You can try to teach an old dog new tricks, but growth is anything but linear. Especially on TV. That’s the message of The Lincoln Lawyer Season 2, Part 1, which sees a new and supposedly improved Mickey Haller. He’s got more money, a better-looking office, more clients, and a lot more fame, but deep down, he’s still the same Mickey. Aka, he still doesn’t trust more than a few people, takes ill-advised risks and oh yeah, thinks way too highly of himself, sometimes to his detriment.
But Manuel Garcia-Rulfo remains just as charming as he was in the first season of the show, and that’s more than enough for The Lincoln Lawyer to work just as well as it did in the first season. The supporting cast is still as good, and they get a little more to do this time around, too. Izzy and Lorna, in particular, have a dynamic that still compliments the shenanigans that Mickey is getting into, but that feels more grounded in who they are as people, in a way that’s refreshing to see. We love Mickey, we do, but we want to see them grow as individuals too.
The casual way in which Mickey, and the people around him, play off his heritage, is also a very refreshing part of this show. Mickey Haller is latine, and he exists in a world filled with other people who are too. Sometimes he’ll drop a word in Spanish here or there, and so will his daughter, and some of the other people he surrounds himself with – like a Lana Parrilla that surely spent too much time playing the Evil Queen because I clocked her as the potential client in 0.2 seconds – and it never feels forced, or a gimmick, because the actors and the people writing and creating this show are also latine.
It’s just who Mickey is, and sometimes, our heritage doesn’t have to be the whole story. Sometimes it can just be the thing that brings us together – like Mickey and Jesus, and nothing more.
The story can sometimes be the romance with that first ex-wife Mickey – and let’s be honest, the viewers, would love to see him back with, not just because it’s Neve Campbell, but because if there’s a ship on this show we’re rooting for outside of Cisco and Lorna, who feel solid, it’s these two crazy kids. And though yes, there’s a bit of a love triangle this season, Lisa will have to forgive us, but once you’re the client, you’re the client. And even before you were the client …well, you weren’t Neve Campbell, or like, the love of Mickey’s life.
Or, the story can be the cases. As someone with a law background, I cannot even say how refreshing it is to see a show about a lawyer spending so much time in court, or outside of court focused on the thinking that goes into how to try a case. It’s all heavily fictionalized, of course, but it’s still kinda cool to see it come to life. The season’s second episode, titled “Obligations,” is as perfect an episode of television as they come in every respect – fans of thrillers will especially enjoy it – but it’s a particularly great episode of law television, and it’s told in a way viewers can not only enjoy it but understand it.
Reviewing part one out of 2 – only five episodes – still leaves us with some much unfinished that it’s hard to say if the season will really deliver on all that the first five episodes promise. But so far, The Lincoln Lawyer Season 2 promises to be, if not better than the first one, at least as good, and that was already a very high bar to clear.
The Lincoln Lawyer Season 2, Part 1 is now available to stream on Netflix. Part 2 will be available to stream on August 3rd.
