'How to Get Away With Murder' recap: Season 5, Episode 8

Here we go, it's time for the winter finale How to Get Away with Murder in an episode that will see both the long-awaited Coliver wedding and a bloody, bruising conclusion. Season 5 has been the show's strongest season – a speeding train of revelations and an examination of the corrupt prison system all chugging towards tonight's explosive finale.

We open back where we started with a figure bleeding in the snow. The dripping blood shifts to Gabriel cutting himself while shaving – Laurel, Bonnie, and Frank look on from their surveillance camera. Laurel wants to tell Michaela the truth about him, but Bonnie says that could be everyone in danger. Frank wants to find out what Gabriel wants and everyone else needs to stay in the dark to keep them safe. Including the hearing, apparently.

Oliver and Connor are feeling the love of the night before their wedding. Oliver's mom gives a heartfelt speech about how Oliver gives his heart to those he loves and how Connor does that in return. Connor's dad, who is going to be there, but he's not going to talk about it at Connor's bruised face. A moment only made worse when Connor's mom pointedly pushed her ex-husband aside to say, "Here's hoping you've got a lot of happier marriage than we did."

Laurel returns late and gives Michaela crap for taking Gabriel as her plus-one. Meanwhile, we see the seeds of Asher's parking lot with Connor's mom planted as he would bring her champagne, and she would end up hoping that she would retire with her to Boca. Oliver continues to avoid Connor's dad, and Jefferson wants them all to talk about it – goal Connor insists his dad not make Oliver's special day all about him.

Back at Annalize's New Digs, She's Nate are digging through paperwork to take over the governor for Nate Senior's murder. Nate wants Bonnie to get the name of Miller's contact who ordered his dad's transfer. She wants him to ask himself, but he resigned from his job at the DA's office. Annalize wants to keep fighting, but not before.

Michaela also will not let this case rest, Oliver and Connor's interrupting pre-wedding day bliss to make Oliver hack the warden's phone records. He obliges and she goes to Nate with them. The warden got a call from an unlisted number and then called his chief correctional officer. Nate is infuriated by her interference, but he takes the phone records to a private investigator in a parking garage and asks her to look into them.

Annalize is refusing to come to the wedding, so Connor shows up on her doorstep to insist she waits. She complains she's no good at weddings, even her wedding to be rush job at the courthouse. She was the other woman and Sam had already had his white wedding. But Connor will not take it for an answer if it was not for Annalize insisting Connor seduce Oliver and get him to hack records for her, they never would have met and fallen in love.

Bonnie is getting dressed for the wedding and is in love with Gabriel's apartment again. Miller arrives to leave with Bonnie, and she's surprised he did not tell her Nate quit. The two get into an argument and Miller says he feels like he's in love with Annalize – nailed it, bro. He wants to marry Bonnie, but not if she always puts Annalize ahead of him. He insists Annalize takes advantage of her and her "issues." Which was not, in any way, the right thing to say.

Back at the church, Connor and Oliver are getting ready to walk down the aisle. Connor is sweating and freaking out Michaela rebadures him, telling him this marriage will make him a better person. Michaela and Asher share a moment when he fixed her zipper and calls her out on kissing Gabriel, saying he feels like he's never good enough.

But there's no time to get away from it because of the music is playing and everyone is walking down the aisle. We see the walk from Connor's point-of-view as ominous music plays. He is struggling as he likes it, including Annalize! He makes it to the altar and tells Oliver it's going to be fun. Bonnie runs in late with Miller and tells Annalize he got called into work.

Connor and Oliver exchange vows. And they are perhaps the purest, most good-hearted, beautiful thing this show has ever done. Oliver waxes about his life-long dreams of a white wedding. "My dream was not the wedding or the tux gold Brian Adams, my dream was you," he tells Connor. And in turn, Connor replies with a speech about Oliver making him want normalcy. "I want to love you until the day I die," he pledges. Which, on this show, might not actually be all that long. Annalize Connor and Oliver exchange rings.

At the reception, Annalize is visibly drunk in her responses to Connor's parents (though Mr. Walsh totally deserves her attitude). Laurel wants Frank to take out Gabriel tonight so they can use the wedding as an alibi, which sends Bonnie spiraling. Annalize is not doing so hot, sitting alone in the church drinking. Gabriel walks in on her and will not let her pbad. He calls out her purse, revealing her flask. He seems sincere when he tells her how to behave. But he's not being honest, right? At least not based on what Frank finds in his apartment – a wad of cash, a hidden key, and a case that the key belongs to which contains Gabriel's birth certificate.

Annalize and dance Nate, which tips him off to her drinking. Can not a lady just have a good time at a wedding! Michaela wants to know if he found out who called the warden, which comes as news to Bonnie. Nate tells them to keep their mouths shut while he takes a call from his home. She's feeling an email with more information.

Mr. Walsh interrupts Oliver's lovely dance with his mom to half-apologize, while also insisting he now has to protect Connor from his own worst instincts. And the prize for the worst of the year goes to … .Oliver ends up stepping out because of his calling. Meanwhile, Laurel leaves Christopher with Oliver's mom, and Bonnie continues to freak out.

Finally, we have caught up to the real time of the flash-forwards we've witnessed all season. Frank is there, showing the birth certificate and getting slapped. She storms out into the snow. We're back outside where Christopher is crying and Bonnie is suffocating the unknown victim – who turns out to be DA Miller, a.k.a. the love of Bonnie's life. OH. MY. GOD.

We flashback to the rest of their conversation in her apartment. Miller continues to rail on Annalize, insisting she is not a good person. Bonnie can not help but replay conversations with Annalize where her mentor insisted Miller was playing Bonnie. He wants to protect her from Annalize, Bonnie's goal is to save the day. She says he is going to be one of the most important things in the world (sigh, Bonnie, you may have to let Annalize go to some point) and she does not want to go to the wedding with her.

Back to the wedding, Bonnie's disobeyed Miller's longing and looking forward to an engagement ring in his car, he gets out to confront her. He pledges his love, but she turns on him, insisting he had Nate's dad killed – that's what all the pieces point to. He denies it, but she tells him to never touch her again. He returns to his car but decides to go after Bonnie again and that is his fatal error – because there is a lot of money in the parking lot. day.

Nate and Miller argue, with Nate insisting the interview is just to cover his tracks and Miller denying all of it. Incensed by his father's death, Nate flies off the handles and punches Miller in the face, going into an uncontrollable rage and a desire to make Miller feel the bread his father felt. It's a heart-rending moment, watching Nate unleash on Miller in the exact same fashion that earned his father's sentence at the heart of all of this. He beats Miller until he's a bloody, barely-conscious pulp, and he's done.

Bonnie sees a trail of blood in the snow and just keeps whispering "Oh God, no" over and over. She finds Miller 's body and Nate calls out to her from the trees. He tells her Miller called the warden and shows her the photo. Nate is still hysterical, rambling about Miller murdering his dad. It's too much for Bonnie to bear, but she does not like it. Miller to death.

Everything else is a red herring. Christopher was in the snow because Bonnie got saddled with him when they played Mrs. Hampton's song; Oliver was missing because he was on the phone with his dad in flagrante delicto with Asher. Oliver has made a great gesture, singing John Legend's "All of Me" to Connor in the place of a first dance.

Conrad Ricamora is an exceedingly talented Broadway performer, and it's so fantastic to see the show give him this stand-out moment to sing. He has a stellar voice and makes the song a vulnerable and makes the last moments of the final utterly heartbreaking. Connor looks on, his eyes full of love for his husband, the wedding guests all over the world.

The song and its message of undying love hauntingly plays over Bonnie sobbing through delivering death to Miller. Miller's body in the trunk of his car – and discovers the engagement ring that was in Miller's pocket. Bonnie returns inside to find Asher starring wistfully at Michaela during the love song. Bonnie insists nothing is wrong. Laurel is concerned about Gabriel's whereabouts.

Annalize has left the wedding early, having to use a hide-a-key to get into her apartment because she can not find her own. She's on the floor of her apartment, crying and drunk, when she hears the floor creak. She could not find her key because Gabriel took it when she dropped her purse. He stands menacingly in his hallway, trying to play it off, but he tells the jig is up – he knows who he is. And finally, his identity is revealed. Flashing back to the wedding, Frank tells her Gabriel is Sam's son. We see the birth certificate and Sam Keating is listed as the father, while Vivian Maddox, Sam's first wife as it turns out, is the mother. She stares at Gabriel and his enigmatic face shifts to an unsettling close-up on a smiling Sam.

And there we have it, Miller is dead and Gabriel is Sam's child possibly for revenge against the "other woman" who broke up his family. What do you think? Is Miller truly a bad guy? Or did Nate and Bonnie take the wrong person? Will Nate tell Bonnie about the engagement ring? What does Gabriel actually want? And is it all about the mysterious adoption that is the governor's leverage against Annalize? Sound off in the comments or hit me up @themaureenlee.

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