Annalise Has A New Nemesis On 'HTGAWM' — And She Doesn't Even Know It

Spoilers ahead for How To Get Away With Murder Season 6. When Gabriel Maddox showed up on How To Get Away With Murder at the end of Season 4, fans knew something was up with him. He was too handsome, too smart, and too in-the-middle of things. They were right — not only was Gabriel working with the FBI, but he's Sam Keating’s son, looking for answers about his father's death. In the final season, his story might be getting even more complicated, because Gabriel's mom on How To Get Away With Murder has also shown up and she definitely looks like the villain for the show’s final season.

Let’s assume that this mysterious woman, played by When They See Us' Marsha Stephanie Blake, who has shown up at Gabriel’s doorstep is Vivian, because when the phone rings she comes up as “mom” on his caller ID. Viewers know that Sam Keating, Annalise’s late husband, was married to Vivian and left them both when Gabriel was young. Gabriel has spoken about his mother’s severe mental health issues, but he didn’t give any indication that she would come a-knocking in Philadelphia. It doesn't seem like he even knows that mom is outside his window, looking in, while they catch up on the phone.

Now, Vivian is settling into a new apartment with a box labeled with Sam Keating’s name. Things are likely going to go very off the rails, very soon.

Even Rome Flynn, who plays Gabriel on the show, doesn’t know much about where Vivian's story will go in Season 6. “I think she's a focal point of a storyline that we don't know yet. I can't give you too much information on what their relationship is like but he's obviously searching, and he's searching for a reason,” Flynn told TV Guide. “What does she know? Does she know anything?”

She knows enough to have a giant box in her closet — a box she’s trying to hide from everyone else, including her son. Gabriel came to town to learn more about Sam and Annalise and it’s entirely possible that Vivian is in town to get revenge on the man who left her. And since Sam's dead, Annalise makes for an easy secondhand target. Bringing in Vivian to hunt down Annalise while everyone tries to find Laurel and cover up Emmett's death certainly makes for a rollercoaster ride of a season, which it very likely will be.

How To Get Away With Murder showrunner Pete Nowalk told Entertainment Weekly that answers are coming, even about Vivian and her role on the show. "We have 15 episodes to have each character decide what they want for themselves, and in that, they have to grow up," he said. "Every character has that journey of trying to figure out who they are… Not everyone’s going to get a happy ending.”

That could mean that Vivian gets her revenge on Annalise. Unless she's up to something else entirely, which would be such a HTGAWM way to finish off this final season.