Tense legal procedural is steamy with some violence.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 15+?
Any Positive Content?
Sex, Romance & Nudity
some
Most of the cast members are single and willing to hook up or partnered but cheating. Expect references to sex and scenes featuring adults in bed kissing and sometimes more, such as when one man tells another man to "turn over" in bed because there's something he wants or a main character is seen in silhouette having sex on a desk. No nudity or sensitive body parts are shown.
Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.
The lawyers and students on-screen take on various cases having to do with homicide and criminal justice; murders and/or deaths are graphically described. Dead bodies may be briefly shown on-screen. Characters enter into a pact to hide a murder.
Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.
Scenes take place in a bar with characters and extras all drinking cocktails; one character gives another a bottle of wine, saying, "I could use a drink -- or 10."
Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.
It's a fine line between being on the side of law and order and doing unethical or at the very least morally questionable things to win cases.
Positive Role Models
very little
Main characters are of the sympathetic-but-complicated type, with dark secrets in the past or present. The cast boasts exemplary ethnic and racial diversity.
Parents Need to Know
Parents need to know that How to Get Away with Murder is a drama with an ensemble cast of law students who work with a powerful, complicated attorney and professor. Most of the action falls along the police-procedural spectrum; expect graphic descriptions of violence, death, and murder, occasional depictions of dead bodies, and plot twists concerning terrible deeds. Also expect references to sex as well as on-screen sexual activity, including a character shown in silhouette having extramarital sex on a desk and one man exhorting another man to "turn over" in bed. Lawyers are willing to take morally questionable or unethical actions to win cases; they are praised for doing so and receive no consequences. Many scenes take place in bars, and characters refer to needing a drink. Cursing is generally mild ("Get the hell out of here!") but can be sexist: "Stop acting like a little bitch."
I love this show so much - it has a black woman as the main character and a lot of diversity (homosexuality, different races) and it actually shows us what it's like to be a black woman nowadays. It's so interesting, I've never seen anything like this. I don't know what it is, it's just absolutely addicting and interesting with an AMAZING cast. I admire them all. It's well written and has a different way to tell the story which is so unique and worked out very well. However it does have a lot of sexual references, jokes etc and sex is a key theme but they never show anything. No nudity, no sex scenes (oral sex is briefly shown though but it's covered). It can be a little rough at some point, because you get to see abusive unhealthy relationships and such things but that's a part of the story. So for me as a teenager it's so weird that adults actually consider this should be a TV-MA. It does not contain graphic sex scenes, nor graphic violence or language. So the TV-14 rating is just fine. The violence is not graphic. We see a little blood on screen but that's basically it. Highly recommend it.
Loved this true crime series, and my tween did too!
This series was so good to watch with my 11 year old. Even though it did contain some sexual references and scenes, you never actually see anything inappropriate or violent. There is some blood/gore but nothing a mature tween couldn't handle. She loved it, especially because of the courtroom drama and true crime, and that the main character was a black woman. I would definitely
recommend if your tween is mature.
What's the Story?
Created by Shonda Rhimes' production company, HOW TO GET AWAY WITH MURDER circles around powerful defense attorney and criminal law professor Annalise Keating (Viola Davis), a woman with a complicated life. She'll do almost anything to win the freedom of the innocent (or the guilty) accused criminals she defends; at home, she's placating loyal husband Sam (Tom Verica) with promises of a baby; and she's carrying on a hot and very morally questionable affair with a local detective, Nate (Billy Brown). The story picks up at the beginning of the year in Keating's classroom, a time when she selects a group of the most promising law students to come work at her law firm. The group this year includes naive newbie Wes Gibbins (Alfred Enoch); overachiever Michaela Pratt (Aja Naomi King); prickly outsider Laurel Castillo (Karla Souza); amoral party boy Connor Walsh (Jack Falahee); and Ivy League frat boy Asher Millstone (Matt McGorry). It's a group of individuals so different that there's no way they should even know each other, much less be working together shoulder to shoulder. But when Wes becomes entangled with a mysterious neighbor who's the chief suspect in the murder of a local coed, and all five of the students and Annalise herself are mixed up in a murder that's decidedly closer to home, they'll have to find a way to make things work.
Viewers will be a bit disappointed to learn that, though How to Get Away with Murder is executive-produced by Shonda Rhimes and is made by her company, ShondaLand, Rhimes herself didn't crank out the script. Thus Murder lacks the deliriously insane spark that makes other Rhimes-penned shows such as Scandal or network stalwart Grey's Anatomyso compulsively watchable. Instead, though Viola Davis is so powerful on the small screen that she practically shoots sparks, she's working with material that's beneath her. The plot is so overstuffed with details about what seems to be a grand total of at least 10 main characters that even ultra-compelling ones such as Davis' Keating don't get enough screen time.
Still, breathless as it is, Murder is fun. The cast is cute and seems committed to the material, and taking on a case-of-the-week structure with longer-lasting story arcs about the characters' personal lives makes for a reliable source of drama. Fans of legal dramas, and Rhimes fans in particular, should at least give it a shot for the magnetic presence of Davis to see if this one merits a spot on your DVR schedule.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about why legal dramas are such an enduring staple of network television. What types of ongoing possibilities for plots do they offer? Why would this be attractive for a television series?
Do the lawyers in How to Get Away with Murder act like real lawyers who might take on homicide cases? Why, or why not? What about them seems realistic or unrealistic to you?
Have you watched any other shows by executive producer Shonda Rhimes? How are they like this show or unlike it? Does Rhimes' involvement make you want to like the show or make you less likely to watch? Would your opinion change if you knew that Rhimes didn't write the script for this show?
Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by
suggesting a diversity update.
Common Sense Media's unbiased ratings are created by expert reviewers and aren't influenced by the product's creators or by any of our funders, affiliates, or partners.
By Joyce Slaton
,
based on child development research. How do we rate?
