ABCMystery solved! Kind of!
Fall TV's biggest conundrum—the identity of Annalise Keating's shooter—was finally resolved on How to Get Away With Murder's winter finale. That's right, if you had money on ol' Waitlist Wes (Alfred Enoch) being the culprit, you might want to collect. But what drove him to gun down Annalise (Viola Davis)? Well, that's not such an easy answer. And it's hardly the only question (or answer) that the twisty, thrilling hour left in our laps.
As it turns out, Annalise's shooting was all part of covering up the death of ADA Sinclair, which was not caused by a fall from the Hapstall mansion. She was actually killed when Asher (Matt McGorry) ran her over with his car after blaming her for the document leak that led to his father's suicide.
Annalise's brilliant/very stupid plan was to frame Catherine for Emily's death with help from the found gun, the picture of Catherine's painting in Philip's house, and Caleb's newfound belief that his sister was involved. Apparently, throwing Emily off the roof would disguise the fact that she was also run over by a car and subsequently handled by like eight people who weren't wearing gloves.
Meanwhile, Frank kidnapped Catherine and gave her some of those knock-out pills that were supposed to be for Nate's wife before dropping her off in the forest, all while Phillip was attempting to track her down.
While the gun was supposed to be found on Catherine, Annalise changed up the plan, deciding that in order to make the plan sound believable, she had to be shot as well. She called 911 already claiming to have been shot, and tried to get Connor and Michaela to do the deed, despite the fact that they were the two who had already tried to back out of this insanity.
Eventually, it was Wes holding the gun, but he still refused to pull the trigger.
"Maybe we should go to jail for this, for everything," Laurel said, and we sort of agreed with her.
Then, Annalise dropped the bomb on Wes: Rebecca's dead, and she's been lying to him every time she comforted him over it. That was all Wes needed, and so he shot her, but not in the leg like she wanted. He shot her right in the chest, and as she lay bleeding on the floor, she whispered, "Christoph. Christoph."
Wes seemed to understand, and then it was flashback time.
Ten years ago, Wes was a small child named Christoph sitting in an interrogation room with a detective, recounting having found his mother looking "very dead."
Cut to Eve and Annalise watching this exchange.
"Good god Annalise, what did we do?" Eve asks, and Annalise closes her eyes.
Uh, what?
So what do we now know about Wes and Annalise's relationship? Almost nothing. She could still be his mother who isn't actually dead, or she could have killed his mother, or none of the above. Why did Wes change his name? Did he start going by a middle name, or did he completely change his name as a part of witness protection or something?
Back in present day, it kind of seems like all of the Keating five are unraveling fast and on the verge of panic attacks, and we definitely do not blame them. They all just witnessed and/or participated in a whole bunch of murder, possible murder, murder cover-ups, and even a kidnapping/drugging, and that's enough to send anyone into a complete state of panic for a long, long time. We are kind of panicking, actually. This is all a lot!
And now we have to wait until Feb. 11 to find out what happens next, which is just about the worst thing that's happened to us all night. Rude.