S01.E01: Pilot

[GHScorpiosRule]

First, I FUCKING LOVE VIOLA DAVIS, going back to the days when she was a recurring defense attorney on Law & Order: SVU, and she was also amazing as a murderer on the one episode of Criminal Intent.

 

Second, I'm not a lawyer, but I am a paralegal, and I have worked in many firms over the years, and some of the nonsense...man, I think I lost my eyeballs they rolled so hard.  I minored in Criminal Justice in college, and maybe I'm just stupid, but I thought that those that go on to law school/are pre-law, would also take criminal justice classes in undergraduate, where they fucking teach you about mens rhea and actus rhea. It's one of the first things taught in the Introduction to Criminal Justice 101.

 

So, Wes, who just got admitted two days ago, from a wait list, wasn't even familiar with the terms, just had me pulling my hair.

 

I totally caught the ripped from Legally Blonde as well. I kept saying, why does this look and sound familiar?

 

But I'm weak. I love Viola Davis, so will continue to watch her badass self, even though I'm crying inside that her Annalise Keating is a shady lawyer. Don't have to be one to get your guilty clients acquitted.

 

And did I miss something? How is it that her client was on trial for murder, when the victim was still very much alive? I mean, the guy who couldn't speak but was in that wheelchair was the victim, wasn't he?

[DollEyes]

  My verdict: it's OK-just OK. Since it's a Shondaland production, I expected some deep-fried fuckery on some levels, including in the first episode, but not this much. For example, no one with a lick of sense who's doing something wrong-like, say, having an affair-would expect someone else to lock their front door instead of doing it themselves. As for the Case Of the Week, Laurel (one of the students) shouldn't have figured out that the wife and the mistress were co-conspirators. Laurel also might end up screwing Professor Frank (the bearded guy) which is not only a dumb thing to do, it's dangerous, for professional and personal reasons. That said, there are two things, or rather, two people, who are this show's saving grace: Viola Davis and Alfred Enoch. As Professor Annalise Keating, Davis is dynamite. Olivia Pope wishes she was as fierce as Annalise Keating. Professor Keating's personal life is messy, to say the least, but at least the free world doesn't hang in the balance because of it. Annalise is strong, smart, confident and at the top of her game professionally, but like Olivia Pope, her love life is messy at best, but IMO the difference is that while Annalise is capable of feeling (or faking) vulnerability, based on what I've seen so far, she's not basically just a lovesick schoolgirl who's willing to do anything for her spoiled, incompetent and completely unworthy so-called "twu wuv," who has had everything handed to him on a silver platter since the day he was born. Since Annalise is a criminal defense attorney, she can be ruthless, as she proved by cross-examining her Detective lover and while she doesn't suffer fools and/or know-it-alls gladly, I think that deep down, she does have a heart. It may be much smaller, harder and colder than it used to be, but it's still there, otherwise she wouldn't inspire the kind of loyalty from four of her Top 5 students to cover up her late husband's murder nor the possibility that she might have killed him.

 

  The other reason is Wes. I like him and the way Alfred Enoch plays him. Of the T5, Wes is the one whom I care about the most because he seems the most three-dimensional. He's not a complete suck-up like Michaela, a spoiled rich boy like Asher, a sleazeball like Connor or a show-off like Laurel. Wes isn't the smartest or the most aggressive, but he's not a total pushover, either. Wes could have been tougher with Rebecca, his bitchy bartender neighbor across the hall re the loud music, but he made up for it where the murder was concerned. Wes was the one who made the other four get their shit together and came up with a plan. It's not the best plan (to put it mildly), but at least he got the ball rolling. I think it was Wes' leadership that helped inspire Michaela and Laurel to come up with the cover story about the rug that fooled Campus Security. I think that Annalise sees potential in Wes that she doesn't see in the others. It may be partially about covering up her affair and Wes' catching her in the act, but I think her attention to Wes is genuine, at least on some levels.  I'm rooting for Wes. In Harry Potter terms, he could be a Gryffindor, a Ravenclaw or a Hufflepuff, but I hope he doesn't turn into a Slytherin.

Edited September 29, 2014 by DollEyes

[KaveDweller]

And did I miss something? How is it that her client was on trial for murder, when the victim was still very much alive? I mean, the guy who couldn't speak but was in that wheelchair was the victim, wasn't he?

 

I think it was attempted murder.  Which is still a pretty serious crime, but is much less dramatic, so I'm not sure why they didn't just have him dead.

[theatremouse]

How is it that her client was on trial for murder, when the victim was still very much alive? I mean, the guy who couldn't speak but was in that wheelchair was the victim, wasn't he?

I think it was attempted murder.  Which is still a pretty serious crime, but is much less dramatic, so I'm not sure why they didn't just have him dead.

It was attempted murder in "real" life, but I think she originally presented it to the students as murder, before the part where she told them the trial hadn't happened yet?

 

I'm assuming the only reason they didn't have him be actually dead was so there could be that scene in the hallway with the wife caressing his cheek or whatever before going into the bathroom for Laurel to see her conspicuous cahoots moment with the mistress. Now, why he'd need to be alive for that exchange to go down, I don't know. They could've had the bathroom scene happen for any number of other reasons. Maybe there was a deleted scene where it mattered more that he wasn't dead yet. But anyway, it read to me as Laurel only went into the bathroom, because seeing something about the way the wife interacted with the husband pinged her spidey sense. Essentially.

Edited September 27, 2014 by theatremouse

[JAYJAY1979]

It kind of reminds me of Damages.. Annalise seems to be cut from the same cloth as Patty Hewes is... while Wes is a male version of Ellen Parsons.  Add in the murder and flashing back four mouths... and I think we have a network tv version of Damages.. and I mean that as a complement.

[C0mputerGeek]

I quite loved it. Viola Davis was everything I thought she would be and more. I am hooked. I am glad to hear about the ratings because ABC will cancel a show quicker than you can say "New York Minute" if the ratings aren't everything.

 

The law students being unaware of the amount of heat needed to burn a body does not surprise me. There are a lot of people that don't realize how intense the flames have to be to burn flesh and skeleton. Heck, when my uncle was cremated there were still some leftover bone fragments that had to be pulverized.

 

I also caught that the law students wiped that statue down with bleach. I remember reading that bleach does nothing to remove the trace of blood, except tell TPTB that you tried to wipe out the trace of blood with bleach. Ammonia has to be used for that.

 

In terms of unspoken communication this episode, I got: (1) Annalise was playing Wes in that scene. Those were crocodile tears; (2) Frank is not yet sleeping with Laurel, but he will by the time of the murder; (3) Bonnie, the associate at the law firm owned by Annalise, is knocking boots with Sam; (4) Annalise knows her husband was banging the dead sorority girl but not Bonnie; (5) Sam knows Annalise is banging Nate; and (6) When Annalise said, "I bet her boyfriend did it," she was referring to Sam.

 

Imdb.com is my friend. I know the name of the other characters in this episode. All I could remember were Wes and Annalise.

 

My guess is that Sam killed dead sorority girl. The boyfriend of dead sorority girl killed Sam in revenge but the students think that Annalise did it. Wes' neighbor knows that her friend - the boyfriend of dead sorority girl - killed Sam.

 

In terms of realism: I love Hannibal, but one episode had him flash-freezing Beverly Katz, sawing her into sections, placing each section between human-sized slices of plexi-glass (that he happened to have on hand), and then driving Beverly's sectioned corpse out to the observatory where it is left. The whole thing takes in about 24 hours. Not a single soul sees him do it. TV is not realistic. When I want realism, I watch Mythbusters.

Edited September 27, 2014 by C0mputerGeek

[lunastartron]

I'm surprised by the general enthusiasm for Wes; he struck me as "earnest" to the point of obtuseness. I understand he's supposed to function as the conduit for the audience at large and thus must be relatable in some capacity, but the aw-shucks, happy-go-lucky naivete was ramped up to a detriment by the actor, director, or both. One of the few elements of characterization that I can appreciate about Scandal even in retrospect is the realistic ethical ambiguity of the characters - I totally appreciate that a heroine is no longer held to beatific standards of virginal purity, though I do abhor Olivia Pope's moral hypocrisy and "white hat" rhetoric when she and her associates have committed treason, participated in murder conspiracy, defrauded the electorate, etc. However, Wes doesn't evoke Ellen Parsons for me at all. She was competent, competitive, and ambitious. She knew what she wanted and went for it; I can't really imagine her stumbling into an office unannounced and then behaving as she were the aggrieved party because she (gasp) witnessed extramarital sex.

 

I really hope the students aren't in fact simply attempting to cover up a crime they believed Annalise committed. Considering the pains the narrative took to demonstrate their instincts for self-preservation and ever-man-for-himself mentality, it would require an even greater suspension of disbelief within the schema of the story to countenance their sudden protectiveness for a teacher they met three months ago than to swallow the fantasias the show peddles as legal process.

 

Additionally, would aiding and abetting after the fact inspire the nervous breakdowns the four seemed to be suffering?

 

In terms of offensiveness, this premiere didn't come close to touching Scandal, although Shonda has had two and half years to perfect that weekly exercise into misogyny, anti-feminism, and weird racial subtext. I do, however, worry about Viola Davis's participation as I fear she will a) ultimately be wasted and b) that waste will be in service of some sort of Damages-esque morality tale the casts the ruthless career woman as some sort of closet sad-sack who ruined her shot at domestic happiness through her pursuit of professional success. Kerry Washington, at least, is not a very good actress.

 

On a completely superficial note, the sheriff/police chief with whom Annalise is having an affair was all sorts of hot. However, would Professor Keating really be so hammy and heavy-handed when she was trying to play Wes in the bathroom?

[Ms Blue Jay]

Well if Wes is as naive as you say, then why not?  ;)

 

I can't really imagine her stumbling into an office unannounced and then behaving as she were the aggrieved party because she (gasp) witnessed extramarital sex.

 

He had no idea it was extramarital at the time.  I think the difficulty for him is that Annalise is supposed to be his authority figure, and it's hard to see authority figures be so vulnerable.

 

I loved the show, I'll likely watch all season, and pilots/premieres rarely get me this excited.

 

All the actors are so pretty, and I shallowly liked it.  It was so racially diverse I will take the fact that no ugly people seem to be allowed on this show.  I find that Baby Jennifer Connelly girl to be so, so attractive.

 

My only difficulty was understanding all of it.  Moved very fast for me.  I took a lot of pre-law, crimonology, etc. but these type of shows never bother me.... I think my background just makes me love them.

Edited September 27, 2014 by Ms Blue Jay

[Trillium]

This is why I'm glad I'm an accountant. No one is ever going to make a tv show about us. Fiscal year ends don't interest anyone.

It was fun over the top soapy but let's not pretend it is groundbreaking or original. Especially when the first classroom scene was taken almost straight from Legally Blonde. But being a Shonda show I knew it'd be mostly horney, cheating law students/lawyers instead or horney, cheating doctors. But it's a fun guilty pleasure so I'll stick with it for a but.

[sereion]

I never liked of Grey's and Scandal, but this show has strong DVR potential! This show has a few twists that will keep me tuned in---plus, I love me some Viola (hate the wig, though).

1

[helenamonster]

I think when Wes was referring to Annalise getting Detective Hottie to lie on the stand, he was talking about when Annalise asked him where he'd been two nights ago. Wes knew that he'd been at Annalise's, but the detective said something else (out with friends, maybe? I can't remember).

 

ETA: Also, I think Sam mentioning the water tank when the news hadn't was definitely a slip-up on his part to get the viewers suspicious about his involvement in the murder.

Edited September 28, 2014 by helenamonster

[Haleth]

My son is a 1L student. From what I hear the only thing that rang true is the browbeating of the unprepared student. (Although Wes got off easy.). I'll keep watching though because of Viola and because I'm curious about how the husband ended up dead. Does it tie into the co-ed's murder? We shall see.

[ribboninthesky1]

In terms of offensiveness, this premiere didn't come close to touching Scandal, although Shonda has had two and half years to perfect that weekly exercise into misogyny, anti-feminism, and weird racial subtext. I do, however, worry about Viola Davis's participation as I fear she will a) ultimately be wasted and b) that waste will be in service of some sort of Damages-esque morality tale the casts the ruthless career woman as some sort of closet sad-sack who ruined her shot at domestic happiness through her pursuit of professional success. Kerry Washington, at least, is not a very good actress.

 

On a completely superficial note, the sheriff/police chief with whom Annalise is having an affair was all sorts of hot. However, would Professor Keating really be so hammy and heavy-handed when she was trying to play Wes in the bathroom?

 

I gave up on Scandal and never watched Damages, but I share the concern about Viola being wasted on this show, and what the show will imply, if not outright state, about Annalise.  Especially as it seems that the students provided a (if not the) major perspective of this show, especially Wes.  (I disagree about Kerry's acting, as I think a huge part of the issue is the writing for Olivia Pope, as well as direction of the show.  She was fine, to me, in season one, which was OTT but not completely absurd.  Just about every cast member's performance had suffered by the time I gave up around mid-season 3).    

 

And yes, the cop boyfriend was all kinds of fine, and I hope we see more of him.  I wondered if the casting choices were deliberate there, as I didn't think that Viola and Tom had any chemistry. Or at least, it was an awkward chemistry.  But hey, I've had a mild crush on Tom Verica ever since Providence, so he can stay on my screen as long as he likes. 

 

I've seen Viola's gait mentioned a few times.  I remember reading an article on her while I was at the spa - can't recall the magazine, alas.  Anyway, it referenced that Viola has traditionally played more salt-of-the-earth types (and based on how she grew up, I understand why she's able to convey that so well), so Annalise is quite the departure for her.  It also referenced how shy Viola is in real life, so I think the sexy, erotic, sensually confident aspect of Annalise is an adjustment for her, and that's what we're seeing.  I imagine she's gotten more comfortable, and we'll see that as the show moves forward.  It'll be interesting to see the fashion choices moving forward, as I think Viola's comfort in them is as much at play as the clothes themselves.  Agreed with others on the wig(s), though.  Much prefer Viola's natural hair.  

 

I'm hoping we'll get more of the Annalise perspective, as I truly do not care about the students.  I'm willing to give the pilot a pass for being so heavy on the student gaze, but if it's just setting the tone for the show, I'll likely lose interest very quickly.  I expect Viola to be THE lead, with all that entails, not part of an ensemble.  I like the way Viola and Alfred interact, but otherwise, I don't care about Wes.     

[whack-a-mole]

 Viola Davis is wonderful as always. Also pleased to see Paris Geller, and her character was somewhat interesting. There's definitely something up with her and the husband. Most of the rest seem like cardboard cutouts of half-formed ideas. They need to flesh them out or just kill a couple off for sweeps. She doesn't need that many ducklings trailing around after her all the time.

 

As for the realism issue, the bar was a Shonda show. I knew what I was getting, and it'll only get crazier. Viola makes it worth keeping around.

[wanderingstar]

That said, there are two things, or rather, two people, who are this show's saving grace: Viola Davis and Alfred Enoch.

 

 

Yep - and I'm already loving how well they work in scenes together!

[theatremouse]

I think when Wes was referring to Annalise getting Detective Hottie to lie on the stand, he was talking about when Annalise asked him where he'd been two nights ago. Wes knew that he'd been at Annalise's, but the detective said something else (out with friends, maybe? I can't remember).

He said "with a friend", which was not exactly a lie. He didn't indicate the gender of the friend nor nature of the friendship, nor anything else. It'd be a more obviously honest/transparent answer to say he was with her, but theoretically, if he considers her a friend his entirely vague answer was not false. (Outside the fact that saying he was with her would be an idiotic thing to admit.) I think Wes' reaction might have been more like how could she expect him to answer where he was without lying, asking the question is akin to asking him to lie, and yet...the answer he gave that we saw was pretty much true.

 

I don't know enough about law, and I'm assuming on this show it doesn't actually matter if I did, if it potentially opened a scary can of worms if the other lawyers might have asked him more about where he was, but I also think the point wasn't where he was, just that he wasn't at work. So there's sort of no point in delving deeper? So it's a relatively safe question in that regard, as long as his answer was sufficiently vague.

Edited September 28, 2014 by theatremouse

[kikaha]

I'm guessing that Keating was right about the boyfriend being the murderer -- but didn't realize she was lying down right next to him. 

 

Thought the first episode was fun, even if many scenes jumped the shark in the believability department.  Especially the courtroom scenes. 

 

Will definitely watch, at least for a while, to see how the show moves forward. 

[RealityGal]

Now all you lawyers (and soon-to-be lawyers) know why I had to give up Grey's Anatomy! I'm in veterinary medicine, but I know enough to get annoyed.

 

But! Everything I know about the law, I learned on Law and Order and I do love Viola Davis. So for now I'm in.

 

I think I'll watch (although I'm having a hard time getting fully through the first episode), but I'll be sure to snark as a form of protest!

 

I liked the show.  Thought it was interesting.

 

As for the lawyers picking it apart, how many would watch a TV show that was accurate about it really works in trials?  Probably not many.  I've been on many juries and even a grand jury.  It is not riveting TV.  Lawyers stumbling over questions.  Juries in and out of the courtroom a couple times a day as the lawyers argue over admissibility questions.   

 

In fact, the last couple of juries I have been on the lawyers first statements to us are always, "This will not happen like it does on TV".

 

I actually find it cute that in law shows juries are all alive, awake, bright eyed and bushy tailed.  I've seen very interesting jury trials where jury members are quite literally falling asleep...to the point of having to be shaken awake.  So no, a show that mimics real life for lawyers is probably not a good idea (and I think Dick Wolf tried doing something like that that ended up being an epic fail).  But I feel like they have gone too far in the opposite direction for this show, I mean there is "not enough like real life to be interesting" and then there is "what the what????"  This show is running towards the second category.

 

First, I FUCKING LOVE VIOLA DAVIS, going back to the days when she was a recurring defense attorney on Law & Order: SVU, and she was also amazing as a murderer on the one episode of Criminal Intent.

 

Second, I'm not a lawyer, but I am a paralegal, and I have worked in many firms over the years, and some of the nonsense...man, I think I lost my eyeballs they rolled so hard.  I minored in Criminal Justice in college, and maybe I'm just stupid, but I thought that those that go on to law school/are pre-law, would also take criminal justice classes in undergraduate, where they fucking teach you about mens rhea and actus rhea. It's one of the first things taught in the Introduction to Criminal Justice 101.

 

Almst no one in my class that I know of was a pre-law major.  My major was business.   My feeling was that going "pre" anything as a major would be tough, because what if you changed your mind?  Everyone would always ask "well, your major was pre-law, why are you pursuing an MBA right now?"  

 

Yes!  I also remember her amazing turn as the murderer from the CI episode.  Even watching her eat with her little family was riveting, and her telling her daughter she couldn't wear lipstick....whoa.  

 

This is why I'm glad I'm an accountant. No one is ever going to make a tv show about us. Fiscal year ends don't interest anyone.

 

Just add sex.  Law + sex = show, Medicine + sex = show, Accounting + sex = well, you get the picture

Edited September 28, 2014 by RealityGal

[lucindabelle]

He'll I'd love to watch a show about accountants. It's the writers job to make it interesting. Given how many people go to jail for kata counting shenanigans and now much I love American greed, why not a forensic accounting show?

[thewhiteowl]

 I wasn't very interested nor impressed. Dark and disjointed. I didn't even finish the episode. Viola is wasted here.

[shapeshifter]

He'll I'd love to watch a show about accountants. It's the writers job to make it interesting. Given how many people go to jail for kata counting shenanigans and now much I love American greed, why not a forensic accounting show?

Rubicon, which was a great show, IMO, was about analysts. Aren't accountants just analysts with numbers? There wasn't too much sex on Rubicon (maybe why it got canceled) but it did have murder and intrigue. So: Accountants + murder would work.

I bet this show would not have had as many eyeballs for the first episode--even with Viola Davis--if it had been titled Law School.

Edited September 28, 2014 by shapeshifter

[pennben]

 

I'm guessing that Keating was right about the boyfriend being the murderer -- but didn't realize she was lying down right next to him.

 

Oh, I think she realized exactly what she was saying to her husband....that he did it.  Now, whether he did or not remains to be seen.

[Chas411]

I'm in until I'm out. I loved the pilot but it's still Shondaland so there's always time to derail it. So far I like all the characters.

 

Something about the episode makes me think that Michaela is directly involved in the husbands murder. I don't know what it is, maybe her emotional reaction while the others are more down to business about it. Also, the gay student (so sorry I can't remember his name) nearly spits his dislike at her when she asks him to stop singing and I'm wondering how there rivalry goes from over competitive to full on hate.

 

Also assuming that the murder of the sorority chick ties in with Keatings husband, his death and the mystery of the girl next door.

[mbutterfly]

I think I'll watch (although I'm having a hard time getting fully through the first episode), but I'll be sure to snark as a form of protest!

 

 

I actually find it cute that in law shows juries are all alive, awake, bright eyed and bushy tailed.  I've seen very interesting jury trials where jury members are quite literally falling asleep...to the point of having to be shaken awake.  So no, a show that mimics real life for lawyers is probably not a good idea (and I think Dick Wolf tried doing something like that that ended up being an epic fail).  But I feel like they have gone too far in the opposite direction for this show, I mean there is "not enough like real life to be interesting" and then there is "what the what????"  This show is running towards the second category.

 

Almst no one in my class that I know of was a pre-law major.  My major was business.   My feeling was that going "pre" anything as a major would be tough, because what if you changed your mind?  Everyone would always ask "well, your major was pre-law, why are you pursuing an MBA right now?"  

 

Yes!  I also remember her amazing turn as the murderer from the CI episode.  Even watching her eat with her little family was riveting, and her telling her daughter she couldn't wear lipstick....whoa.  

 

Just add sex.  Law + sex = show, Medicine + sex = show, Accounting + sex = well, you get the picture

Well, I was married to a lawyer if that counts. Still, this is Shondaland. Beyond that, it doesn't really matter the professions of the leads. You just grab ahold for the ride and hope to see some pretty good acting as you spin and soar. Viola Davis is way above par for Shondaland, and the rest have some promise. There will be no reality whatsoever in Shondaland. But it can be fun -- kind of like visiting Epcot and pretending you are now walking from England to China.

[wanderingstar]

I'm in until I'm out.

 

 

This is where I am with all Shonda shows-lol.

[ToukieSmith]

Rubicon, which was a great show, IMO, was about analysts. Aren't accountants just analysts with numbers? There wasn't too much sex on Rubicon (maybe why it got canceled) but it did have murder and intrigue. So: Accountants + murder would work.

I bet this show would not have had as many eyeballs for the first episode--even with Viola Davis--if it had been titled Law School.

Accountants can be Analysts; however their role is typically focused on accounting for the revenue, expenditures, assets, and liabilities of a firm.

 

Financial people contemplate murder.  Thoughts of murder and mayhem come into play at quarter-end/year-end when we are working back to back 15 hours days and one of our colleagues is loafing instead of getting shit done so we can go home.  Or, our Admin forgets to let IT know NOT to run the maintenance clean-up on the night we all come in to input the final numbers so the final budget and/or annual report can be printed the next day.

Edited September 29, 2014 by ToukieSmith

[RealityGal]

Accountants can be Analysts; however their role is typically focused on accounting for the revenue, expenditures, assets, and liabilities of a firm.

 

Financial people contemplate murder.  Thoughts of murder and mayhem come into play at quarter-end/year-end when we are working back to back 15 hours days and one of our colleagues is loafing instead of getting shit done so we can go home.  Or, our Admin forgets to let IT know NOT to run the maintenance clean-up on the night we all come in to input the final numbers so the final budget and/or annual report can be printed the next day.

all of the above + sex = hit show!

[dr pepper]

I didn't think he was lying either.  He just seemed pissed that she put him in that position.  He seemed surprised too.  I don't think he would have been if she had told him what she wanted him to say.  And why would he lie like that about something that will cause problems for him at work (no other cops will be happy he admited evidence has been doctored).  It can't be fear she's expose the affair since that will make her look worse than him. He didn't seem to be married.

 

You missed it then. When she put him on the stand she asked him, were you really at the station that night? or were you home taking care of your wife? cancer is a serious thing. That's a clear blackmail threat.

[lion10]

I don't mean to be graphic but I have a question about the gay sex scene in the episode.  Was that penetration or ass-eating?  I ask because I visited another forum and they thought that the latter is what went down but I assumed the former is what happened.

[Lovecat]

I don't mean to be graphic but I have a question about the gay sex scene in the episode.  Was that penetration or ass-eating?  I ask because I visited another forum and they thought that the latter is what went down but I assumed the former is what happened.

I read it as the latter when the law student's head went out of frame.  Either way, I was surprised it got past the Mouse House censors.  Then again, Disney does have wildly successful Gay Days in their parks...

[Atony]

I don't mean to be graphic but I have a question about the gay sex scene in the episode.  Was that penetration or ass-eating?  I ask because I visited another forum and they thought that the latter is what went down but I assumed the former is what happened.

 

From this gay man's perspective it was definitely implying rimming.  I was quite surprised to see a scene like that in a network television pilot.  Having read interviews with the showrunner who is a gay man though he feels there is a lack of gay males being sexual throughout network television and purposely plans on combating that.

Edited September 29, 2014 by Atony

[mrsdalgliesh]

 

I didn't think I was supposed to be taking Annalise's tearful confession to Wes seriously, either, especially since she took the opportunity to feel up his chest long enough to make sure he was left completely flustered.

As one of the other posters said, this scene didn't work.  The tears were genuine, either because she was truly upset or because she hated herself for manipulating Wes.  The hands on chest action was either her being highly sexualized or feeling him for a wire, or trying to make him uncomfortable.  It was all over the place.  Viola Davis is a goddess, but even she couldn't make that scene any clearer.  

 

The students are meh. Seen them before.  It's like MadLibs fill-in-the-blanks casting.  Wes at least has the next-door neighbor (who knows something about sorority girl's murder) to give him interest.

 

For now (and I'm in the "I'm in until I'm out" group), I'm going with the following guess:

1.  I agree with COmputerGeek that Bonnie and Sam are banging and that Annalise doesn't know that.

2.  I think sorority girl is a red herring as far as the flash-forward murder of Sam.  She'll be a separate case altogether.

3.  Bonnie kills Sam, the students find him and assume Annalise did it, and they're trying to protect her.

[KaveDweller]

You missed it then. When she put him on the stand she asked him, were you really at the station that night? or were you home taking care of your wife? cancer is a serious thing. That's a clear blackmail threat.

 

But a threat to do what? Tell his wife that she's sleeping with her husband?  That will only hurt her, so I don't see her doing that and the cop would know that.   Unless we find out Annalise's husband already knows about the affair.  

 

I think she was just trying to make him look kind of sleazy, so that it seemed believable that he's seen evidence being faked before.  

[theatremouse]

I really feel like either one of the four really did kill him and the others were there so they're all in it for the cover up because they're thinking they're accessories anyway OR none of them killed him but either something about the way it was done makes them think they caused it (and they apparently don't think they could lawyer their own way out of it) or they know they did not do it but something about it would strongly implicate them so the cover up is a panic of self-preservation. I don't think they'd go this far to protect someone else unless said protection basically also extended to them. ie the real one who did it could easily frame them for it and threatened to do so. Or something. They kept talking about going to prison for murder, referring to themselves. So it can't (or shouldn't be) just a cover to protect someone else.

Edited September 30, 2014 by theatremouse

[RealityGal]

I read it as the latter when the law student's head went out of frame.  Either way, I was surprised it got past the Mouse House censors.  Then again, Disney does have wildly successful Gay Days in their parks...

what happens in the tea cups, stays in the tea cups.

[Bcharmer]

Count me among those who thought the opening scene (at first, anyway) might have been a class assignment of some kind... and maybe they were roll-playing. Actually, my very first impression was that maybe they (the students, in the classroom, perhaps) were watching a B horror movie to study, as the acting and writing were just that bad. In fact, I was sure of it, until it became clear this was a flashforward. Sorry, but Damages did that first, and did it so very much better. My next thought, then, was that this show was just not going to be very good. I stuck with it, though, to the end, while resisting the urge to just turn it off and do something more productive with my time, such as, oh, say alphabetize my spice drawer.  I WISH that the only problems I had with the show were the unrealistic law parts. Since I don't know much about that, anyway, I probably would never even know most of the legal mistakes they made in that regard. But even that would be okay, if everything else was good, but it just wasn't. Davis's acting felt a bit too self-conscious and even hammy at times, like when actresses try a little too hard to make sure you know what a HBIC they are. That always seems forced to me. Oddly enough, when watching Damages, I always thought Glenn Close managed to pull that off just fine, though. She was always so convincing. Anyway, there was much more that turned me off about this show, than what interested me. I'd say I'm in the "I'm in till I'm out" group, too, but I don't even know if I can take a second episode.  I did have a "Oh, yeah, this is a Shonda show" moment, when the music in the background was so loud it competed with the dialog. I hate it when she does that.

[Chicago Redshirt]

I don't think it's too unusual for professors to allow undergraduates to drop their lowest test scores and then use the average of what is left. They still take all tests, but if a student, say, has the flu *cough* during one and doesn't do well, it won't bring down the average. I have no idea if this would work in law school, but based on all the other legal snafus spotted in the episode mentioned above, it doesn't seem likely that anyone knowledgable about law school had anything to do with the script.

 

I could be misremembering, but the way the award was phrased was that they could not take a test rather than "this will knock out your lowest score." The latter would make sense (at least in a structure where there were, say 2+ test, which is very few law school classes). But Prof. Keating is a rebel so she might give a bunch. 

I was confused by the testimony by the detective (Annelise's boyfriend).  Wes said the detective was lying on the stand.  Was he lying or just admitting something he didn't want to admit?  And, if he did in fact lie, was the idea that Annelise was going to expose their affair if he didn't lie to help her case?  I thought it more likely that he was telling the truth, and she knew it because he had told her one night during pillow talk. 

 

Anyone have any thoughts?

 

To me, this was the weakest part of the pilot. I do manage to put aside most instances of "the law doesn't work like this" because of dramatic license, but that one stuck out. 

 

I am not sure if we are supposed to believe that Prof. Keating and Officer Foine! were in cahoots from when she called him as a witness, or if she called him up there blind and just was hoping he would follow her lead, or what exactly was going on with that. That took me out of the moment, along with the "Let me just make this confession with potentially career-ending repercussions" and not bat an eye. 

 

If it's supposed to be the former, they really should have given us a bigger hint of that. If it's the latter, it was a terrible plan. The old cliche of never asking a question you don't know the answer to exists for a reason. She would have had no way of stopping him (as far as we know) from denying that he'd ever known the Philly police to alter video footage.

 

First, I FUCKING LOVE VIOLA DAVIS, going back to the days when she was a recurring defense attorney on Law & Order: SVU, and she was also amazing as a murderer on the one episode of Criminal Intent.

 

Second, I'm not a lawyer, but I am a paralegal, and I have worked in many firms over the years, and some of the nonsense...man, I think I lost my eyeballs they rolled so hard.  I minored in Criminal Justice in college, and maybe I'm just stupid, but I thought that those that go on to law school/are pre-law, would also take criminal justice classes in undergraduate, where they fucking teach you about mens rhea and actus rhea. It's one of the first things taught in the Introduction to Criminal Justice 101.

 

So, Wes, who just got admitted two days ago, from a wait list, wasn't even familiar with the terms, just had me pulling my hair.

 

 

There are probably plenty of people who get into law school without knowing a darn thing about common legal terms that even some laypeople have encountered. Mens rea and actus reus were not terms that I personally knew prior to going to law school, even though I spent a fair amount of time prior to going covering criminal courts as a reporter and was inclined to do criminal law. Seems to me that those terms are only used academically or by appellate courts. In actual criminal trial courts, they are just referred to generically as "elements" of the crime. (I would also say that there are probably those who don't like using the fancy Latin phrases like res judicata and res ipsa loquitur, even if they know the concepts behind them.)

[RealityGal]

 

 

I don't think it's too unusual for professors to allow undergraduates to drop their lowest test scores and then use the average of what is left. They still take all tests, but if a student, say, has the flu *cough* during one and doesn't do well, it won't bring down the average. I have no idea if this would work in law school, but based on all the other legal snafus spotted in the episode mentioned above, it doesn't seem likely that anyone knowledgable about law school had anything to do with the script.

I could be misremembering, but the way the award was phrased was that they could not take a test rather than "this will knock out your lowest score." The latter would make sense (at least in a structure where there were, say 2+ test, which is very few law school classes). But Prof. Keating is a rebel so she might give a bunch.

 

I don't mean to be a spoil sport, but most law school classes have one big test.  A midterm is optional, and might be like 15% of your grade, but most of your grade will rest on the final exam.  And there is generally only one.  And it makes sense, the final is generally pretty writing intensive, and so having to grade 100+ writing intensive exams would be tough.  In my school, the TA's don't do any of the test grading (and I would raise a ruckus if they did) so its all on one professor to read and grade 90+ exams.

 

However, I think the immunity idol could be a "get a free A in my class" thing.  And it would make sense, ostensibly, if you have worked hard enough to get the idol, you've probably written extensively and applied criminal law theories amazingly well in a real world setting, thus proving you have the best knowledge of the subject and deserve the A.

 

But, since the show doesn't seem to be overly invested in an accurate portrayal of law school (and thus giving me priceless opportunities for some snark) I imagine that the immunity idol means that they will show them taking 2-3 exams. 

[snowblossom2]

I thought she asked that because she did know the answer - he was the one who doctored footage for her previously. That's why she said are you aware, which makes it awfully vague

[PrincessTT]

I thought she asked that because she did know the answer - he was the one who doctored footage for her previously. That's why she said are you aware, which makes it awfully vague

 

I think she knew the answer... However he could have lied and said "no" and what could she have done about it. 

Him making the confession seemed odd because it didn't look like he had to do it.

[Reishe]

I'm kind of embarrassed to admit it, but what had me rolling my eyes was when Prof. Keating told her students to be in court by 9. Student replies: "But we have other classes we're supposed to attend..." Keating: "Don't expect me to solve your problems. You want to pass my class? Be in court by 9" [brutally paraphrased here.] I can't believe the university brass wouldn't kick her out in a hot minute for coercing students to skip their other classes. Yes, a professor might schedule a special event out of class time that might require a student to ask another professor for a workaround, but that's a planned, negotiated exception, not an unconditional order to skip all of their other classes at the last minute.

 

As for burning the body, I agree with everyone above who believes they are just trying to destroy evidence leading to anyone who has had physical contact with the body, not destroy it or make it impossible to identify. Anyone who's seen a cop show knows that (in tv land at least) dental work, any distinct bone fracture scar, or any kind of surgical pin, implant or device would help to identify the skeleton. But they should have also learned from tv cop shows that your defense case is stronger if they can't find the body. Are they planning on waiting till the fire cools, breaking up the skeleton and scattering the pieces over a long stretch of the river?

[Atony]

But what had me rolling my eyes was when Prof. Keating told her students to be in court by 9. Student replies: "But we have other classes we're supposed to attend..." Keating: "Don't expect me to solve your problems. You want to pass my class? Be in court by 9" [brutally paraphrased here.] I can't believe the university brass wouldn't kick her out in a hot minute for coercing students to skip their other classes.

 

Well if you are tenured faculty member there really is no such thing as the university "kicking you out".  What I took that to mean is you need to jump through those hoops if you wanted to work for her firm, not really for her class, which only four students normally do once she makes her decision.  Not that it makes it at all realistic, but it seems her outlandish demands are if you want to have that work experience for your career.

Edited September 30, 2014 by Atony

[Chicago Redshirt]

I thought she asked that because she did know the answer - he was the one who doctored footage for her previously. That's why she said are you aware, which makes it awfully vague

If the show explicitly established that he had doctored footage for her previously, I totally missed it. 

[Reishe]

if you are tenured faculty member there really is no such thing as the university "kicking you out"

 

Tenure isn't an absolute protection. From the NEA website:

 

MYTH:

Tenure is a lifetime job guarantee.

REALITY:

Tenure is simply a right to due process; it means that a college or university cannot fire a tenured professor without presenting evidence that the professor is incompetent or behaves unprofessionally or that an academic department needs to be closed or the school is in serious financial difficulty.

 

Coercing students to miss their other scheduled university classes with zero notice is unprofessional in anyone's book. It's disrespectful to the institution and one's colleagues and detrimental to the students. It's also hypocritical, which is unfortunately not grounds for firing. If a student cut Keating's class because "Professor B. told me I would fail otherwise," I doubt she'd be terribly accommodating.

[helenamonster]

I'm pretty sure Detective Hottie had no idea where the questioning was going. When he came into the courtroom and passed Annalise, he said something like, "What is this about?" And maybe he feared the ramifications of being found to have lied on the stand more than he did whatever complications are bound to arise for him at work.

 

Also, I wonder if or when Michaela's fiance will come into all this.

Edited September 30, 2014 by helenamonster

[Coxfires]

I didn't mind the WTF liberties they took with law, knowing Shonda was producing IT, I wasn't expecting anything realistic.

Wes is for the moment the only simingly likeable character, but he benefited a lot from being the audience impersonator and the one with the most screentime of all the students

I might be twisted but I loved Connor's rewrite of Jingle Bells

[snowblossom2]

If the show explicitly established that he had doctored footage for her previously, I totally missed it.

Oh, it wasn't explicitly explained, but just what I read in the scene. And that he surprised and uncomfortable w it bc he didn't know she would ask that

[Andromeda]

This was so...not watchable on a long-term basis. We're supposed to believe the main is "tough as nails," so when she started sobbing to the POV student about her affair, I thought it was a trap for him being set by her. I just could not believe she'd break down like that in front of a kid she barely knows.

 

Coercing students to miss their other scheduled university classes with zero notice is unprofessional in anyone's book. It's disrespectful to the institution and one's colleagues and detrimental to the students. It's also hypocritical, which is unfortunately not grounds for firing. If a student cut Keating's class because "Professor B. told me I would fail otherwise," I doubt she'd be terribly accommodating.

Yeah, that I couldn't stomach. So being tough means being unprofessional? Good to know, show.

I don't expect TV shows to be completely accurate in every detail (as a journalist, I've had to roll my eyes pretty regularly), but I love ones that give me a realistic glimpse into another profession (ER for medicine, very early Grays, too; Paper Chase for law, or movies like A Few Good Men; West Wing for White House inside stuff -- Madam Secretary is doing a great job at this for me so far.) This one was so over the top, even those not in the profession could smell the ridiculous plot points, and that's never good.

Such silliness, all the law students acting like hyper-aggressive sharks. Yuck. I hate them all, except POV guy, but he's helping cover up a murder, so...yeah, I'm out.

Edited October 1, 2014 by Andromeda

[XtremeOne1]

This was so...not watchable on a long-term basis. We're supposed to believe the main is "tough as nails," so when she started sobbing to the POV student about her affair, I thought it was a trap for him being set by her. I just could not believe she'd break down like that in front of a kid she barely knows.

 

Yeah, that I couldn't stomach. So being tough means being unprofessional? Good to know, show.

Such silliness, all the law students acting like hyper-aggressive sharks. Yuck. I hate them all, except POV guy, but he's helping cover up a murder, so...yeah, I'm out.

 

We don't even know the full story...Given that it seems the husband could have killed the girl, who knows what else he was capable of.

 

THis seems like a fun show. Yeah the characters aren't the most virtious or good but this is a shonda Rhimes show and the self-righteous are boring. I'd watch NCIS or some CBS procedural if I wanted one dimensional characters. And when you have Viold Davis acting, that character will automatically have added layers.

 

Not sure how I feel about how large this cast is. Do we really need punk girl and QB guy(btw, they'd never refer to a pretty dead white girl as 'girlfriend of the star QB' on the news. It would be all about her). Do we really need mystery on top of mystery on top of mystery?

 

INteresting cast, interesting story..I'll stick around but it's a bit worrying it could get too much very fast.

[Andromeda]

We don't even know the full story...

They're doing something illegal, that's enough for me. I got enough of that watching Scandal, which also quickly went off the rails. Every member of the cast is a murderer.