That’s why Sam cheated. You’ll die alone in this house, and no one will give a rat’s ass. … Get help.” He adds insult to injury by sleeping with the district attorney who is intent on destroying Annalise. How ’bout them apples?
5. The Queen’s Clapback
Annalise turns Nate’s relationship-ending rant into her defense. She tells the Pennsylvania Bar Association that the stress of her personal life and professional life culminated in alcoholism, hence her erratic behavior, like assaulting clients. Annalise plays the victim’s violin beautifully and skillfully before the association. “I’m ashamed and embarrassed by my behavior,” she claims, knowing full and well that alcoholism is a protected defense. She “humbly” agrees to seek treatment so that her license can be reinstated. She is the master manipulator, the queen of clandestine clapbacks and side-eye comebacks. With her, court is always in session.
6. The Ultimate Clapback
How do you clap back from death? You don’t. Muscleman Frank sneaks into Coalport State Prison as a janitor and slips poison into the oxygen mask of Bonnie’s child-molester father. Frank happily grips the mask to his face as he struggles to breathe. The only thing colder than killing a frail, gray-haired man in a prison hospital bed is uttering these three words while you do it: “Enjoy hell, Bob.”