The Story of Annalise Keating’s Baby on ‘How to Get Away With Murder’ Is Very Grim

We’ve witnessed a lot of heartbreak and bloodshed on How to Get Away With Murder — even some from the ABC drama’s prehistory. For example, let’s rewind the clock years before the events of Season 1 and explain what happened to Annalise Keating’s baby.

In a series of Season 2 flashbacks, we see that Annalise gets pregnant around 2005 while married to Sam Keating and teaching at (the fictional) Middleton University — around the same time a colleague advises Viola Davis' character to defend the high-profile murder suspect Charles Mahoney.

Viola as Annalise on HTGAWM.

Charles, a hedge fund heir, stands accused of murdering his fiancée, Vicky. Wallace Mahoney, his father, instructs Annalise to contact a woman named Rose who could corroborate Charles’s alibi. Rose does just that, saying she saw Charles the night of Vicky’s death, but Annalise soon realizes Rose is lying. Turns out, Wallace intimidated Rose by threatening the life of her young boy, Christophe. Even worse, Annalise deduces that Wallace repeatedly raped Rose. (Actually, Charles did, and Christophe is his son.)

Rose eventually kills herself in front of Annalise, thinking death is her only way of protecting her son. (Speaking of whom, Christophe grows up to be — surprise, surprise — Annalise’s law student Wes Gibbins.)

Armed with this knowledge, Annalise heads to the police station to report on Wallace’s nefariousness, but en route, her car is T-boned by another. She survives the crash, but her unborn child does not.

The driver of that car? Annalise’s own paralegal, Frank Delfino, who was working with the Mahoneys. Frank fesses up to Sam, but Sam swears him to secrecy, thinking that the news would devastate Annalise even further. (She eventually finds out, of course.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgMJ4jV-Dog

Anyway, Annalise’s marriage to Sam never recovers, and the events of the Mahoney case haunt her for years to come. She eventually develops a mother-son relationship with Wes, but he too dies an untimely death… unless he’s somehow still alive! (Stranger things have happened on HTGAWM, people.)