‘How to Get Away With Murder’ Turns 10: The 10 Biggest Villains, Ranked
When law professor Annalise Keating (Viola Davis) named her Middleton University course “How to Get Away With Murder,” she wasn’t expecting her own students to take violent turns. And yet, some did just that as they got involved in Annalise’s tumultuous personal life. And by the end of How to Get Away With Murder’s six-season run on ABC, there wasn’t a good guy left standing… aside from, perhaps, good-natured hacker Oliver Hampton (Conrad Ricamora).
The blood started spilling with HTGAWM’s series premiere 10 years ago, on September 25, 2014. To mark the legal thriller’s 10-year anniversary, we’re ID’ing our picks for the show’s 10 biggest villains…
10. Nate Lahey
This Philadelphia detective, played by Billy Brown, broke the law numerous times — and broke his wedding vows, too, sleeping with Annalise even when his wife was dying from cancer. Later, he nearly beat prosecutor Ronald Miller (John Hensley) to death after believing Ronald was to blame for his father’s death. And when he realized the man responsible was actually Xavier Castillo (Gerardo Celasco), he snapped that man’s neck.
9. The Keating 5, collectively
Annalise’s star pupils learned how to get away with murder first-hand — for a time, at least — by covering up the murder of Annalise’s husband (more on him later) at the hands of Wes Gibbins (Alfred Enoch) and Michaela Pratt (Aja Naomi King). The gang also kidnapped fellow student Rebecca Sutter (Katie Findlay) after she threatened to expose them. Later, Asher Millstone (Matt McGorry) killed A.D.A. Emily Sinclair (Sarah Burns) for bad-mouthing his father before the group framed someone else for her death, Michaela turned Simon Drake (Behzad Dabu) over to ICE after he got in their way, and Laurel Castillo (Karla Souza) arranged for her father (more on him later) to be murdered in prison.
8. Annalise Keating
Annalise herself was no saint. She started affairs with both Sam and Nate while they were married to other people. She tried to kill her fixer, Frank Delfino (Charlie Weber), for his involvement in the death of her unborn baby. She pursued a relationship with Isaac Roa (Jimmy Smits), her therapist, which led to his relapse. She helped frame a client for Sinclair’s murder, and she helped frame Nate for Sam’s murder.
7. Governor Lynne Birkhead
This Pennsylvania governor (Laura Innes) eventually got assassinated (more on that later), but not before she painted Nate’s father, Nate Sr. (Glynn Turman), as a violent criminal and had him killed. She also seemingly had lawyer Emmett Crawford (Timothy Hutton) killed after framing him for Nate Sr.’s death, and she seemingly had Asher killed to get Michaela and fellow Keating 5 member Connor Walsh (Jack Falahee) to testify against Annalise.
6. Bonnie Winterbottom
No one in Annalise’s inner circle was a hero, and that included Bonnie (Liza Weil), her associate. In Season 1, Bonnie suffocated Rebecca to death to protect her boss. And in Season 5, she suffocated Ronald to death, finishing the job Nate started, when it still seemed like Ronald was responsible for Nate Sr.’s death. Unfortunately, she was also devoted to Frank, which led to her getting caught in the crossfire when Frank shot the governor dead.
5. Sam Keating
Annalise’s husband, played by Tom Verica, was a bad dude, and not just because he cheated on her with Middleton University student Lila Stangard (Megan West). (Remember when Annalise asked him, “Why is your penis on a dead girl’s phone?”) He also blackmailed Frank — who turned out to be his nephew and son through his incestuous relationship with sister Hannah (Marcia Gay Harden) — into murdering Lila. And when the Keating 5 closed in on his crimes, Sam turned violent, and the resulting altercation led to his demise.
4. Jorge Castillo
Laurel’s CEO father, played by Esai Morales, was all bad news. He had Wes killed so that Laurel’s involvement in the Sam Keating coverup wouldn’t hurt his company. He also had someone tamper with the brakes of Todd Denver (Benito Martinez) after the A.D.A. became a thorn in his side. And it seems as though he had wife Sandra (Lolita Davidovich) scalped and killed.
3. Wallace Mahoney
Annalise clashed with racist, sexist businessman Wallace Mahoney (Adam Arkin), the father of one of her clients, which led to him arranging a car crash that injured her and resulted in her son being stillborn. And we learned that Wallace pressured housekeeper Rose (Kelsey Scott) into testifying, leaving Rose feeling like she had no choice but to end her life.
2. Frank Delfino
Frank killed a lot of evildoers on the show, including Birkhead, Mahoney, Annalise’s hit man, and Robert Winterbottom (more on him below), and hurt plenty others — he tortured Xavier before Nate killed him, for example. But Frank also killed Lila on Sam’s bidding, helped frame Nate for Sam’s murder, drugged the woman Annalise framed for Sinclair’s murder, and collaborated with Mahoney in the lead-up to the car crash that killed Annalise’s unborn child.
1. Robert Winterbottom
Bonnie’s father, played by Ronald F. Hoiseck, is our pick for the most vile of the HTGAWM villains, based on what Bonnie revealed in a Season 5 monologue: “My father molested me and my sister. It started when I was 5, she was 6. My mother knew. It was how they made money. Tapes, and selling us to men.” Robert was eventually sentenced to life in prison, but Frank later gave him a death sentence, poisoning him with toxic chemicals in a hospital.
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