Lawyers may get a bad rap, but they’re all that stands between a person accused and the powers-that-be, and “The Lincoln Lawyer,” back for a second season on Netflix, makes a persuasive case that TV needs more legal dramas told from the point of view of defense attorneys.
The 10-episode season is getting a two-part release, with the first half (ending on a cliffhanger) premiering this week and the second half (which I haven’t seen) coming Aug. 3. There’s no obvious storytelling reason for the scheduling. Rather, this is Netflix’s weird compromise between a binge vs. weekly release. It’s not beneficial from a narrative standpoint, but I’m sure someone at Netflix has data that proves this will juice the streamer’s numbers, so here we are.
Based on the novels of Michael Connelly, the show comes from David E. Kelley and Ted Humphrey, who are seasoned hands at this sort of thing. So why does the new season feel less assured?
When it comes to the misadventures of criminal defense attorney Mickey Haller (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo), the guy is neither noble nor sleazy, but lands somewhere in between: A pragmatist and an opportunist. He’s riding high off two major wins from Season 1: An acquittal for a slimy tech bro (who was then shot and killed) and a wrongful conviction tossed out for a client framed by the cops and sitting in prison for a murder he didn’t commit.
The show keeps referring to these cases early on in Season 2 without much in the way of expositional recap. I remembered none of it — not even that one sentence description above — and had to go back and (long, annoyed sigh) rewatch last year’s finale. But that’s what happens when the second season arrives 18 months after the first — sorry, I’ve been living a life in all that time! Kelley and Humphrey have considerable network TV experience between them (including “The Practice” and “The Good Wife” respectively), but they — and by extension Netflix — have failed to adapt those rhythms and storytelling devices to streaming’s more unpredictable scheduling.
Mickey’s recent successes have made him a star, and while I don’t see either aforementioned case turning him into a bona fide celebrity outside of legal circles, that’s what the show wants us to buy. Getting that murder conviction overturned also meant tanking a sex trafficking case a prosecutor who is also his ex-wife (Neve Campbell) was working on, and a demotion ensued. That’s made things tense between the two and he tries to throw money at the problem. You can imagine how well that’s received.
Meanwhile, back at the office — which has been inexplicably remodeled to resemble an Ikea display; would a man who used to work out of his Lincoln really care about his office decor enough to spend money changing it? — Mickey’s other ex-wife and office manager, the high-spirited Lorna (Becki Newton), is struggling to keep up with the influx of new clients. She’s also finishing law school and planning a wedding to Mickey’s grizzled private investigator, Cisco (Angus Sampson), who is trying — with little success — to extricate himself from the outlaw biker gang to which he once belonged. Then there’s Mikey’s driver Izzy (Jazz Raycole), who the show’s writers struggle to meaningfully incorporate into the narrative. Even if she plays a bigger role in later episodes (and there’s no guarantee she does) why waste Raycole’s talents in the first half?
The series once again juggles a big, ongoing case alongside cases that Mickey dispatches with relative speed. I think there’s a way for the show to do both, but as is, it feels discombobulated. After hooking up with a chef who is then charged with murder, Mickey becomes her lawyer and there are some shades of classic noir in this setup: Is she a damsel in distress or a femme fatale who has lured Mickey into her web of lies? The character is intentionally written to be opaque. Too bad she’s also so dull. It makes you wonder if the writers were working with an unreasonably short schedule, which is an issue prevalent among streaming series and one of the many concerns fueling the current Hollywood writers strike.
Even with these critiques, I’ll be watching the second half of the season because I’ll always be predisposed to shows like “The Lincoln Lawyer.” It’s a throwback to a time when a premise like this would get a 22-episode order, and each week there would be a fairly intriguing legal puzzle to be worked out. A challenge for this show is that its central character (and performance) is perfectly fine but not especially compelling or layered, so it relies mostly on the problem-solving efforts of the supporting cast (who are underserved this time out; rarely is the team even in the same room together) and how interesting the cases actually are — or aren’t.
There’s a place on television, or at least there should be, for entertaining and solidly built legal dramas, even if the genre has quietly gone out of fashion. We’re living at a time when watching smart people grapple with a corrupt police state and their own moral quandaries, while making an impassioned speech or two, is as relevant as ever.
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'THE LINCOLN LAWYER'
2.5 stars (out of 4)
Rating: TV-MA
How to watch: Netflix
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