‘The Lincoln Lawyer’ Season 2 Episode 1 Recap: “The Rules Of Professional Conduct”

As the five-episode first part of The Lincoln Lawyer Season 2 begins, Los Angeles defense attorney Mickey Haller (Manuel García-Rulfo) is on top of the world. And it’s a place he likes. Holding a photo shoot for a newspaper article on the patio of his modernist home in the Hollywood Hills? Not too shabby for a guy who once nearly squandered his career on stress and an addiction to pain pills. He is indulging in a bit of vanity. OK, more than a bit. He sat for that splashy Los Angeles Times profile, and he’s also the new cover star of something called Los Angeles Lawyer magazine. It was two recent cases and their up and down and sideways dramas really bumped up Mickey’s notoriety. Slick video game designer, now convicted murderer Trevor Elliott (Christopher Gorham), and Jesus Menendez (Saul Huezo), a man accused of murder whose innocence Mickey proved. But the Lincoln Lawyer is not letting fame go to his head. And nothing splashy ever comes back to bite anybody. Especially when that somebody is in the public eye. Right?

You can’t fool someone who knows you. Izzy Letts (Jazz Raycole) is Mickey’s friend, sometimes NA sponsor, full-time driver, and occasional assistant. And she sees a change in him as they cruise in the lux matte finish Navigator. The guy who once did his lawyering exclusively from the backseats of Lincolns is now a topic of conversation on CNN, and extensively remodeling his offices. It’s just what a lawyer with lots of new business does, Mickey tells his legal aide/office manager – and second ex-wife – Lorna Crane (Becki Newton). But he finds it much harder to plead innocence over dinner with his first ex-wife, Maggie McPherson (Neve Campbell). Though she endures the constant text notifications, Maggie rightly resents it when Mickey insinuates that paying for their daughter Hayley (Krista Warner)’s equestrian lessons would be no problem for him. Oh, he’s big timing her now? And after decisions he made last season led to her being demoted from the prosecutor’s office to the Van Nuys DA? MIckey once told Trevor, “You’ve never heard of me because I make it a practice never to be heard of.” Now, fawning restaurant staff are sending Mickey’s table free appetizers because he’s a true crime celebrity.

After Maggie cut short their dinner, which he deserved, Mickey did end up trying some of those free apps. His thoughts seem to go something like The pozole at this trending Mexican-Asian fusion restaurant in a neighborhood that’s rapidly being gentrified by a greedy developer is excellent, better than my mother’s when I was a boy in Mexico, and then what do you know, the much buzzed about chef-owner of the restaurant, Lisa Trammel (Lana Parrilla), appears at local celebrity lawyer Mickey Haller’s table. They make an immediate connection, and Lisa soon shows Mickey her herb garden. She cultivates them herself, right behind her restaurant, which is conveniently where she also lives. And in the morning, they find each other in the kitchen. “House eggs,” Lisa says, partly in Spanish. “With house-made chorizo.” They don’t usually do this, each of these professionals agree. They share stories of exes, and busy careers. “It’s nice, though.” And later, when Lisa visits the law office, Lorna busts Mickey’s balls big time. “Who’s that woman, and why are you sleeping with her?” Lorna and Mickey were married – that’s all in the past; these days, Lorna is engaged to the brooding, bearded Cisco (Angus Sampson), who Mickey hired as his chief investigator – but she knows all of this dude’s moves. Hands in pockets, trying to be disarming, scratching the head while smiling. And Mickey just did them all at once.

The connection Lisa and Mickey shared is due in no small part to notoriety, and that’s a nice, organic win. (It’s a win for us, too: as actors, García-Rulfo and Parrilla share an immediate chemistry.) But notoriety has a bad side. Last season, after winning those big cases, Mickey felt empowered enough to return to surfing, a beloved pursuit that because of an injury led to pain pills and his journey of addiction and recovery. But watching his reentry into the ocean waves was Tattoo Man, the unknown person Jesus Menendez always said was the real doer of the murder he was tried for. Now, here in season two, Tattoo Man makes himself known. Russell Lawson (David Clayton Rogers) comes to Mickey as a client, a nervous financial analyst who wound up pantsless and charged with felony burglary after an Uber ride he doesn’t remember. But after Mickey executes a little lawyerly finesse to get his charges misdemeanored, Russell suddenly appears that night inside his lawyer’s house. The woman Jesus Menendez was accused of killing? He did it. The misdemeanor case? Russell set it up. He even roofied himself to do it. And by telling the high profile defense lawyer, their little secret – his little secret – is protected. It’s really ugly, and it’s a jam. Because the Menendez case has also been reopened, and the reinvestigation by Detective Raymond Griggs (Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine), Mickey’s LAPD associate, is putting forth some hard questions. What’s a big time defense lawyer to do when he’s suddenly being blackmailed by a key component of one of his biggest courtroom wins?        

For Maggie, her forced sideline to the Van Nuys DA office has led to considering other professional options. What about going private, her friend Andrea “Andy” Freeman (Yaya DaCosta) wonders. (It seems significant that Andy is very proud of her record as a prosecutor who never lost to Maggie’s ex-husband in court.) With Lorna, who’s busy managing Mickey’s office and pursuing her own law degree, and Cisco, who informs neither his fiancee nor his boss that he’s ferrying new prison parolee Kaz (Douglas Bennett) back to his mates at the Road Saints motorcycle club – dudes who’ve had their run-ins and alliances with Mickey over the years – there are questions about this team’s presence with one another. The reopening of the Menendez case is going to test them, as is the developing role of Russel Lawson’s psychotic obsessiveness within it. (He roofied himself!) And Lisa Trammel’s visit to Mickey’s office wasn’t just about flirting. She’s been served a restraining order by the wealthy developer she’s organizing neighborhood protests against, which Mickey agrees to pursue the dismissal of in court. Doing it way big on recent juice in the media is cool and all. But Mickey Haller is going to have to figure out how to move forward personally and effectively when all eyes are on him. And while Mickey getting jumped by two assailants in a parking garage might not be the best way to do that, we’ll have to wait until future episodes to determine what that’s about.  

Johnny Loftus is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift. Follow him on Twitter: @glennganges