How to Get Away With Murder Plots a Killer Return

It’s an unseasonably warm December afternoon in Los Angeles, but as cameras roll filming the February 12 episode of How to Get Away With Murder, a bitter chill fills the air. Huddled together on a suburban street, four law-school students nervously look on while cops search the two-story Victorian belonging to their professor, Annalise Keating (Viola Davis)—the very home where one of the group killed Annalise’s husband, Sam (Tom Verica), as the others watched. But the bevy of boys in blue may be less of a threat to their freedom than the woman Annalise confronts outside her place.

“Get off my property!” barks the high-powered defense attorney. Hannah (Marcia Gay Harden)—a pivotal new character armed with a Chanel bag and plenty of righteous indignation aimed at Annalise—seems unfazed. “It’s my legal right to stand on this sidewalk,” she says, a self-satisfied smile tugging at her lips. “And I want to be here when they drag you out of the house in handcuffs.”

Covering up a homicide won’t be easy, even for the brilliantly resourceful Annalise Keating, when the show returns January 29. Then again, what else would you expect from the ABC thriller about a less-than-law-abiding attorney and the hyper-ambitious students—Wes (Alfred Enoch), Michaela (Aja Naomi King), Connor (Jack Falahee), Laurel (Karla Souza), and Asher (Matt McGorry)—who court trouble interning at her Philadelphia firm? With an average of nearly 16 million weekly viewers, Murder has become the season’s buzziest new show, thanks to its killer mix of pretzel-plotted mystery, scandalous storylines, and some of the most provocative sex ever to hit broadcast TV. Exhibit A: Annalise’s very pleasurable extramarital treat from cop boyfriend Nate (Billy Brown). Exhibit B: Conniving first-year law student Connor’s same-sex seduction of an office underling to secure valuable information for a case.

Created by Pete Nowalk and executive produced by his mentor, Shonda Rhimes, the drama is a breakneck-paced roller coaster that the woman behind Thursday’s other ABC hits, Scandal and Grey’s Anatomy, is thrilled to have in her ShondaLand theme park. “I’ll sit down to read a script and have moments where I have to call Pete and say, ‘What you did on Page 8 is crazy! I wouldn’t have thought to do that there,’” Rhimes says. “I love that he tells stories in a way that makes me lean forward and go, ‘What’s gonna happen next?’”

Fans have been asking that very question since Murder’s midseason finale in November, when the show’s central mystery—who killed Sam, Annalise’s philandering psychology professor husband—was solved. Wes did it. In the foyer. With a Lady Justice statuette. The decision to have the upstanding student whack Sam to stop him from choking Wes’s wrong-side-of-the-tracks girlfriend, Rebecca (Katie Findlay), was one Nowalk waffled on until the eleventh hour. “I was open to finding someone else,” he says. (Quiet legal eagle Laurel and Annalise’s icy associate Bonnie, played by Liza Weil, were other potential perpetrators.) “But Wes just felt very appropriate. He loves Rebecca and protected her, and I think that’s brave. Dark, but brave.”

The even bleaker twist? After learning her hubby of 20 years was dead, a chillingly calm Annalise told Wes not to be sorry for his actions. Still, Davis insists her character, who reported Sam missing to police, isn’t heartless. “When the show returns, you’ll definitely see an Annalise who’s devastated by the loss,” the actress says. “But while she’s mourning, she’s also at the cusp of having a come-to-Jesus moment about the path she’s taking in life.”

In fact, every major character will be irrevocably changed by Wes’s deadly deed and the ensuing investigation that begins in the January 29 episode, titled “Hello, Raskolnikov”—a nod to the law-student protagonist of Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment, whose guilt over committing murder drives him to madness. As Annalise and her students give individual statements to police, “the tension we’re dealing with is whether they crack and confess or turn on each other,” Nowalk says. “To get away with this, they have to keep secrets. And they have to continue to do really bad things.”

A former writer on Scandal, Grey’s Anatomy, and Rhimes’s now-shuttered Private Practice, Nowalk had long toyed with the idea of a series about corrupt law associates. But it wasn’t until he decided to age down the characters, making them cutthroat classmates with a ruthless defense-attorney professor, that he finally zeroed in on the Murder plot. “It felt much more exciting,” Nowalk says, “if they were young and impressionable and the professor could manipulate them.” Exciting being the operative word. A fan of old-school legal thrillers like Presumed Innocent and Jagged Edge, Nowalk wanted his show “to feel salacious and juicy, like those murder trials we all get obsessed with in real life.”

To ground the show, Nowalk knew he needed the right leading lady. Enter two-time Oscar nominee Davis, who was looking for the kind of flashy role that had eluded her in film. “I wanted something to bite into,” says the 49-year-old actress, “something complicated that showed what I could do, other than the best friend and the maid.”

While in Atlanta filming a movie, the Help star and the Los Angeles–based producers had their first conversation via speakerphone. “It was like the best blind date ever,” says executive producer Betsy Beers. “Viola already had so much insight into the things that are most interesting about Annalise—her vulnerability and messiness.”

Since signing on, Davis has grown increasingly involved in shaping her character, a collaboration Nowalk values. “I sometimes feel like she’s Picasso, and I’m just handing her the paint,” says the showrunner. He reports that the February 19 episode, which sheds light on Annalise’s backstory, was born from the actress’s ideas. And it was Davis who pitched arguably the drama’s most powerful moment. In the fourth episode, entitled “Let’s Get to Scooping,” Annalise sits before her bedroom mirror wordlessly removing her makeup and sleek wig to reveal her natural, close-cropped curls. Davis, whose performance has been nominated for a Golden Globe and SAG Award, says that any sense of vanity was trumped by her desire to strip an often inscrutable character bare: “When I took this job, I felt like I could either do what’s expected in TV when a character is ‘sexy’ and ‘mysterious,’ which is lose weight and make sure the makeup is always tight, or I could play a woman anchored in truth. And for me, a person that strong and emotionally detached wears a mask in public. I was interested in who she was when she took that mask off at night.”

Nowalk has taken a decidedly bold approach to all of his characters’ private lives. For one, whip-smart Connor has just as active and hot a love life as any straight character. “It’s a sexy show,” says Nowalk, who is openly gay, “and I wanted equal-opportunity sex for everyone.”

While it’s not uncommon to see love scenes involving same-sex couples on Rhimes’s shows, it’s still a rarity on broadcast TV overall—a fact Rhimes has little patience for. “It’s insulting that people think we’re being wild or pushing the envelope because of the people who happen to be doing the making out,” she says. “The characters aren’t doing anything you haven’t seen. It’s just that it’s two men versus a man and woman that suddenly makes everyone think it’s so shocking. And that’s depressing.”

For Falahee, the opportunity to play a groundbreaking character is one he never expected. Little more than a year ago, the Michigan native was paying the bills working for Lyft, a ride-sharing service for which drivers use their own cars. These days, people are flagging his Prius down for an entirely different reason. “I was at a stoplight the other day, singing to Beyoncé superloud, and someone in the car next to me yells, ‘Hey, you’re on that show—you’re great!’” he recalls.

The rest of the young cast has seen life change in the wake of Murder’s success, too. Souza, who’d previously worked largely in her native Mexico, is now recognized in the States, while King is often stopped at the grocery store by fans “wanting to know what’s gonna happen next,” she says, “and I say I’m as eager to find out as anyone else!” And even as his profile has grown, Enoch—a British actor who appeared in the Harry Potter films—has continued to stick to his routine of taking public transportation to set, which has made for some interesting interactions with fellow commuters. “I sat down next to this lady who looked at me and went, ‘What are you doing on the bus?’”

The drama’s upcoming twists will likely throw fans for a loop as well. In the midseason premiere, Annalise—with an assist by her loyal associate Frank (Charlie Weber)—goes to extreme lengths to get charges dropped against Rebecca, who stands accused of bumping off Lila Stangard, Sam’s sorority-girl mistress. While Annalise, Bonnie, and the students all suspect Sam killed the coed, that’s not necessarily the case. “You will get an answer to who did it this season,” Nowalk promises. “We’ll see Lila alive again [in flashbacks]. We’ll see more of her murder night, and exactly where Sam was.”

Two major guest stars also promise to make a vivid impression: Emmy winner Cicely Tyson is booked for a one-episode mystery role (might she be Annalise’s mother?), and Oscar winner Harden is sticking around for a three-episode arc. “Hannah’s a dog with a bone about finding the truth,” says Harden, whose character shares decades of dysfunctional history with Annalise, “and yet she’s presumptuous about what she thinks the truth is.” Nowalk warns against presuming anything about the drama’s top-secret two-hour season finale on February 26. The only guarantees? “It will be big,” he allows. “It will be shocking. And it will be satisfying.” Much like Murder itself.

Downton Abbey Returns With More High-Society Secrets–And Sex!

This could be the year that Lady Mary takes a lover — or, at the very least, takes control. In the Season 5 premiere of PBS’s smash period drama Downton Abbey the eldest Crawley daughter (Michelle Dockery) considers a gentleman caller’s indecent proposal as they converse in her bedroom. Her one caveat if she is to agree to the tryst: “No one must ever find out.”

After two years of mourning her husband, Matthew, Mary is ready to “embrace her life and embrace change,” Dockery says. She’s regained the regal air and acerbic wit inherited from her formidable grandmother, the Dowager Countess Violet (Maggie Smith, who has won two Emmys for her withering repartee). As Mary explains in the season premiere, she not only wants a proper father for her toddler, George, but also someone she can commit to without reservation — “I intend to be as happy with my second husband as I was with the first” — and she wants to ensure they’re compatible in every way. To that end, she’s still juggling the two suitors who wooed her last season: the sincere-seeming Tony Gillingham (Tom Cullen) and the blunt-talking Charles Blake (Julian Ovenden). “She’s leaning toward one of them,” Dockery teases, “but both are handsome, eligible men.”

Whether either will suit Mary’s standards is far from decided. “The forging of a second marriage is a complicated business,” executive producer Gareth Neame says. And Mary’s not the only one contemplating a second chance at love. Lord Merton (Douglas Reith) continues to woo Matthew’s mother, Isobel (Penelope Wilton), and Violet plays matchmaker. “Romance,” Neame says, “is not entirely reserved for the young.”

Mary’s reignited confidence extends outside the bedroom. The budding businesswoman is intent on making the financially precarious Downton profitable, and her plans often conflict with the old-fashioned ways of her father, Robert (Hugh Bonneville). “Robert has a morality based on the responsibilities of a 19th-century landowner. It’s adorable, but it leaves him and the estate vulnerable,” says creator Julian Fellowes, who himself lives in a 17th-century English manor house. “From a historical perspective, Downton’s future is far from certain. The 1920s are the first wave of the great families and their great houses going under. Mary is more a creature of the modern world.”

Still, as modern as she tries to be, Mary knows from experience that shattering society’s taboos is not something to undertake lightly. Losing her virginity in Season 1 to a visiting Turkish diplomat — who then died in her bed — nearly derailed her plans after the secret was leaked by her resentful sister Edith (Laura Carmichael). To save her family embarrassment, Mary agreed to marry an arrogant newspaper publisher so he wouldn’t write the story. (In the end, he showed a gentlemanly streak and quashed the exposé.) Since Mary feels obligated to enter marriage with complete honesty, will the next man she chooses be as forgiving as Matthew was when he learned the truth?

Secrets run though Downton like a river this season. No one is hiding a bigger one than Edith, who had a daughter after a dalliance with her married — and now missing — employer, Michael Gregson (Charles Edwards). Only her aunt Rosamund (Samantha Bond) and grandmother Violet know that Edith gave birth to a baby girl, but even they are unaware that Edith has placed the child, named Marigold, with a local farmer and his wife. “She’s trying to find a way to be part of Marigold’s life while keeping it from her family,” Carmichael says. “If they find out, it would be shocking and shameful.”

“[Society] could turn a blind eye to a widow having an affair,” says Fellowes, “but it wouldn’t forgive a young woman who got pregnant by a man who couldn’t marry her.” Between Mary and Edith’s bad luck the first time each had sex, Carmichael jokes, “I think Julian is trying to send a message to young women.”

Young men in the Downton era may have more sexual freedom, but they’re still shackled by class. Tom Branson (Allen Leech), the Crawleys’ former chauffeur and widower of youngest daughter Sybil, is caught between his Irish nationalist past and his present as a privileged guest of his titled in-laws. “Tom is trying to find his place in the world,” says Leech, adding that his fiery socialist friend, teacher Sarah Bunting (Daisy Lewis), is helping him. “The difficult question for Tom is, to be his own man, will he have to leave Downton?”

The downstairs members of the household also live in dread of secrets getting spilled. Baxter (Raquel Cassidy), Cora’s maid, is being blackmailed by conniving underbutler Thomas (Rob James-Collier). He knows about a crime from Baxter’s past and is forcing her to spy on maid Anna (Joanne Froggatt) and her husband, Bates (Brendan Coyle), whom Thomas has hated since Bates got the coveted job of Robert’s valet. What neither Baxter nor Thomas know is that Bates is a suspect in the murder of Green, Lord Gillingham’s valet, who raped Anna last season. Could Bates have avenged his wife by pushing Green under a bus? “There’s a danger about Bates,” Fellowes says, “that goes back to his time in prison when he was falsely convicted of killing his first wife.” Even Anna worries about his possible guilt. “What happened still haunts them,” Neame says. “As a fan, I hope this couple will get back to the heart of their relationship, which is incredibly strong and warm.”

With all these stories in play, viewers are lucky that Downton Abbey, again up for top honors at the Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild awards in January, has already been renewed for a sixth season. And despite reports that Season 6 would be the last, Fellowes says he has no plans to shutter the estate just yet. He cautions, however, that he’s not interested in “aging up the characters” or dragging them into the depressing 1930s.

Of course, if it were up to PBS, the Crawleys and their staff would see the 1950s and beyond. “Each year has surpassed the last,” says Rebecca Eaton, who for 29 years has been the executive producer of Masterpiec, the programming umbrella under which Downton falls. The ratings for Downton‘s fourth season grew 12 percent from the third, and the Masterpiece franchise has risen more than 100 percent since before Downton‘s premiere. This year PBS gave Masterpiece 20 more hours to program. New series include Grantchester, about a clergyman in 1950s England, premiering January 18; and Wolf Hall, an adaptation of Hilary Mantel’s prize-winning historical novels, debuting in April and starring Homeland‘s Damian Lewis.

Dockery, for one, plans to stay with Downton until Fellowes is finished. “I love playing Mary, and I love being part of a show that for all of us has been really special,” she says. “None of us ever imagined how huge a success it would become. Why would I want to leave that?”

The Year in Cheers & Jeers

Here are some highlights from our annual look at the best and worst of the year in television…

Cheers to Academy Awards host Ellen DeGeneres for putting Hollywood royalty at ease while entertaining viewers at home. Whether ordering pizza for the famished audience or getting the stars to pose for a selfie that broke Twitter, Ellen stole the show. Cheers aren’t enough. Give her an Honorary Oscar.

Jeers to Extant for not living up to the out-of-this-world hype. Halle Berry’s first starring vehicle on TV was met with great fanfare this summer. But her series—in which she plays an astronaut who discovers she’s pregnant after an extended solo mission—failed to launch. Bizarre elements like a robot child further muddled the concept, and the buzz quickly crashed down to Earth. Let’s hope Season 2’s takeoff is less turbulent.

Cheers to great, fully realized LGBT characters on Orange Is the New Black (with Laverne Cox), Transparent, How to Get Away With Murder, Shameless, Gotham, Glee, Faking It, Looking…and so many others. Finally, TV has caught on that not everyone is straight, white, or stereotypical.

Cheers to The Walking Dead’s Carol (Melissa McBride), who has evolved from domestic-abuse victim to warrior goddess of the zombie apocalypse. She single-handedly rescued her tribe from the Terminus compound while hewing to a survive-at-all-costs code. Between her and the record ratings, Dead is more alive than ever.

Jeers to TV’s infatuation with rom-coms. The gimmicky Manhattan Love Story was the fall’s first cancellation, and tepid A to Z barely made it to “C” before fading. We understand the desire to create the next How I Met Your Mother, but these series also have to earn our love. Originality would be a start.

Cheers to the “glimmer twins” of figure-skating commentary, fashionista scene-stealers Tara Lipinski and Johnny Weir. Though broadcasting on the smaller NBCSN network, the pair received raves for their barbed banter at the Winter Olympics, which earned them a promotion to NBC’s A team after they worked their stylish magic at the Oscars and Kentucky Derby, too. Here’s looking at you, because how could we not?

Cheers to the bonnie of a treat that is Outlander. Lush, lusty, and perfectly cast with Sam Heughan and Caitriona Balfe as star-crossed soul mates, the lavish, faithful adaptation of Diana Gabaldon’s time-traveling book series was the hottest Saturday night date we’ve had in centuries.

Fan Favorites Awards 2014

And the winners are… TV Guide Magazine‘s fourth annual Fan Favorites Awards drew nearly 600,000 votes in 11 categories (the full list of winners is at the bottom of this story). Leading the way was the new Starz series Outlander, which took top honors as Favorite Drama and Favorite Duo…

She’s a married World War II battlefield nurse unexpectedly swept back in time to strife-torn 18th-century Scotland. He’s a chivalrous Highlander. Together, they’re television’s hottest couple. The passion between Claire Randall (Caitriona Balfe) and Jamie Fraser (Sam Heughan) has made Outlander, the romantic adventure saga based on Diana Gabaldon’s best-selling novel series, a hit for Starz, drawing an average of 5 million multiplatform viewers per episode since it debuted last August. We talked to the leads about feeling the fan love.

You were insulated from all the buzz while shooting in the remote Scottish countryside. What did you think of the fans once you encountered them last July at San Diego Comic-Con?
Balfe: They’re extremely quiet and really shy. [Laughs]
Heughan: They’re amazing. During the screening of the premiere,
they recognized every line from the books and were talking amongst themselves!

What makes Claire and Jamie such a compelling couple?
Balfe: Individually, they’re very strong characters—but they don’t try to tame each other. They encourage each other to be the best they can be.
Heughan: They have quite a journey and face some really tough challenges. It’s fun to watch them go through that.

And then there’s the sex. The most-watched episode of the season was “The Wedding,” in which your characters consummated their relationship. Can fans expect more steamy love scenes?
Balfe: Oh, for sure! They are deeply connected. They have a very passionate relationship in all aspects.
Heughan: The wedding night was about them beginning to discover each other. It’s the very start of the relationship. The second part of the season develops their relationship—but the show gets darker.

Darker how?
Balfe: Claire is trying to adapt to the specific code of morals and justice of this time. It causes really dangerous situations for her and Jamie. The political workings cause a rift between them. But they battle through it. That’s what’s so great about them.

The midseason finale ended with Jamie poised to rescue Claire from sadistic English army captain Black Jack Randall (Tobias Menzies). Will Black Jack continue to be a threat?
Heughan: He’s at the forefront of the second part of the season.
Balfe: He doesn’t go away easily!

And will Claire continue to struggle with trying to get back to her 20th-century husband, Frank (also played by Menzies)?
Balfe: Being in the clutches of Black Jack, with Jamie coming to rescue her, it all comes to a head. Claire has to decide what she wants.

The second half of Season 1 doesn’t return for another four months. How can fans deal with withdrawal?
Heughan: If you’re like me, you find yourself a bar and just stay there.
Balfe: Reruns are good.

What are the most memorable gifts fans have sent you?
Heughan: Jamie spends a lot of time getting beaten up and hurt, and I just received a wonderful T-shirt that has a picture of Jamie labeled with all his injuries and scars. It’s really accurate!
Balfe: I got a beautiful handwoven scarf—a tartan designed and registered especially for me. It was the most incredible gift I’ve ever gotten.

Outlander returns for Season 2 on Saturday, April 4, 2015.

Fan Favorites Awards winners:

Favorite Drama: Outlander

Favorite Comedy: The Big Bang Theory

Favorite Actor: Nathan Fillion, Castle

Favorite Actress: Stana Katic, Castle

Favorite Reality Competition Show: The Voice

Favorite Horror Show: The Walking Dead

Favorite Sci-fi/Fantasy Show: Arrow

Favorite New Show: The Flash

Favorite Duo: Claire & Jamie, Outlander

Favorite Villain: Regina/Evil Queen, Once Upon a Time

Favorite Guilty Pleasure: Syfy movies