This article contains spoilers forHow To Get Away With Murder Season 6, Episode 1.
Last night’s How To Get Away With Murder season premiere was the last we’ll ever get, and fans are taking full advantage. As usual, the episode left us with way more questions than answers, so we rounded up five How To Get Away With Murder theories that will blow your mind (or, at least, that blew ours). Obviously, most of the theories revolve around one question, which also happens to the the tagline for this season: Who killed Annalise Keating? And can we even really believe that Annalise is dead?
Here’s a quick rundown of what we saw in last night’s episode. First, Annalise has a dream sequence where she’s at her own funeral, and a grown-up version of Laurel’s baby, Christopher, shoots her dead body. Excellent. Next, we see that Annalise is in rehab following a relapse back into drug and alcohol addiction. The rest of the HTGAWM crew is still trying to figure out where Laurel and Christopher disappeared to, and have recently learned that Annalise knew Michaela’s biological father years ago. When Annalise returns from rehab, she tries to help them get rid of their demons and move on. The episode ends with the show’s trademark flash-forward: to Annalise’s funeral, though it appears to be for real this time.
So, what happens next? Let’s dive into these theories.
Annalise Dies of an Overdose
Given the shape that Annalise is in during Episode 1, it’s not so far-fetched to suggest that she could relapse again — and this time, not be so lucky as to survive. One Redditor suggests just that: “With her behaviors in this episode, it seems like she could’ve died from an overdose,” one comment says. After all, Annalise does leave the rehab facility after only one week, and realistically speaking, there’s no breakthrough in the world that would actually see her recover fully in that amount of time. Annalise’s struggle with addiction has been a theme throughout the series, so it would be a poignant turn if it ends up being her downfall.
Wes Kills Annalise
Yes, Wes is meant to be dead. But — come on! How many times have people come back from the “dead” on this show? And if they were to bring one person back, doesn’t it make sense that it would be Wes, completing the original crew from Season 1? In answer to the season tagline, one Redditor wrote this: “Whokilledannalise: Wes. Just based on previous events the writers will somehow tie him back in.”
Another Redditor thinks that the opening dream sequence supports this theory too: “We saw it in the very first scene,” they write. “Christopher killed her so baby Wes.” (Christopher is Wes’s child with Laurel, so Annalise seeing grown-up Christopher kill her in a dream could be foreshadowing to Christopher’s dad being involved with her death.)
Annalise Fakes Her Own Death
This is widely considered to be the most likely option for what’s going on here — not only do the HTGAWM creators love a good fake death, as we’ve mentioned, but people just really don’t want to believe that Annalise is actually dead. “Maybe she fakes her own death? They don’t show us the body and she talks about wanting to just run away,” one Redditor muses. “She’s not dead,” another writes adamantly. “If anything she fakes it and runs away.”
If she does indeed fake her death, there are some theories on how she executes it too: “If so, she’ll need the body of a 50-something Black woman…” one Redditor writes. “Oh, hello Vivian!”
Annalise Was Killed By One Of Her Mourners
Another thing HTGAWM is known for is their format of returning to flash-forwards throughout the season, slowly revealing more and more of how it ties into what else is going on. Often, the flash-forwards will reveal key details about the murder that the season is leading up to. Here’s how one Redditor thinks they’ll use the flash-forwards of Annalise’s funeral: “My theory is that each flashforward from now on is gonna show a character mourning Annalise at the funeral and then zoom back to what they were doing the night of the murder,” they write. In other words: one of the people there mourning her may have been the one to murder her earlier that season.
Sally Will Use Annalise’s Secrets Against Her
Another popular consensus from this episode? Annalise baring her soul to Sally in rehab was a terrible, terrible idea. Whatever peace it granted her in the moment cannot be worth this random stranger knowing her worst, most damning secrets — or, as this Redditor puts it: “Good thing AK bared her soul to a nut job.” Another adds: “That was a mistake. I know she needs to unburden herself, but there’s a reason you can’t.”
Many people are certain that Sally will return to hold these secrets over Annalise’s head, or that she may even have been a spy all along, planted by people trying to take Annalise down. “That’s definitely not the last time we see Sally,” one Redditor writes. “Sally is a narc! They drop hints like her coming to Annalise and saying ‘people think you’re a cop,'” another writes. “She got Annalise to confess for covering up Sam’s murder!”
Then there’s this fully fledged theory about a hint they drop that Sally might be a spy: “At the rehab facility when AK comes back from her phone call, her roommate sits up and asks ‘who’s Bonnie?’ However, during the call AK never says Bonnie’s name. They did do a flashback during the conversation to AK’s binder night, so it could either be assumed that she said Bonnie’s name during this time (when the call is no longer shown), OR the woman is a plant.”
That’s all for this week — who do you think killed Annalise? Drop your theories below!
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