Sunday, April 3, 2016

(TV Series) How to Get Away with Murder - Season 1

This will be my 1st review of a TV series. I chose this one as it is the series that I am currently watching. The title immediately caught my attention as I was choosing what series I wanted to watch during my night rest after hard day's work.

The story revolves around a defense attorney lawyer - Annalise Keating (played by Viola Davis - Eat Pray Love, Blackhat) who also teaches law in the Philadelphia university. She is portrayed as a very strict and ruthless professor where every year, she will choose 4 of her students to be her intern in her court cases. A trophy will be given to the best of these 4 students by the end of the semester which creates competition among the interns.

In the pilot episode, Annalise chose Michaela (played by Aja Naomi King), Connor (played by Jack Falahee), Laurel (played by Karla Souza) and Asher (played by Matt McGorry). Due to some reasons, Annalise somehow added a 5th intern to the curiosity of other students. Last but not least would be Wes (played by Alfred Enoch).
It was also shown in the opening scenes of this episode that Wes, Laurel, Michaela and Connor were busy trying to dispose of a dead body during the college bonfire. And afterwards the story would back track to 3 months prior to that incident. 

After the 5 interns have been chosen, Annalise brought them to her house which also serves as her office where she is aided by Bonnie (played by Liza Weil) and Frank (played by Charlie Weber).
The first case is about the death of a CEO of a major company due to sleeping pills poisoning, where his 2nd assistant (who was also his mistress) is suspected of purposely giving the pills. Annalise asked her interns to find anything that can help for her defense. All the interns would be competing against one another to find any clues and each student would be providing lots of ideas even the out of box thinking.

Meanwhile, we are also introduced to Rebecca Sutter, Wes' neighbor (played by Katie Findley) who is also series regular. Other noteworthy characters would include Nate, the detective in Philadephia PD (played by Billy Brown) and Sam Keating, the husband of Annalise (played by Tom Verica), and also Oliver, Connor's love interest (played by Conrad Ricamora). There is also the case of a missing college student named Lila Stangard (played by Megan West).

The series would be told in 2 time periods. First would be about the disposing body in the start of the series. While second would be about the cases that Annalise and the interns are trying to solve which starts 3 months prior to the disposing body story line and moving forward in each episode until it will be in line with the first time period in episode 9.  

Cases that Annalise and the interns handle would vary in each episode, such as the case of a millionaire accused of murdering his wife, insider trading, defending a son's murder of abusive father, re-opening case of murderer in death row and others. 

I truly had great moments watching this tv series. Each episode makes me want to watch the next one as almost every episode will provide ending that is intriguing, especially episode 9 (which is also a mid-season finale) where we would finally see the complete story line of the body disposal.
Starting from episode 10, the story line would change a little bit but with 1 major case being handled by Annalise & her interns and other cases they would take like in the 1st half of the season.
They have also added few characters with one very exceptional is Hannah Keating (Sam's sister - played by Marcia Gay Harden).

In addition to raising curiosity of the viewers on the murder from pilot episode, viewers are also shown various ways of winning court cases taught by Annalise through her teachings or through the creativity of her interns to find alternatives and evidences.
Each characters would be given their share of story also. Some would involve their love interest which I guess comes with the territory and to keep viewers intrigued and continue watching. I believe this is a series for adults as there are few love making scenes, though not as vulgar as Game Of Thrones or True Blood series but for some people, it can be considered a little too much, such as Connor's part.

So, if you are interested in watching a television series where there are various plots & twists, combined with courtroom scenes and you also want to find out "how to get away with murder", the first season is definitely worth to watch. Especially, if you continue until episode 15 which is the season finale as it would totally blow your mind away. I personally cannot wait until I got the time to watch the 2nd season.

Mike's movie moments rating: 4.5 out 5 stars

Note:
- This series is produced by Shonda Rimes who was the creator of other famous TV series such as Grey's Anatomy - a medical drama and Scandal - a political drama.
- Pilot episode is referred to as the opening episode of a new TV series. A pilot would always be reviewed by Television network whether there are enough people watching it and worthy of producing into full TV series. 
- TV series airing in US networks usually will have some break in the middle of 1 season. The final episode of the 1st half of the season will be called as Mid-season finale. Meanwhile the final episode of the 2nd half of the season is called Season finale.

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