Entertainment

You'll Have To Wait For 'HTGAWM' Season 4

Richard Cartwright/ABC

Can you believe that Season 3 of How To Get Away With Murder is almost over? I mean, I can, because it’s been one hell of a ride and I’m ready for a break from all the madness — seriously, if you ever wondered if you wanted to go to law school, I would hope that Annalise Keating and her students' antics would have dissuaded you by now. I know Annalise is a fictional character, but my fantastical imagination thinks that maybe all criminal law professors have a little Keating them, which is pretty freakin' scary. But alas, I'm excited to see what she and the rest have in store — so while Season 3 is currently wrapping up, when will How To Get Away With Murder return for Season 4?

UPDATE: ABC announced on July 15 that How To Get Away With Murder' Season 4 will premiere on Sept. 28.

EARLIER: When it comes to shows with Shonda Rhimes’ name in the credits, it’s not a matter of if the show will come back, but when. They all get renewed because they are ratings powerhouses, and How To Get Away With Murder is no exception. Earlier this month, it was renewed, along with Grey’s Anatomy and Scandal, for another season for 2017-2018. While no premiere dates are even close to being announced, my guess is that HTGAWM will return for Season 4 sometime in fall 2017 with Grey’s Anatomy and Scandal and wrap up in spring 2018 to make room for Rhimes’ other show, The Catch (if it’s renewed). That’s usually ABC’s winter-to-summer warmer, leaving How To Get Away With Murder fans time to catch their breath between seasons (I always need it).

Season 3 is culminating in fans finding out who killed Wes, one of the Keating Five students who tragically died in a house explosion (it was Annalise’s house, natch). Was he dead before the fire? Was he killed because of smoke inhalation? Well, that’s… murky. The circumstances of Wes’ death have been subjected to much meddling and foolery and sabotage, and even if some questions are answered, there are undoubtedly going to be plenty of loose ends left in Season 3. After all, Annalise is being set up to take the fall for all of this — she’s been involved in, oh, every illegal thing that’s happened at the university — but I think we all know that she’ll get off. I think that Annalise lost Wes, and she’s about to lose another one of her students, because he or she killed him.

Speaking of getting killed off a show, the producers and writers of How To Get Away With Murder were way harsh, Tai, when they were setting up which character would be barbecued and burnt in Annalise’s smoldering mansion. In a recent interview, Karla Souza, who plays Laurel Castillo, told Bustle how uncertain this whole “Who is under the sheet” thing actually was for the cast:

“After reading the first episode script, [Souza] thought the person under the sheet would be a guest star, brought in for an episode or two and then killed off. But soon the cast found out, it could be one of them, as she recalls producers telling them, ‘We’re trying for it to not be one of you guys, but it’s probably going to be one of you guys.’ After that, Souza says, ‘Every episode we would find out whether or not we still had a job ... It became a reality TV show where people were betting on who was gonna die, and you didn’t know if that was your last episode.’”

Um, that’s not nerve-wracking or anything. It’s like Pete Nowalk, who produces the show, wanted his own little Hunger Games on How To Get Away With Murder. With that kind of chaos behind us, I’m looking forward to see where How To Get Away With Murder goes in Season 4, whenever that stars airing.