Viola Davis Delivers in New Shonda Rhimes Drama

Are you ready for television’s next hit drama series from Grey’s Anatomy and Scandal creator Shonda Rhimes? I know I am. ABC released the first preview for Rhimes’ upcoming legal thriller How to Get Away With Murder on Tuesday, and even though it kind of makes the show look a teensy weensy bit cheesy, I can already tell that veteran actress and two-time Oscar nominee Viola Davis is going to blow the roof off the joint in this new role. I am so, so, so excited to watch this show — y’all don’t even know. Y’all don’t even know.

How to Get Away With Murder follows the lives of several ambitious law students and their “brilliant and mysterious” criminal defense professor, Annalise Keating (Davis). Things get complicated when Keating, a defense lawyer herself, becomes “entangled in a murder plot.” I’m guessing that Keating’s whip-smart students will have to try and save her using all of the skills she taught them in the classroom? Or something like that?

Davis’ Keating is described as “passionate, creative, charismatic, and ruthless.” She is a master manipulator, and even though she’s married to a psychology professor at the university, she’s having a top-secret affair. Oooh, what if it's with a student? Damn. Aren’t you just dying to see this show?

In our first look at the series, an eager young student enters his classroom at Middleton Law School for the first time. He’s all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, but the rest of the students in the lecture hall seem to be quite uptight and nervous. After nabbing a spot in the front row and being rudely informed that the class actually has assigned seats, a snotty classmate dressed in a suit warns him, “You should find your seat, you don’t want to be a sitting duck when the shooter gets here. Oh my God, you have no idea what you just walked into.”

Just then, the doors fly open and Keating enters. She welcomes her students to Criminal Law 100, or, as she prefers to call it, “How to Get Away with Murder.” Dun-dun-duuunnn! When Keating turns away from the blackboard to face the class in the teaser’s final shot, I was half expecting there to be a deafening clap of thunder and a blinding strike of lightning. Oh my gosh, this show looks awesome.

As I said, the preview's a little on the cheesy side (maybe a lot on the cheesy side?), but considering this clip is probably taken from the show's pilot, I think that can be forgiven. In my experience, pilots sometimes have a tendency to lay it on thick in order to make a big impression, but then as the show starts to find its groove, things mellow out considerably.

Hell, even if How to Get Away With Murder ends up being a totally unrealistic, melodramatic disaster, I will likely still be tuning in each week just to watch Davis. She’s the real deal.

How to Get Away With Murder is coming this fall to ABC.