‘How to Get Away with Murder’: Inside the ‘Devastating’ Fall Finale Episode (VIDEO)

Shocking. Upsetting. Heartbreaking.

Those are just some of the words that the cast of ABC’s drama, How to Get Away With Murder, describe the fall finale, airing Thursday night.

“It is devastating,” Aja Naomi King, who plays law student Michaela Pratt, told TV Insider on Tuesday night at the Paley Center for Media’s celebration of the show’s final season in Beverly Hills. “It is going to definitely break my heart, so I’m pretty sure it’ll break everyone else’s as well. We’ve never done something like this in a fall finale.” Yikes!

Per usual with the thrilling series, created by Scandal alum Peter Nowalk, the first half of each of its six seasons blends present time with a typically tragic future event. The fall finale has always been the time when the present and the future event meet and that is the case this time around where some questions are answered yet many more spring up.

This year, the flash forwards have eluded to the funeral of the show’s center, Annalise Keating (Viola Davis), as well as a murder by fireplace poker with several of our cast assembled at the police station being questioned about the mysterious deed. Does Annalise die? Or is it someone else’s turn to meet their maker?

Related

Is [Spoiler] Really Dead? 12 'HTGAWM' Characters Who May Have Killed Her (PHOTOS)

“It’s a murder night episode where we as writers let ourselves go wild, and all the crazy comes out in the middle of the night, sort of like a full moon type of feeling,” Nowalk said on the red carpet prior to the Paley event. “The show is called How To Get Away With Murder. That means that there are bodies along the way and there will be a new one by the end of Episode 9.”

Matt McGorry, who plays law student Asher Millstone, says the fall finale is, “shocking but it’s also going to be really incredible.” He also says the fact that the show is wrapping up after the current season will have an impact on what we’ll see. “Because this is the end, there’s so much that we get to really play through because obviously the writers don’t have to worry about tying it back around and how to play it out [for another season]. The stakes are higher than they’ve ever been.”

The cast of How to Get Away with Murder at the Paley Center for Media, Beverly Hills. November 19, 2019 (Brian To/The Paley Center for Media)

One interesting development over the last few episodes has been Asher getting back together with former girlfriend Michaela. If the show can ever have a happy ending, any chance this pair could find one? King posed, “Can you be involved in that many murders and have a happy ending, even if you get away with it? What does happiness or success beyond this really look like?” McGorry also wasn’t sure if a happy ending is a possible either but said “I think holding out for hope for love is always a good idea.”

There’s one way to ensure a happy ending despite a dark situation, said Amirah Vann, who plays formidable lawyer Tegan Price. “If your happy ending means honesty and living in your truth, then yes. I feel like a happy ending sometimes isn’t like rainbows and bubblegum. Sometimes it rains and it’s still a happy ending because you made peace with it.”

Watch an exclusive sneak peek at tonight’s episode below!

How to Get Away with Murder, Thursdays, 10/9c, ABC.