There were a lot of cases to unpack in this season of The Lincoln Lawyer, and the show also made sure to keep some last-minute twists for the finale, keeping viewers on the edge of their seats.
The David E. Kelley series is a fairly traditional procedural courtroom drama, resting on the titular lawyer in question, Mickey Haller (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo) as he navigates a make-or-break case. Based on the novel The Brass Verdict by Michael Connelly, the debut season of the show revolves around Mickey being brought back from unemployment after a former acquaintance leaves his law practice to him, following the events of his mysterious death. This triggers a series of events that forces Mickey to be roped into a splashy high profile case involving a tech millionaire, as well as look into his friend’s death and his older cases.
The brunt of the series revolves around the case of Trevor Elliot (Christopher Gorham) the video game owner convicted of murdering his wife Laura (Katy Erin) and her lover at his own home. The case was being handled by Jerry, the lawyer who leaves Mickey his firm before his death, and who had his laptop stolen on the night he got murdered, leading Mickey to think that his death had something to do with this case. As the series continues, Mickey begins to think that Trevor’s college roommate, who is now head of a Russian mob and whom Trevor put as the initial investor in his business, is behind the killings of Trevor’s wife and her boyfriend, Jan Rilz.
He also might be behind the murder of Jerry who was possibly involved in something shady with them. If Laura divorced Trevor, she would also take half his money, which would make the Russian acquisition of the project impossible. Trevor also seems fairly guilty given that he showed little emotion to the cops on the night of his wife’s death and was likely hurt by his wife’s affair. Furthermore, he had trace amounts of gunpowder residue on him, which gave the police enough evidence to charge him with the crime.
In Mickey's investigation, he learns of a ‘magic bullet’ that Jerry had that would help him win the case, and he ties it to a shooter that was caught on the same night named Eli Wymes (Mikal Vega). Initially, he has little idea of how the two cases are connected – Eli fired 90 rounds of ammunition that night at cops and Trevor was nowhere nearby. However, in the penultimate episode he is able to reveal to the jury that because Eli was transported in the same car as Trevor upon being arrested, the gunpowder residue likely clung to him from the back of the vehicle where Eli sat.
During the trial, Mickey is able to successfully prove that Trevor could not have murdered his wife and boyfriend, and disposed of his blood stained clothes in 7 minutes. His 'magic bullet' from Eli’s presence in the back of the cop car is why Trevor had so much gunpowder residue on him also proves to be a winning defense. With his reputation cleared, Trevor is deemed not guilty and is now a free man.
However, as the final episode of the series shows, all is not what it seemed when it comes to this case. Through the testimony of Sonia Patel (Puja Mohindra), a friend of Laura’s, and his own research, Mickey uncovers that it was Laura and not Trevor who was behind the success and brilliance of his game, and it was her line of codes that had made Trevor millions. A potential divorce would take away her talents to another competing firm as well as allow her to sue and claim the game’s intellectual property as hers, as she was the brains behind the video game’s life-like appearance.
With the motive, Trevor is revealed to actually be the one who killed his wife and her lover. He uses a drone to dispose of his clothes into the nearby sea and fabricates the Russian’s involvement. However, despite Trevor thinking he had gotten off scot-free, things don’t work out for the smug murderer when he is gunned down by another one of Jan’s lovers, Carol Dubois (Heather Mazur).
Trevor's case is not the only one the finale gives us some closure on. Mickey’s ex-wife Maggie (Neve Campbell) is successful in taking down Angel Soto (Reggie Lee) the head of a human trafficking ring. Although her initial investigation loses all ground when the detective in charge of that investigation is revealed to be corrupt, she is nonetheless able to take down Soto with the help of a state attorney. Her romance with Mickey is also back on the table as the finale leaves the two in a comfortable place, should they decide to pick things up in Season 2.
The finale also reveals that the person behind Jerry’s death was a man named Sweeney who was hired by Judge Mary Holder (LisaGay Hamilton) on a bribe by Trevor. When Jerry learned of this, Mary had him killed. Her plans to do the same with Mickey were thwarted by him being constantly supervised by police detective Griggs (Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine). When Mickey confronts her, she admits to it on a wire and is arrested by Detective Griggs.
The ambitious last episode also gives us an update on another Mickey Haller case. Prior to his addiction, a case of Mickey’s had fallen apart after a material witness suddenly pulled through at the last second. It’s revealed that she did so at the behest of the police department, and her eventual testimony years later proves that the police falsely imprisoned the suspect Jesus (Saul Huezo), and the real killer, a man who has a tattoo on his arm, is still out there. The finale leaves us with the image of the same unknown man, watching Mickey as he surfs, suggesting more trouble is likely to come with this case should the series come back with a second season.