Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Lincoln Lawyer’ Season 2 On Netflix, Where Mickey Gets Into An Ethical Dilemma While His Practice Takes Off

While it seems that David E. Kelley has moved into the world of adapting novels about rich people being awful to each other, he still has lawyer shows in his repertoire. Case in point: An adaptation of The Lincoln Lawyer, based on Michael Connelly’s novels. The second season of the series finds said “Lincoln Lawyer” doing quite well for himself, but that might not last for very long.

THE LINCOLN LAWYER SEASON 2: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Los Angeles at night. We pan down to a parking garage as we hear the sounds of people having a fistfight. Harry Haller (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo) aka “The Lincoln Lawyer”, is getting the snot beaten out of him by two thugs. As we freeze on some blood spurting from his mouth after a punch, we hear him say, “I know what you’re thinking: A parking garage? again?”

The Gist: Mickey doesn’t practice law out of the back of his vintage Lincoln Town Car anymore; his recent successes in various cases, especially the Travis Elliott case, have made him a very wealthy man. He still drives the Town Car, but is driven around in a Lincoln SUV by Izzy Letts (Jazz Raycole). He now has a downtown law office, with his second ex-wife Lorna (Becki Newton) serving as his admin and paralegal while she goes to law school; her fiancé Cisco (Angus Sampson) is the firm’s investigator.

He’s been busy fielding interviews and doing photo shoots at his house in the Hollywood hills. Izzy tries to remind him to stay focused, but Mickey feels all of this is publicity for the law firm. A new client, Teddy Vogel (Chris Browning), has retained Mickey to get him out of trespassing and burglary charges stemming from an incident where he woke up from a night of drinking in the wrong townhome.

Mickey also has to deal with the reopening of the murder case of his client Jesús Menendez (Sal Huezo), whose previous verdict was vacated. The detective investigating this time around is Mickey’s friend Raymond Griggs (Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine), who has fielded some new evidence regarding the murder weapon Menendez claimed he didn’t ever own.

At dinner with his first ex-wife Maggie (Neve Campbell), he finds out that her bosses at the DA’s office have been taking cases away from her. As he somewhat arrogantly offers solutions and help instead of a sympathetic ear, given his career is taking off, the kitchen delivers some free dishes to the table. Maggie leaves in a huff, but Mickey isn’t eating alone for long: The restaurant’s chef and owner, Lisa Trammel (Lana Parrilla), comes out to meet him. The attraction is immediate, and the two of them sleep together that night. She comes by the office the next day to show him a restraining order the developer building in her neighborhood has filed against her, as she’s been publicly protesting the area’s gentrification.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The Lincoln Lawyer is based on Michael Connelly’s novels, but the show itself has more of a basic-cable lawyer show vibe, like Suits.

Our Take: It feels like in the second season of The Lincoln Lawyer, showrunner Ted Humphrey tries to infuse Mickey with a bit more of his own personality rather than have him just be there to absorb and react to everyone around them. But, even as the second season arrives, we still see him reacting to everyone, including having his teenage daughter Hayley (Krista Warner) repeat his own advice back to him, instead of being the idealistic iconoclast that he’s supposed to be.

Just about everyone else has more interesting things going on than Mickey does. Lorna is managing the chaos in the office while studying for her law degree; she’s being kept in the dark by Cisco about what he’s been doing, namely reintegrating a friend of his back into his former biker gang after he got out of prison. Maggie is getting minimized at her job. Even Lisa, whom we are just getting to know, seems to be doing more interesting things than Mickey is.

But this season is going to bring some ethical quandaries, not the least of which is bringing Lisa in as a client despite sleeping with her. Vogel turns out to not just be a one-time client who got a vastly reduced sentence thanks to the information Mickey got about his case. We can’t say why he’ll continue to need Mickey’s counsel, but it brings up a huge ethical sticky wicket that doesn’t seem to be all that realistic or possible, but makes for good TV drama.

Despite the fact that Mickey isn’t exactly the most exciting part of the show where he’s the main character, The Lincoln Lawyer is still an enjoyable, pulpy legal drama in the mold of pretty much every legal drama its creator, David E. Kelley, has been involved with over the past four decades, with fun supporting performances from the likes of Campbell and Newton, and storylines that are just plausible enough to keep viewers from being distracted by eye-rolling.

Sex and Skin: None. Despite the TV-MA rating, all sex is implied.

Parting Shot: After informing Mickey of why being a client has now put him in an ethical quandary, Vogel walks off Mickey’s balcony. Mickey squints into space, trying to figure out how to get himself out of this mess.

Sleeper Star: We always love seeing Becki Newton and Neve Campbell in almost anything, so we’ll give them the sleeper award here.

Most Pilot-y Line: Tina shows Mickey where she lives — in an apartment next to the kitchen. “What can I say? When I want something, I’m very focused.” We don’t think she’s talking about making improvements to her shakshuka recipe.

Our Call: STREAM IT. The Lincoln Lawyer is one of those shows that won’t leave a big impression on you after you watch it, but it’s got enough good stuff going on to make it an enjoyable, pulpy watch.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.