Wow, things have taken a turn for the strange in Shondaland. Only four weeks into the new season, and already we get more confused with each new episode. By the end of last night’s aptly named ‘Skanks get shanked’ latest instalment of HTGAWM, it looks like just about everyone who knows Annalise Keating has a pretty good motive to kill her. I’d probably count myself as one of those people: despite certain redeeming aspects of her character, I just don’t like her.

One of those redeeming qualities is her struggle with agreeing to do Nia’s (Nate’s dying wife) favor. Nia seems to think that Annalise owes her, and I can’t really fault that logic. She asks her to smuggle some pills so she can kill herself. It shouldn’t be a problem, with Frank on standby to do her dirty work and – oh yeah – seeing as she’s killed her husband. Nia only jumps to the most obvious conclusion, and I can’t fault that either; by the end of the episode, Annalise has taken steps to procure those pills, but ultimately backs out. This makes her slightly less horrible, but she’s got a long way to go.

Asher seems to think Annalise is pretty horrible too, or at least a murderer. Having enlisted daddy’s help, he strikes a deal with the prosecutor to testify against Annalise, calls in sick and ignores Bonnie’s phonecalls (aw, he has her in his phone as BonBon! Ugh). BonBon won’t stand by idly though; she tracks him down and confronts him, and in yet another stroke of foolishness tells Asher she’s the one who killed Sam. So many people have either owned up to or been accused of this murder that I don’t even remember who actually killed Sam at this point.

Connor does though. Ah, Connor, he’s really progressed so much since we first saw him, hasn’t he? Who would’ve thought he would be the one acting like the moral compass of the show? Certainly not Zoe, the defendant represented by Annalise in this week’s case. First time we see her, she’s a blubbering mess explaining how her clique of teen Mean Girl friends made her stab her best friend 50-odd times. Yes, because we’ve all been there, haven’t we? Jeez. During the course of the trial, Annalise is too distracted (trying to decide what to do about Nate’s cancer-stricken wife’s request), but Laurel is on top of things. She suspects something isn’t right with Zoe and steals her phone. In it she finds a very damning video, which not only proves Zoe is guilty but also that she’s a complete psychopath. Skanks get shanked, apparently, and Zoe loved killing her bestie so much she now wants to stab her teacher. Lovely.

Upon learning the news, the psycho’s parents, who obviously passed the gene along, order Annalise to bury the evidence. They don’t need to though – that’s her first impulse anyway. Connor is apparently the only one with a conscience, and can’t stand by and watch the psycho walk and kill again. He leaks the video to the D.A. and we are witness to a psychotic outburst in the courtroom. Uh-oh, Annalise lost the case. [I wish they’d just set the psycho free to kill her disgusting parents. And then Annalise.] Annalise figures out Connor was behind the leaked evidence and threatens him to expose their secret. Except Connor wasn’t the one who killed Sam, as he promptly points out. Nevermind, Annalise is no dummy. Connor shouldn’t have trusted Frank to take care of his car, which has Sam’s blood all over it. Yeah, Annalise is such a sweetheart, isn’t she?

Meanwhile, Michaela is still seeing Levi even though Wes told him to break it off, and Wes is still working with Levi even though Nate is basically putting everything on the line to help him figure out what happened to Rebecca. After a series of deductions that basically lost me halfway through, they figure out that person Frank called the night of Rebecca’s disappearance has a brother who is the groundskeeper at a cemetery, therefore Frank got rid of the body, presumably on Annalise’s orders. Wes lets slip up that he didn’t come to this conclusion alone, and Nate freaks out (and rightly so), while Annalise happens to watch them have this intense conversation in the middle of a hospital parking lot.

The reason Annalise was there, incidentally, was quite awkward: still unconvinced that Caleb and Catherine haven’t been doing the nasty, Annalise sends Michaela over to Caleb with instructions to use her boobs to figure out if there’s incenst going on. Okay then. Michaela does the exact opposite, and by the end of her conversation with hottie Caleb, she’s pretty much convinced they’re innocent. She shows up at Annalise’s bearing good news: Catherine is pregnant, so off they rush to the hospital to have a doctor certify that her hymen is intact, despite all the horse riding.

By the end of the episode, we know that whatever happened which resulted in Annalise in an ambulance is just four weeks away (in TV time), we know that her K-Five are involved, we know that Nate is in on it and helping them get away with it by driving the getaway car. Michaela answers the phone, barely managing to compose herself, then exits the car and enters a house…

… with Caleb inside, asking “How is she”. How is who? Whoever it is, it’s probably not Annalise, because she’s nowhere near fine.

I could speculate all I want, but I’m sure Shonda doesn’t plan on making things easy for us. At least there’s the image of Frank in tank top to tie us over until next week!