Excuse me because I am going to repeat myself when writing this review. The feeling of familiarity is so strong when watching The Lincoln Lawyer, taking my brain back to an earlier television era, that I will have to comment on an element that I already talked about in the first season review. But it is that, when one meets Mickey Haller (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo) of this harmless adaptation of Michael Connelly’s novels, one travels back in time to the “blue skies” of American television.
It was mostly between 2005 and 2012. The USA Network channel, which had produced La femme Nikita or Pacific blue, found a way to be relevant. When in summer the generalist channels lowered their guard with minor series, reruns and reality TV content, they made an effort to stay with the audience in summer. Curiously, the proposals were friendly, full of likeable and charismatic characters, and with plots without a single surprise in terms of structure or concept.
Here came series like Burn notice, Suits, In plain sight, Psych, White collar, Royal pains or Covert Affairs: not all episodes were broadcast in summer but all were synonymous with this station. It was as if that basic cable channel had understood the magic formula for summer: bland stories, unchallenging characters, and conventional direction. It was as if USA Network had found the ideal formula to interest the viewer without asking for attention, effort or unpleasant plots.
In this sense, The Lincoln Lawyer is a spiritual successor to that hot era and confirms it with its second season. This time, Mickey is not at a disadvantage in the judicial system but, after having a media case, clients knock on the door of his law firm with the same three workers. There’s Lorna (Jackie Newton), his first wife to study to be a lawyer; Izzy (Jazz Raycole), who had been his client and is now his driver; and Cisco (Angus Sampson), the office investigator.
And what cases do you have on the table? That of Jesús Menendez (Saul Huezo), an old client who the Los Angeles police are trying to put in jail for the second time for a murder he said he did not commit, and will also be given a job by Lisa Trammell (Lana Parrilla), the cook at a restaurant where Mickey goes with his second wife Maggie (Neve Campbell).
To understand why it is summery in the lightest sense of the word, you only have to take a look at the first episodes. Anyone want a little spice but not even see a bra strap? Well, Mickey goes to a restaurant and the cook just has to wait for him in the kitchen with her legs open to be less subtle. I understand that the name Trammell should give us clues as to what we can expect from his story arc, but what is ridiculous is that Mickey, precisely a guy with instinct, gets carried away without suspecting anything when the next day he already has Lisa asking for his services at the firm. .
And when Mickey stumbles across a twisted being that could have come from Dexter, the scenes are intentionally de-escalating: the direction makes sure the thriller can’t make anyone uncomfortable. It’s an adult show, in the sense that it doesn’t have any family-friendly plots, but it’s harmless enough to keep it on the TV without worrying about one of your kids seeing something on the screen.
The Lincoln lawyer can be the quintessential summer series and at the same time be an example of how low the Netflix bar is. The platform is so obsessed with having series that are easy to watch that it barely remembers that the key is to offer what the viewer does not yet know they need. How many rubbish like Valeria, El glamur or El silencio do you have to see, or soulless legal dramas like this one, to find a genius like Bronca?
