Who can forget the hot gay mess of a soul with the sexiest jawline that Connor Walsh was for all six seasons of How to Get Away with Murder?
The no-nonsense ever-paranoid go-getter made his mark in the very first episode when he screwed his way through a major task handed to him by Prof. Annalise Keating.
Yet, it seems that his smartness was not the only reason he made it to the elite Keating 5. So what was the real reason?
While one would like to believe merit was the sole criteria for Annalise to decide who would enter her crazy workaholic world, the truth soon became clear with the passing season.
It turns out that Annalise had some very specific ulterior motives behind each of her selections. With time, we got a good idea of what all went through the Queen bee’s mind before she chose each of her workers, each one except Connor.
It is not until the very end of the series that we finally find out that Annalise had been asked by her assistant Bonnie to select Connor. While her other assistant Frank chose Laurel, Bonnie chose Connor.
Why Is the Reason Important?
For the longest time, fans believed that their favorite matriarch and criminal defense lawyer Annalise Keating selected her team based on their classroom performance.
However, as time passed and we got to witness the intense, almost co-dependent of a setting that was created for the interns, it became clear that there had to be more than a classroom test as a basis for Annalise to let these kids into her life.
As the show progressed, Annalise’s ulterior motives began to get revealed. Starting with the puppy of the team, Wes Gibbins’ dead mother was known to Annalise, and so he had to be on the team.
Notice how she specifically gives him a chance to stand out by letting him go last on the qualifying test for the Keating 5.
Considering he was a waitlisted student and gravely unprepared for the class, she gives him time to prepare.
Annalise’s Reason to Choose Connor
Of the five, Michaela and Connor are the only two who could actually have been selected on the basis of merit. But it seems like there were other deeper reasons behind their selection as well.
In the case of Michaela, Annalise seemed to see a lot of herself in the bright and ambitious girl.
Michaela had a difficult childhood, as she had been adopted by a horrible family, with whom she breaks all ties and rebuilds herself.
This is not unlike Annalise who was abused as a child, suffers from depression and anxiety, and is even suicidal at times. She also renames herself Annalise even though her birth name was Anna Mae.
Just like Michaela, she is independent, smart, and desperate to prove herself. So, besides identifying with Michaela’s difficult upbringing and her grit in the face of it all, Annalise also relies on merit for this one. They have a whole symbiotic thing going where Michaela actually wants to become Annalise!
In the case of Connor, there are no dirty secrets with him except how he screws people to get evidence for cases.
But the fact that Annalise picked him on merit alone really bothers both fans and Connor himself.
Even after Annalise once acknowledges how she sees herself in Connor’s distrustful and paranoid self, he is not satisfied.
Annalise even called both herself and Connor “worriers”, people who worry their way through problems.
What Was the Real Reason?
It is not until the final season that Bonnie clears the air on what drove Connor’s selection.
It turns out that it has to do with Connor’s older project, where he used his knowledge of the law to help expose gay conversion camps. Also, it was not Annalise but Bonnie, who selected Connor.
In this scene attached below, we are told that Annalise allows both her assistants to each select one intern. While Frank allegedly goes for Laurel, Bonnie selects Connor.
The irony of this situation, as even Connor points out, is that he was selected for the one time that he helped others.
But after becoming a part of Keating 5, he seemed to have lost all his will to help others and just “worry” about saving his own ass.
We have seen some of the darkest sides of Connor, and also others, been exposed following Sam Keating’s murder. But in the end, the show is about using the law to protect the weakest, despite however messed up the means to the end would be.
Not trying to start the debate of means and end, and what should justify what, but it is what it is. What better example of this do we have than Connor, who has one of the most tragic storylines on the show.
A lost and messed-up gay white man who is just trying to find a meaningful life and love, but gets tangled in the web of the courtroom and the skewed American justice system.
When Does Connor Really Prove His Worth?
Amid the emotionally charged selection of Wes, there was Connor who was the horse of the lot and the fastest one to help out Annalise in the real-life courtroom cases.
Besides, he also proves his worth on the qualifying assignment, which Annalise had easily rigged in favor of Wes.
Even Laurel may have performed well on the qualifying test, but couldn’t help with a proper case until much later in season 1.
In fact, Annalise often picks on Laurel in the classroom, making us wonder why she chose her at all if she hated her so much! Well, now we know why.
Coming to Asher, the rich spoilt brat and an average student, he seems to have been selected because of his father.
Annalise had long waited to win the David Allen case, on which Asher’s father had presided as the ruling judge and colluded with the powers that be to send an innocent man to the gallows.
It only makes sense to have his son work on the victim’s case. Even I agree with Annalise on this, except for the fact that he ends up becoming a mole against the Keating 5, which is sad. But hey, what isn’t sad on this show?
Heck, the man dies. (Oops, too much of a spoiler?)
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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