Three Clues to Watch for in How To Get Away with Murder’s Finale

How to Get Away With Murder
Mitch Haaseth/ABC
How to Get Away With Murder

Will the fearsome Annalise Keating (Viola Davis) and her law-school students actually get away with murder in the season finale? Naturally, creator Pete Nowalk isn’t spilling, but he did offer up several clues from the hit thriller’s previous episodes that might shed some light on its present mysteries.

1. Who really killed Lila Stangard, the pregnant sorority-girl mistress of Annalise’s now-dead husband, Sam (Tom Verica)? Thanks to flashbacks, you’ll find out tonight.

Nowalk says two scenes in Episode 5, “We’re Not Friends,” offer vital pieces of information: In one, psych professor Sam tells Annalise he left Yale to drive to Philadelphia the night of the murder “because Lila was threatening to hurt herself”; in the other, he conducts a psych evaluation on Lila’s friend Rebecca (Katie Findlay). “Are Sam and Rebecca telling different versions of the truth?” Nowalk teases. “Or are they both lying?”

2. Remember those fingernail scratches on the wall above the bed in Wes’s (Alfred Enoch) apartment? They’re important.

A refresher: The scratches were there when Wes moved in and, according to his girlfriend/neighbor Rebecca, the apartment’s previous tenant was a law student named Rudy who had a nervous breakdown. How did those scratches–and the bite mark on the bed–get there? And what exactly happened to Rudy? “We’ve been delivering bread crumbs along the way,” Nowalk says, “and ultimately, you’ll get the whole loaf in the finale.”

3. The relationship between Annalise and Wes, who killed Sam to protect Rebecca (her again!), has been building all season for a reason.

“Annalise sees a lot of hope in him, and that’s why watching him [be] corrupted really wounds her,” Nowalk says. “The way she wants to protect him will become very pivotal.” Might it lead to more bloodshed? “There’s going to be a lot to take in during the last few minutes,” he says. “We’ve written ourselves into a corner with the finale, and it’s like, how are we going to get out of this?”

How To Get Away with Murder, Season finale, 10/9c, ABC