Annalise Keating may be dead inside, but her mom Ophelia always manages to breathe new life and lingering rage-fire into her and the show . Guest star Cicely Tyson’s appearances are few and far between, but a little dose hits hard as she gnaws at her daughter to be a more noble-minded control freak: family-focused, God-fearing, ultimately good. What is she, nuts?But Annalise is different at home. She’s vulnerable, prone to dinner table outbursts, and willing to lean into the profoundness of the Whitney Houston and Michael Jackson posters on her bedroom walls as she tries to piece together where it all went wrong . (Certainly not in that inspired pastiche; nice collaging, set designers!) I love what a frustrating yet effective foil Ophelia is for her daughter. If she could have had babies, if she would just give up whatever isolating quest she’s on and settle down with a new man, surely Annalise might be happy. She’s has been hearing this her whole life.As the Lady Keating hides out down South to avoid her arrest warrant in Philadelphia, Nate the beefy cop arrives on demand to thoroughly charm her family and friends at the homecoming party she can’t stand. They get down after dinner, dancing as if there’d never been a Bonnie or a Hapstall Mansion or a trophy used to bludgeon her husband to death last year. It’s bliss! But it can’t last. Nate leaves, and Anna Mae (homegirl’s given name) breaks down, drunk enough for the truth to seep out: “I had a baby, mama. He died.” Ophelia’s confused and hurt for a while, but the rush of feeling needed overpowers all that nonsense. She forces her daughter out the door and hands her a shovel. Middle of the night or not, it’s time to write a letter to her lost child and bury it in the backyard.Annalise’s tendency to leak out snot at the same rate as her tears has always been compelling, but this week’s nasal drainage is relentless. It totally works. When it comes to watering the grave of what might have been, every facial secretion helps. She buries her face in her mother’s robe, shaking with sobs. It feels like a rebirth, almost. The next morning, she continues to dis her back-in-town father, but this time she begrudgingly internalizes their similarities. “We are not our fathers,” Laurel insists to Wes elsewhere in the episode (I almost forgot there were other characters), but only because if she says it out loud, maybe it won’t be true. It’s always true. Like her father, Anna’s been running away from home her whole life, yet she keeps returning to her mom, who reminds her of who she “really is.”