He learned from Shonda Rhimes. But he made ‘How to Get Away With Murder’ all his own

The final season of ABC’s “How to Get Away With Murder” has left fans hanging longer than expected. I don’t think that was a good life choice.’” “How to Get Away With Murder” is the first series created by Nowalk, an alumnus of the Shonda Rhimes school of TV dramas. He spent six seasons writing for “Grey’s Anatomy” and also spent time writing for its spinoff “Private Practice” and hit drama “Scandal.” Though it’s certainly left its mark, helping Davis become the first African American woman to win the lead drama actress Emmy in 2015, the end of “How to Get Away With Murder” leaves ABC with just two Rhimes-produced series, “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Station 19.” Sitting in his office on the Sunset Gower Studios lot in Hollywood last fall, Nowalk talked about where the show’s storytelling took inspiration from, viewing Davis as a collaborator, and the show’s contribution to advancing LGBTQ representation. Obviously, we did make that go off and we delved further into the characters, but I think there’s always that point on a network TV show where you’re like, “Here I go again, Season 2, and creating some new outside mystery.” And so I think I learned a lot from that, because you don’t want to have too little story or you don’t want to always be analyzing the past. Growing up, I don’t have a memory of knowing what a gay person looked like, except my parents saw “La Cage aux Folles,” and I think I saw a picture for that on the playbill.