In the promo for ABC’s Oct. 16 How to Get Away With Murder, nine simple words are the teaser for the episode — and while those words did not disappoint, critics found the quiet moment of Viola Davis removing her wig and makeup to be the most powerful moment of the week.
Here’s what critics have to say about “Let’s Get to Scooping.” Caution: spoilers ahead.
ON THOSE NINE INFAMOUS WORDS:
Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya, AV Club:
A hilarious phrase in any context, but Viola Davis sells the hell out of it because the real lesson this show teaches is that she can do just about anything. The reveal however — that Sam was sexually involved with the student who turns up dead in the pilot — feels hollow, like a lot of this episode.
Whitney Adams, TV Fanatic:
My jaw dropped.
Stephanie Krikorian, Wall Street Journal:
The flashbacks are getting old and repetitive, the show’s structure is overly complicated, and now the tease for the episode is exaggerated.
Megan Vick, Zap2It.com:
[Sam] should have known that deleting the evidence from only his phone wouldn’t be enough. Has he learned nothing from his marriage?
ON THAT STEAMY SEX SCENE:
Marc Snetiker, Entertainment Weekly:
It was raunchy, it was shocking, and it pushed the boundaries of what you can really say, show, and even allude to on network TV.
Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya, AV Club:
It seems like the episode was written with the intention of being Connor’s episode but then at the last minute had a bunch of other stuff shoved in. We certainly spend a lot of time with the character, and he engages in one of the hottest sex scenes I’ve ever seen on network TV in primetime.
ON VIOLA DAVIS’S WIG SCENE:
Sarah Devlin, NY Observer:
While waiting for Sam to come home, Annalise sits at her vanity and removes her wig, lashes, and makeup. It’s amazing to watch a character strip away her “public face,” so to speak, in this way, and it’s also a really remarkable moment for broadcast TV.
Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya, AV Club:
It’s an intimate, powerful moment television doesn’t often show: A black woman removing all the elements white supremacy tells her she has to wear to be beautiful, successful, powerful. And let’s not forget that that wasn’t just Annalise taking it off: It was Davis, too.
Sona Charaipotra, NY Magazine/Vulture:
In the end — in one of the most real moments this season — we see Annalise, exhausted, removing her wig, then the eyelashes, then the makeup. Then we see why she’s looking so fragile and weepy.
Whitney Adams, TV Fanatic:
Davis is a freaking tour de force. As she slowly peels back her wig, her eyelashes and wipes away her makeup, you can just see Annalise come undone. She doesn’t say a word, but you can feel the pain radiating off her. It gave me the chills.
ON THE CASE OF THE WEEK:
Sona Charaipotra, NY Magazine/Vulture:
This week, the case of the week actually dovetailed right back into the big picture, picking up the pace and amping up the tension.
Marc Snetiker, Entertainment Weekly:
For all its shocks, I think the episode marked a nice step forward with both of the major cases, plus it showed off the best case-of-the-week we’ve seen so far, perhaps because of its very direct implications for Connor.
Whitney Adams, TV Fanatic:
The wonderful Elizabeth Perkins guest stars as Marren Trudeau, a CEO at a major brokerage firm that has recently been accused of insider trading. She steals every scene she’s in as a woman who’s worked her way from nothing to create an empire.
Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya, AV Club:
Elizabeth Perkins is great as the filterless, spirited Marren. But this insider-trading plot never really evolves into anything all that engaging. When are the cases of the week going to start to add anything to the show?
Nick Campbell, TV.com:
Thus far, the cases of the week have been pilfering from the Law & Order archives, and this one felt familiar, too.
What did YOU think of episode four? Sound off in the comments section below!
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