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“Maybe we can help each other. Wouldn’t that be nice? To just help each other after all this horribleness?” LOL!

Victim’s-mother-of-the-week, I admire your heartwarming message of amnesty and transitive compassion, but know your audience — and the series regulars whose lives your emotional suggestions palpably mirror.

after the winter hiatus dared to dangle the backwashed Gatorade that is forgiveness in front of the Keating House of Histrionic Horrors. The story of the mother of a slain teen who readily forgave her son’s killer is an emotionally tempting court case that forces each murderer and murderess in our merry gang to look inward and consider whether they, too, could abandon their grudges against one another and move forward.

Some epiphanies in and adjacent to the Keating Five are less dramatic than others: On the lightest level, there’s Asher, forced to realize that he may be overstaying his welcome at Connor and Oliver’s house. There’s Michaela, still shunned by Caleb, forced to contemplate whether she’ll allow him to treat her like the only wrongdoer anymore. There’s Nate, who won’t make amends with Annalise and only passingly shows interest in tracking down Philip (who remains on the lam, and in Canada!).    

As usual, it’s the nightmare vaudeville act of Wes and Annalise that can’t seem to let the damage go. Both are under visible mental duress, and both are recommended by doctors to seek therapy — except only Wes becomes legally obligated to after he makes a flippant remark about suicide. They lock him up in the psych ward for a 120-hour hold, and as Wes needlessly recounts the story of his life’s greatest trauma — finding his mother in a pool of blood after school when he was 12 — the doctor tries to get him to say that Annalise is the reason, because seeing her in a pool of blood triggered his memory. LOL again!

. Wouldn’t it be delightful if a mere pool of blood — arguably a penny in 

 currency — were the reason Wes is drudging up this horrible childhood memory?

Obviously, it’s because Annalise dared to mutter “Christophe,” which I’m just going to declare is Wes’ real name from now on unless a libel rep for the Gibbins family comes after me. After tonight’s episode, the narrative of Wes’ mother’s suicide — the unseen Murder Night of the season’s back half, essentially — is no longer a complete mystery. The pieces are beginning to fall into place thanks to flashbacks from Annalise’s life 10 years ago.

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Back in the early ’00s, when S Club 7 was blasting on the radio and Annalise was pregnant with Sam’s baby, we’re offered a novel peek into her professional and home life. She’s untenured but running her practice out of her house, and she’s got her own bizarro version of the Keating Five — and guess who’s the top student! Our very own Bonnie, cosplaying as Paris Geller, cosplaying as Rory Gilmore (this double 

reference is due to my current first-time bingeing and general enthusiasm at seeing a young Liza Weil torment the very tormentable Alexis Bledel). Bonnie is obviously on her way to becoming the alpha female who wins a spot on Annalise’s staff, and if she’s lucky, a spot near Sam Keating’s Winterbottom.

Frank’s in the flashback, too, with a miserable haircut and an even more miserable position as Annalise’s inept assistant. He botches booking airfare for Annalise’s trip to Cleveland because Sam told him to wait (suggesting the first cryptic hint of Frank’s dangerous obedience to Sam that resulted in Lila’s murder in season 1). And yes, there’s good old Sam Keating, as well, living and well and strong-jawed and making frequent comments about his excitement and concern for his future son with Annalise.

How does all this relate to Wes and his mother? That chance playground encounter we saw last week between Annalise and Rose seems to have been a maneuver by Annalise to find and befriend the woman, who has some connection to a federal case that Annalise has undertaken on Sam’s advice. When a very pregnant Annalise travels to Cleveland to meet with Rose, she reveals a folder with a news article about a hedge fund heir named Charles Mahoney who’s on trial for murder. Rose immediately freaks out, and Annalise promises she won’t let Rose or Westophe get hurt. LOL3. It’s pretty obvious, then, that Wes’s mother died because Annalise dragged her into a case she either had nothing to do with or had 

 to do with. The question is more whether she took her own life or someone took it for her.

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