‘The Lincoln Lawyer’ Season 4 Episode 1 Recap: The ClinkedIn Lawyer

We really liked it when the cliffhanger ending of The Lincoln Lawyer Season 3 summarily removed the preternatural ability of Mickey Haller (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo) to Lincoln and/or lawyer his way out of any jam. While he was riding high on his firm’s victory in the Julian La Cosse case, expecting a big financial settlement from the city, and planning a vacation to Mexico, the LAPD suddenly pulled Mickey over. Cue a few “You can’t do that”’s and “This search is illegal”’s – all valid points made by the criminal defense attorney – and in an instant Mickey was getting arrested for the murder of Sam Scales (Christopher Thornton), whose body had somehow appeared in his trunk. That trunkspace on a 1963 Lincoln Continental is vast – Sam was crammed in there wheelchair and all.

Sam Scales was a criminal with a smile. He had conned a lot of people, even Mickey, but also did work for the attorney in an off-the-books capacity. Which means whoever really killed the conman had knowledge of this personal connection. They understood how Haller likes to work, in the undefined margins, where a lawyer who built his reputation from the backseat of a moving vehicle plumbs the minutiae of a case for the smallest angle that secures a win. Whoever murdered Sam to set up Mickey did it in an artful manner, where the system the lawyer steadily beats now has means to bust him back in the chops. We’re not on the side of the setter-uppers. But we are on the side of what this does to Mickey Haller, because they’ve taken away everything he usually uses to come out on top. When we meet him in Season 4, Mickey’s fully bearded and protecting his sheaf of case notes in a hiding place under his jail cell cot. Other than his friends, colleagues and loved ones on the outside, this is all he’s got. Show us what you’re made of, counselor. Or should we say inmate #7211956?

While Mickey stews in High Power, Lorna Crane (Becky Newton) is holding it down at Haller & Associates. She’s taking over her boss and ex-husband’s case load while he, in Lorna speak, “deals with his murder thingy.” She’s trying to convince potential new clients that a firm’s lead name also being a murder suspect isn’t a deterrent. And with her new husband, investigator Dennis “Cisco” Wojciechowski (Angus Sampson), and office manager Izzy Letts (Jazz Raycole), Lorna is also spending a ton of time staring at a whiteboard in the conference room. On one side is written “Who Hates Mickey,” with a list of old clients and the generally disgruntled, who all have solid alibis for the night of Sam’s murder. And the other side is a list for Sam. Was he cooking up a con that got him killed and Mickey pinched? The team doesn’t have a lot to go on.

They will also be up against a formidable courtroom opponent. Lorna and Cisco have to bring Mickey a suit, shirt, tie, and razor – “You look like a hobo riding the rails” – but once assembled before Judge Lionel Stone (Scott Lawrence), where Lorna will stand with “pro se counsel Michael Haller,” they discover a pencilnecked assistant district attorney being run out of the room in favor of Dana Berg (Constance Zimmer). “Death Row Dana,” Mickey calls her; she’s a tough customer. Later, when Lorna meets with Maggie McPherson (Neve Campbell), Mickey’s other ex-wife and a district attorney herself, she expresses her dismay. Mickey being in jail is a bad look, they’re burning through clients, and through Dana Berg, the people are withholding discovery. When Maggie calls her “Iceberg,” Lorna is even more dismayed. “She has two nicknames?!”

Mickey swears he can do a few months in lockup standing on his head. He doesn’t want to spend the firm’s dwindling resources on bail, set at an egregious five million bucks. He doesn’t want to tap into the college fund for his daughter Hayley (Krista Warner). And to anyone who asks – Lorna, Maggie – he remains in a state of radical confidence about his chances. We know this Mickey Haller place; it’s where he usually sources his best solutions to sticky legal problems. But that was when he was still free, tooling around in the Lincoln and chilling in his hilltop midcentury pad. Now he’s got next to nothing, a serious and skilled prosecutor at the opposite table, and what seems like even more static setting him up. The ballistics report on the bullet that killed Sam Scales says it went through him and was embedded in Mickey’s garage floor.      

Mickey can tell Hayley not to worry, that while the prosecutor will try to grow the case against him like a leafy tree, her father is the man with the axe. But back at the jailhouse, as the lights go out for another long night behind bars, and the ambient sounds of the incarcerated becomes like a buzzy noise beating into his brain, Mickey can’t stay as radically confident. He puts his arms over his face, and repeats a lone mantra. “I’m the man with the axe…”

Briefs for Season 2 Episode 1 of The Lincoln Lawyer (“7211956”):

• Izzy is taking paralegal courses, where she makes a connection with her classmate Grace (Gigi Zumbado). Iz tries to say her life is crazy, what with her boss being accused of murder and all, but Grace is persistent, and they agree to meet at a local spot full of vintage arcade games.

• Angélica María returns to Lincoln Lawyer for a little more light comic relief as Elena, Mickey’s actress mother. “You’re missing out on your life!” Elena says during a phone call with her son. “You are missing out on your daughter, and the possibility of finding a future wife!” Mickey’s like Ma, it’s not my choice to be in here…

• We love a nice location shot, and when Lorna Crane meets Maggie McPherson to discuss the predicament of their shared former husband, it’s inside the gorgeous atrium of the Bradbury Building in downtown Los Angeles.  

Johnny Loftus (@johnnyloftus.bsky.social) is a Chicago-based writer. A veteran of the alternative weekly trenches, his work has also appeared in Entertainment Weekly, Pitchfork, The All Music Guide, and The Village Voice.