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'How to Get Away with Murder' season 6 premiere's big 'murder' reveal has fans calling for a reshoot

Did How to Get away with Murder really just kill off Annalise Keating? Who killed her? Where is she if not six feet under?

This article contains spoilers for season 6, episode 1.

'How to Get Away with Murder' season 6 has premiered and fans already have a lot of questions, all of which are to do with one Annalise Keating. The character played by Viola Davis has been applauded and recognized several times now with accolades for her incredible story arc and of course her brilliant performance. But the actress takes things to a whole other level as she belts out on a pillow, smashing it and speaking words of affirmations to herself, as she crosses out all her insecurities. Yet it is the very end of the episode that hooks us. 

The episode begins with Annalise in rehab where she is trying to get over her guilt and shame for covering up all the murders that she has overseen, and also to recover from the spiral she plunged into following the disappearance of Laurel and the sudden tragic death of Emmet. As she spends her day in rehab trying to fix her opinion of herself from “drunk,” “selfish,” “mean,” "cancer," “slut,” “monster,” and “failure" to how she is not each one of those names she calls herself, Annalise is able to see the light and returns to her precious Keating Five to help them bury the ghosts of their murderous past. 

Somewhere between this Asher accidentally lets it slip that Annalise has known the abandonment-issue-struck Michaela's birth parents all this while. This spurs Michaela to say that if it were true he would kill Annalise (yes, in those many words) and the end of the episode shows a blood-stained poker, followed by a funeral for Annalise that she saw in her imagination when the episode starts. And this has us very, very confused. Are these just very vivid dreams, or did they just reveal the big death of this season within the first hour?

Taking to Twitter, equally confused fans have gone beserk trying to figure out if this season is going to be all about us figuring out who actually committed Annalise's murder? User @LethalSaint_ went full caps and asked, "ANNALISE IS GOING TO BE DEAD AT THE END OF THIS??? I WATCHED 6 SEASONS FOR HER TO END UP DEAD??? #HTGAWM," and the same level of shock and dismay followed from @_DMonaee, tweeting: "Sooooo IKYFL! Annalise better not be dead! UNNEXCEPTABLE! Y’all can take the whole season back & try it again."

Certain fans also had their theories on how this could be a fake-death where Annalise is just pretending to be dead for some ulterior motive, and they seem quite plausible. For instance, user @ChikNameKrystal claims "Annalise isn’t dead. She faked her death and meets up with Wes at the end of the show. They both cheers to the fact that they were able to pull off this stunt as Laurel walks up with Christopher... yeah, probably not." Another fan, @Vibrations4God noted: "Plot twist Annalise isn’t dead she faked her death so she wouldn’t have to testify against no one else or pay for her part Watch and that’s (the show.) A dead corpse can’t talk so they all get away with everything."

As of now, these are only speculative theories, or perhaps an innocent case of denial. Find out more on the next episodes of season 6, airing Thursday nights at 10/9c only on ABC.