There surely can’t be any justifiable reason for Netflix to continue splitting so many of its highest-profile shows in half other than a transparent ploy to drive up viewership and tout two different sets of metrics weeks apart, with The Lincoln Lawyer the latest destined to infuriate subscribers.
While the literary adaptation isn’t widely regarded as one of the streaming service’s marquee episodic exclusives, the first season was popular enough to accrue over 260 million hours in its first four weeks after premiering in May of last year, so naturally Netflix has decided the best way to follow that up is by dropping the first five installments of season 2 and making everyone wait until August 3 for the rest.
As was very recently seen with The Witcher, though, failing to tell a complete story is rarely a benefit to the audience, who end up being left with unanswered questions that take weeks to be resolved. As much as The Lincoln Lawyer establishes, expands, and then shrouds its central mystery in shadows, the feeling never disappears that you know fine well heading in there isn’t going to be a conclusion by the time the credits roll on the fifth and final chapter.
The good news is that the series has returned as bright, breezy, stylish, and entertaining as ever, with creator David E. Kelley and the sprawling ensemble cast never operating under the assumption they’re making prestige TV. Lightweight bingeable content very much has a place on the on-demand circuit, and The Lincoln Lawyer is comfortably one of Netflix’s most easily-digestible “turn off your brain” shows, which is intended as a compliment in this case.
Picking right up where we left off at the end of season 1, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo’s charismatic Mickey Haller is now a certified celebrity, which he naturally uses to his advantage having spent so long struggling to gain a foothold in the cutthroat world of Los Angeles’ battle of wits between high-powered lawyers with money to burn.
Of course, legal dramas are everywhere you look both on streaming and network television – as they have been for a long time – so it’s wise for The Lincoln Lawyer to play it safe and stick to what worked last time around. Mickey’s associates all get plenty of screentime and their own arcs to contend with, all wrapped up in the overarching narrative driving force of the hotshot defense attorney being drawn into a criminal charge leveled against a woman he very recently met, befriended, slept with, and then ended up representing in exceedingly short order.
Unfortunately, that leaves Neve Campbell on the sidelines as ex-wife Maggie McPherson, with the actress struggling to make much of an impression ticking all of the expected boxes such an archetypal role is obliged to deliver (co-parenting, will they/won’t they, new flames, personal and professional differences, etc etc etc.)
Ironically, that’s what sets the plot in motion to begin with, as Mickey and Maggie dine at a restaurant owned by Lana Parrilla’s Lisa Trammell, a chef who takes an instant liking to the roguish legal high-flyer. Piling on the foreshadowing, she name-drops the issues she’s been having with a property developer encroaching on her neighborhood, which coincidentally enough segues into the entire storytelling anchor for season 2.
Parilla is a solid addition, though, and comfortably cuts through the cliches that follower her character wherever she goes both in terms of development while generating the requisite sparks with Garcia-Rulfo, even if the bare bones of their dynamic is something anyone with even a passing interest in the subgenre will have seen countless times before.
Speaking of which, you name a trope of the episodic legal thriller, and you can bet The Lincoln Lawyer has got it; tense conversations between friends and rivals, mountains of paperwork being sifted through in search of a “magic bullet,” mysterious interlopers lurking in the shadows with their own agenda, shifting loyalties and fracturing relationships, and plenty more besides is all present and accounted for, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
Angus Sampson’s Cisco and Becki Newton’s Lorna have their own issues to work through that dredge up ghosts of their respective pasts, too, but it’s hard not to be at the very least mildly galvanized by the “seen there, done that” complexion of The Lincoln Lawyer as a whole when it’s executed with such panache. It’s almost as if everyone is in on the joke that there’s not even an attempt to bring anything new to the table, which makes it all the more palatable as a result.
Perhaps the best thing you can say about The Lincoln Lawyer‘s return is that if you loved the first season, then the sophomore run is going to scratch every imaginable itch you may have. However, it doesn’t feel as though it’ll be able to win over many new converts who prefer their slick and polished pieces of lawyering to have more between the teeth.
Inoffensive without being bland, entertaining without being riveting, and functional without being phenomenal, the show is never going to be placed on a pedestal alongside the titans of its chosen format, but it doesn’t seem as if it wants to be spoken about in such reverential, hushed tones anyway.
The Lincoln Lawyer is solidly energetic big budget escapism that carries no airs or graces about being anything above its station as a frivolous fast-paced adventure, which is exactly what it should be.
