When you watch a show titled How to Get Away with Murder, you might actually want to know if anybody got away with murder.
So here’s for all the Murder fans, who of the Keating 5 actually got away with murder and who were held guilty.
For purposes of integrity, I am also including Annalise and her assistants Bonnie and Frank in this list.
Time for the quick answer for those of you who are only reading about this six-season long show and don’t have the required time to commit.
No, they never get caught. Yes, justice is however served to each one of them, including Annalise, Bonnie, and Frank.
However, it may not have been so in the most traditional way or form. Either the wrongdoers don’t survive by end of the series or face a tragic fate, but each one moves on with scars for life from the Keating House. Speaking of the house itself, well, it burns down too.
So that’s that. Moving on to what really happened to each Keating House member in some detail.
1. A Long, Happy and Full Life
As the show’s matriarch and mentor to the Keating 5, Annalise (played by the brilliant Viola Davis) has had the queen’s share of struggles throughout the six seasons.
In addition to defending the defenceless, she lost her husband, her home and then had to defend herself in her own husband’s murder.
However, she is found not guilty for the conspiracy to murder her former husband, as well as all of the other murders that built up across the series. After all, it’s true, she never did kill anyone!
Annalise also gets a proper goodbye. In the future, she is eulogized at her funeral by her forbidden first love, aptly named Eve.
We learn that even after coming dangerously close to the gallows, she survives “a lifetime of struggles and triumphs.” She continues to confront her alcoholism yet lives a happy life full of various lovers and loved ones.
The finale episode shows a cycling montage of Annalise’s hands clasped with various lovers’ across the years.
Fans are left to fill in the blanks of whom they may belong to. (Da*n Viola, how do you manage to bag the best roles ever written.)
2. A Loyal Life Born of Incest
For those who didn’t pick a clue still, I am talking about Frank, the son of siblings Sam and Hannah Keating.
This rather crime-friendly character wins all our hearts with his fierce loyalty toward Annalise throughout the show.
After the final trial, on the very steps of the courthouse, Frank commits the last murder of the show by shooting and killing Governor Birkhead, the woman who pins Annalise with almost all the crimes of the last six seasons.
Frank is shot by police officers, but as he dies in his lover Bonnie’s arms, his last words are, “I had to make it right.”
He stays loyal to Annalise after all that time, and always. (A bit of Snape memorabilia for us Potterheads.)
As a murderer of many, Frank meets his fate and begins the first of the many salvations that happen on the show.
3. The Truest Lover
This award definitely goes to Bonnie Winterbottom, the sweetest scarlet lips I ever saw on TV.
A survivor of child abuse by her own father, Bonnie takes some messy turns down the road. She kills, and more than once, but mostly because of her own misplaced trust in those she chooses to love.
She meets her end alongside long-time partner and later lover, Frank. It is revealed that Bonnie, too, is shot in the crossfire while trying to stop Frank outside the courthouse.
She dies in Annalise’s arms, a rather devastating yet poetic end after years of their rocky but always honest love and friendship.
4. Putting Love First, Always
Coming from a family of criminals, Laurel Castillo studies to become a lawyer to break even the slightest threads tying her to the world of crime.
However, she does have a thing for those whose heart is slightly shadowed. After Frank’s lies about him murdering Lila Stangard come through, she breaks all ties with him.
But later in the show, we see her in the most wallflower-esque relationship with Wes. This despite the fact that she witnessed him murder Sam Keating in front of her eyes.
Maybe he finally helped her separate a criminal from their crime. Their bond is short-lived after Wes is killed on her own father’s orders, but the show gives her a beautiful life.
She admits in court that the FBI coerced Annalise’s former students to lie on the stand, helping to secure her mentor’s non-guilty verdict.
After the courthouse killings, she flees the scene with her son, Christopher. In the future, she attends Annalise’s funeral with an adult Christopher—who looks exactly like his father, Wes.
Christopher goes on to carry forth Annalise’s legacy when we see him teaching the course Criminal Law 101, also known as How to Get Away with Murder.
5. Writing Her Own Life Story
As the smartest and most ambitious of the lot, Michaela manages to move beyond her dark years with the Keating 5 and build a life she always dreamt of.
Along the way, she does lose her friends and several loved ones, but the woman is just too focused on making something out of herself to be bogged down by any of it.
Her friendships mainly end after she chooses to negotiate a deal with the police to avoid jail time.
Connor and Oliver are angry about her act of self-preservation, and Laurel doesn’t even bother to answer her call afterward. But as they say, you gotta do what you gotta do.
In the future, she is not in attendance at Annalise’s funeral but is instead shown wearing judicial robes, swearing-in on a Bible, with two daughters by her side.
6. Crime and Repentance
He may be the hottest member of the K5, but it is Connor who is the only one serving jail time as part of his involvement in covering up Sam Keating’s murder.
In a way, he is the only one who couldn’t get away with murder. However, the fact that he was ready for jail long before he actually was convicted made it a much simpler aspect of his complex life. You commit a crime, you repent.
The bigger tragedy for him would have been to lose the one thing he wanted the most—love. Which he does not. Right before accepting a jail term, he gives his wedding ring back to Oliver, telling him, “Thank you—now I know how to love.” Oliver is heartbroken.
In the future, the couple is back together. The two lock arms at Annalise’s funeral, once again wearing their wedding rings. (Stab-in-the-gut moment!)
7. Privilege Murders Privilege
The story of Asher Millstone is that of sheer white privilege meeting a dark end.
Prior to the finale, Asher is killed by the FBI after being outed as a mole against Annalise and the remaining Keating 5, and despite being accused of his murder, Annalise is found not guilty.
While Asher may not have murdered anybody or even tried to protect someone who did, he does allow a gangrape on his watch.
He also discovers the corrupt past of his father, a senior justice, which allowed an innocent black man to be sentenced to death.
8. The Dark Knight
Last but not the least, Wes meets his end early on in the show, after he is murdered by his girlfriend’s family.
Despite killing a man, Wes remained one of the most innocent characters on the show. Deceit was unknown to this puppy and he finds true love in Laurel.
The show’s writers, too, couldn’t seem to let go of him so easily since his presence echoes throughout Annalise’s trial as he was the one who dealt the final blow that killed her husband.
He lives on through his son, Christopher, seen in the future at Annalise’s funeral.
So, there you go, all in all, everyone involved in Sam Keating’s murder does get away with it except Connor, who, too, finds salvation of sorts from the experience.
The show managed to deliver what it promised—that sometimes things can go awfully wrong but there is always a way out. If you remain true to your honor.
9. About How to Get Away with Murder
This hit ABC legal drama first aired in 2014, and now premieres on Netflix. It centers around a criminal defense lawyer and matriarch Annalise Keating.
She runs her practice out of her home, and keeps a team of assistants and a few select students close to help her with work, which involves defending people accused of murder.
Things go awry when Annalise begins to suspect her own husband of murdering a student at Middleton College, where she teaches. Soon after, all hell breaks loose when her husband is killed as well.
What ensues is six seasons of fast-paced drama imbued in legal jargon, as unexpected murders continue to rise, and we are left wondering: exactly how many murders can you really get away with?
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