GrahamCracker
Don't fµck with me fellas!
This latest Sam/Hannah/Frank reveal (can it even be called a twist when it changes nothing?) made me wonder what is the predominant reasoning behind wrapping up the show. It has to be some combination of fan service, shock value and making some logic sense out of the story lines. I wonder which one will prevail.
The latest episode made me think they're going fan service above everything else. Usually they'd take a fan theory and tease it only to twist it in a different direction (think how they teased Wes being Annalise' son for a while...).
Pete's writing has always been about introducing a twist just because and than "spin" the ramifications of it based on how he feels about the characters.
This for example explains how he turned Sam into a xesual abuse victim. He always implicitly wrote as if Sam being killed was this huge injustice - the show establishes Sam as a bad guy, the justice system as noneffective and not trustworthy, seemingly to make Sam's murder and the cover-up as both justified and inevitable - to give us a reason to root for the characters. They achieve this with the cases of the week - all of Annalise's clients are innocent culminating with the case involving Asher's father and Rebecca - the prosecutors couldn't care less about what happened or Lila, they just wanted to get it over with and Rebecca was the easiest target among the suspects.
So by murder night only a complete idiot would have thought it was a good idea to trust the police and the DA office. It's also interesting that they all refer to themselves as being Sam's killer - they all consider themselves guilty of murder.
Pete obviously abandoned that direction deciding instead to muddle the waters - a subtle way he did this was by making Annalise's clients guilty. This culminates in the sociopath teen who manipulates a group of friends to kill one of them - Connor causes Annalise to lose the case by leaking a video to the aDA. By this time Pete also changed the K5 characters. In S1 this wouldn't have made sense for Connor or Michaela. It would have made more sense for Wes and Laurel who were the moral ones and social justice sensible part of the group. Pete eventually stripped them of this characteristic to give it to Connor - who in S1 was essentially the gate keeper to Oliver or slept his way to evidence.
Interestingly Wes and Laurel were the original smart ones but Pete took that away from them too (even as far as grades go - even as far as S2 Annalise says Wes' grades are supposed to better then just fine and he confirms, in one of the last conversations he has with Laurel she asks him about his grades noting he has issues with that).
Now despite it being established that Sam was a bad guy and got Lila murdered, he kept pushing a narrative that goes against that - Rebecca is treated as if she was guilty if Lila's and Sam's murder so she's killed off, Annalise is punished for covering the murder up (her final storyline still plays on the idea that she's actually guilty - she could easily throw them all under the bus and save herself - she has no one to protect at this point.), Wes who killed him is killed off himself (his death being foreshadowed as early as S2). Frank who actually killed Lila on Sam's order is redeemed, Bonnie (who's team Sam well into S2) is also forgiven for killing Lila (this hurt Wes' plot as we already knew what happened to Rebecca so him investigating it felt pointless).
S2 is really heavy on making us think Annalise is the big villain "who ruins everyone's lives" who in turn blames Wes for ruining hers. I think every character threw that line at her that season (Eve included btw.) - most interestingly Frank who is trashing her behind her back to Laurel throughout the season - all the while we were about to find out he caused the accident that ended in her losing her unborn son - but it was her fault because she was not nice to him after getting him out of jail.
Meanwhile the flashbacks keep painting Sam as the long suffering husband - they even did a retcon when they decided Annalise cheated with Nate before Sam did with Lila.
There is a logic to how the show s written it just happens to be an exceptionally dumb one - basically Pete keeps chipping away from some characters (Annalise, Wes, Laurel...) to give to others (Sam, Frank, Connor, Oliver...) while mostly ignoring others (Michaela, Bonnie, Nate, Tegan, Gabriel...) who are either plot devices or side kicks.
You can predict almost every direction the show took keeping these dynamics in mind - some of the twists are too random to predict but they do follow this same logic in how it affects the characters.
This makes me wonder what he'll do for the big finale. If he goes full on echo chamber fan service he may end up doing something stupid like having Connor save the day or actually kill off Annalise and make it "her fault" so the Sam vindication is pushed even further.
I think it's perfectly possible that Michaela, Bonnie, Nate, Tegan and Gabriel will still end up dead for shock value - i think none of them will have a particularly important role in the remaining episodes. All the not-happy endings for shock value are among them. Annalise and Laurel may end up dead because it seems like something that feels right to Pete. Either way i think he's ambivalent about giving them a happy ending. All the not-happy endings for shock value are in that among those characters. They can go either way, it all depends on Wes as all three are always on the same side - if Wes is alive they get a happy ending.
I wonder if Frank will end up "losing" - this depends on how the revel reflects on him. If he's being thrown under the bus than they'll introduce something that makes him non-redeemable as of now his nasty backstory suggest he'll get a happy ending.
The latest episode made me think they're going fan service above everything else. Usually they'd take a fan theory and tease it only to twist it in a different direction (think how they teased Wes being Annalise' son for a while...).
Pete's writing has always been about introducing a twist just because and than "spin" the ramifications of it based on how he feels about the characters.
This for example explains how he turned Sam into a xesual abuse victim. He always implicitly wrote as if Sam being killed was this huge injustice - the show establishes Sam as a bad guy, the justice system as noneffective and not trustworthy, seemingly to make Sam's murder and the cover-up as both justified and inevitable - to give us a reason to root for the characters. They achieve this with the cases of the week - all of Annalise's clients are innocent culminating with the case involving Asher's father and Rebecca - the prosecutors couldn't care less about what happened or Lila, they just wanted to get it over with and Rebecca was the easiest target among the suspects.
So by murder night only a complete idiot would have thought it was a good idea to trust the police and the DA office. It's also interesting that they all refer to themselves as being Sam's killer - they all consider themselves guilty of murder.
Pete obviously abandoned that direction deciding instead to muddle the waters - a subtle way he did this was by making Annalise's clients guilty. This culminates in the sociopath teen who manipulates a group of friends to kill one of them - Connor causes Annalise to lose the case by leaking a video to the aDA. By this time Pete also changed the K5 characters. In S1 this wouldn't have made sense for Connor or Michaela. It would have made more sense for Wes and Laurel who were the moral ones and social justice sensible part of the group. Pete eventually stripped them of this characteristic to give it to Connor - who in S1 was essentially the gate keeper to Oliver or slept his way to evidence.
Interestingly Wes and Laurel were the original smart ones but Pete took that away from them too (even as far as grades go - even as far as S2 Annalise says Wes' grades are supposed to better then just fine and he confirms, in one of the last conversations he has with Laurel she asks him about his grades noting he has issues with that).
Now despite it being established that Sam was a bad guy and got Lila murdered, he kept pushing a narrative that goes against that - Rebecca is treated as if she was guilty if Lila's and Sam's murder so she's killed off, Annalise is punished for covering the murder up (her final storyline still plays on the idea that she's actually guilty - she could easily throw them all under the bus and save herself - she has no one to protect at this point.), Wes who killed him is killed off himself (his death being foreshadowed as early as S2). Frank who actually killed Lila on Sam's order is redeemed, Bonnie (who's team Sam well into S2) is also forgiven for killing Lila (this hurt Wes' plot as we already knew what happened to Rebecca so him investigating it felt pointless).
S2 is really heavy on making us think Annalise is the big villain "who ruins everyone's lives" who in turn blames Wes for ruining hers. I think every character threw that line at her that season (Eve included btw.) - most interestingly Frank who is trashing her behind her back to Laurel throughout the season - all the while we were about to find out he caused the accident that ended in her losing her unborn son - but it was her fault because she was not nice to him after getting him out of jail.
Meanwhile the flashbacks keep painting Sam as the long suffering husband - they even did a retcon when they decided Annalise cheated with Nate before Sam did with Lila.
There is a logic to how the show s written it just happens to be an exceptionally dumb one - basically Pete keeps chipping away from some characters (Annalise, Wes, Laurel...) to give to others (Sam, Frank, Connor, Oliver...) while mostly ignoring others (Michaela, Bonnie, Nate, Tegan, Gabriel...) who are either plot devices or side kicks.
You can predict almost every direction the show took keeping these dynamics in mind - some of the twists are too random to predict but they do follow this same logic in how it affects the characters.
This makes me wonder what he'll do for the big finale. If he goes full on echo chamber fan service he may end up doing something stupid like having Connor save the day or actually kill off Annalise and make it "her fault" so the Sam vindication is pushed even further.
I think it's perfectly possible that Michaela, Bonnie, Nate, Tegan and Gabriel will still end up dead for shock value - i think none of them will have a particularly important role in the remaining episodes. All the not-happy endings for shock value are among them. Annalise and Laurel may end up dead because it seems like something that feels right to Pete. Either way i think he's ambivalent about giving them a happy ending. All the not-happy endings for shock value are in that among those characters. They can go either way, it all depends on Wes as all three are always on the same side - if Wes is alive they get a happy ending.
I wonder if Frank will end up "losing" - this depends on how the revel reflects on him. If he's being thrown under the bus than they'll introduce something that makes him non-redeemable as of now his nasty backstory suggest he'll get a happy ending.