Emmy Episodes: How to Get Away with Murder

It’s always my policy to watch every Emmy-nominated episode each year, which leads me to sample a handful of shows that I don’t tune in to on a regular basis. For the fifth year in a row, I’m making a special effort to spotlight each of those installments to offer my perspective on shows that I don’t review each week.

How to Get Away with Murder: Season 6, Episode 15 “Stay” (F)

I really dislike this show. I gave the pilot a D+ back in 2014, and the highest grade I’ve assigned any of the seven episodes I’ve sampled since for Emmy purposes was a C. This happens to be the series finale, and the one positive is that this is the only episode of this show I’ll be watching this year since, despite my prediction to the contrary, Viola Davis didn’t get nominated. Cicely Tyson is now ninety-five years old and this marks her fifth nomination for this role. Apparently she appeared in three episodes this season but for some reason this was her choice, since it features her only briefly and delivering no more than a few notable lines. She’s a talented actress who has been acting for decades, but this hardly seems like her best work. The episode as a whole was insufferable, and one of the things I hate most is when events are showcased in a manipulative way to create the illusion of a different outcome, as was the case here with Annalisse’s funeral many years in the future and not immediately following the trial we saw happening. The antics here in the courtroom were hard to take seriously, and it’s hard to keep track of who’s dead and who else was betrayed by someone they loved, trusted, or at least had sex with at some point. I did recognize two other notable guest stars in the form of Esai Morales from “Caprica” and “The Brink” as Jorge Castillo, whose jail sentence got cut short by a fatal stabbing, and Jamie McShane from “Sons of Anarchy” and “The Passage” as the U.S. Attorney. While there are some series I enjoy watching each year for Emmy purposes even if I wouldn’t ordinarily watch them, this one is the absolute opposite and I’m happy that it won’t be on my list again next season.