Why ‘The Lincoln Lawyer’ Changed That Major Death From Book

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for The Lincoln Lawyer Season 4.]

Even knowing a death would likely be coming on The Lincoln Lawyer didn’t make it any easier to see it play out in Season 4 (all episodes streaming as of February 5).

The series, based on Michael Connelly‘s books, followed The Law of Innocence in its fourth season. Mickey (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo) was on trial for the murder of his client, Sam Scales (Christopher Thornton). It turned out that Alex Garzarian (Michael A. Goorjian) killed him because he was stealing from him — they were working together to defraud the government — and framed Mickey because he hated him. But then Alex’s family turned on him. The case against Mickey was dismissed, and he ended the season with his reputation back and looking to the future. And that seems to include Cobie Smulders‘ character after she helps save his life from the Armenian mob and then reveals that she’s his sister! (Read all about that reveal and what it means here.)

Below, co-showrunner Ted Humphrey breaks down Season 4, that heartbreaking death, Mickey and Maggie’s relationship, and more.

Mickey does get what he wants at the end in terms of getting his reputation back, but he also has a moment where he talks to Maggie (Neve Campbell) about, if I don’t win this… How much did he lose hope during the course of the trial?

Ted Humphrey: I would say just put yourself in that situation. All the things that he said, and really some of this is more eloquently spelled out in the books where Michael has the space and the verbiage to spell it out, and in the show, we have to do it in a more economical fashion. But all the stuff that Mickey has told clients over the years and told himself over the years about the power of the state being arrayed against you, now it’s been arrayed against him. So even though this is a supremely confident man who will bet on himself every time, we see the cases that Mickey wins now — he doesn’t always win, I guess there are some that he loses, but in general, we see the cases Mickey wins, but any criminal defense attorney has a lot of losses and so I think he’s very worried.

Courtesy of Netflix

Is there a specific point that you would say he was the most worried about how it would end and that it really might not go his way?

I think the end of the first episode is a low point for him and mainly because of the effect he can see it’s having on his daughter [Krista Warner]. As a parent, I can relate to how traumatic it would be for your child to see you in that situation. Any parent can relate to that.

Is this going to change Mickey at all in terms of how he views or goes about his job?

I think it can’t help but do that. Every defense attorney has a way they approach things and a way they approach clients. And for the first time in his life, he was the client and he’s heard how hollow some of that sounds, right? He has also said in the past, he doesn’t care about guilt or innocence. I mean, he cares, but like many criminal defense attorneys, he doesn’t even want to know sometimes. And now I think this can’t help but affect that going forward, that he’s going to be looking for the innocent person, the person who’s really been railroaded, the person who’s really been wronged like he was.

Something that was absolutely devastating was Legal’s (Elliott Gould) death.

That is something that is in the book. It is not done in the book the way we did it. We did a very different thing. In fact, in the book, I think it happens off screen, meaning I actually think you learn about it in a different book where he goes to his grave or something like that. At some point, the Yoda-like relationship that he has with Legal — like Yoda died, too, and then advised Luke from the force or whatever — almost has to take that turn when you have the wise old mentor like that.

But it was super emotional. It was super emotional for all of us. I mean, everybody stood up and gave a standing ovation and cheered when Elliott shot his last scene. It was very emotional for him. I think he’s really loved doing the show, and it’s been such an honor for us to work with him. The look and feel of the show is so heavily influenced by the great California noir films of mostly the 1970s, like Chinatown. And one of them that has really served as a template for the movie is The Long Goodbye, which Elliott was the star of, where he played Philip Marlowe. So, there’s this kind of meta cool thing about having Elliott in the show at all that’s been amazing.

The good thing is there’s precedent that we could see him again, that just because Legal’s dead doesn’t mean that we couldn’t see Elliott again, right?

Well, in fact, you did. Yeah, I think it was the next episode.

Yes, that was such a good scene. I’m talking about future seasons.

Sure. You never say never. Absolutely.

Mickey chooses the speedy trial option that keeps him from attending Legal’s funeral. How much was that about the trial itself and not wanting to wait, and how much was it he also just wasn’t ready to really face that loss?

I think it was about the trial. I think as much as he wasn’t ready to face that loss, he wanted to be at the funeral, but he did the thing that Legal would’ve advised him to do. In that moment, more than ever, he was channeling Legal’s advice.

Courtesy of Netflix

I absolutely loved Maggie coming in to defend him. That moment was fantastic. And then, because of that, you got those great Maggie and Dana (Constance Zimmer) scenes of them facing off in court. 

Just Neve Campbell and Constance Zimmer, so much fun to work with them. Dana Berg is one of the great antagonists of the books, and we knew we needed a real powerhouse actor to bring it to life. And we got that in Constance and then obviously we’ve had Neve playing Maggie all along, so we sort of built that knowing we were going to have those fireworks and how much fun it was going to be. And then we built a backstory of sorts between them that builds upon what’s in the book. There’s not as much detail about it in the book. And so that was a lot of fun to have them have a history. And the scene at the restaurant is fantastic.

I also loved Maggie and Lorna’s (Becki Newton) relationship this season. How did you want to show that this season? From their first scene together and just watching them continue to check in and talk to each other…

That relationship has evolved over time the way that TV relationships do. I think back to when we did The Good Wife and Alicia [Julianna Margulies] and Cary [Matt Czuchry] in Season 1 were set up as antagonists, and then over the course of the season, they become allies and friends and then sort of enemies again, and then friends again. So I think back to Season 1 of this and the scene between Maggie and Lorna in the very first episode, where Lorna’s almost scared to talk to Maggie, and she feels kind of intimidated by Maggie and there’s always a little bit of that. It’s like when Lorna looks over when she’s having her photos taken and she sees Maggie and she goes like, “Oh s**t.” She wants to look her best always, not just physically, but she wants to look like somebody who’s got something going on in front of Maggie always. But that relationship has grown and developed, and we’ve always said this show is about a man and the people who care deeply about him and they both care deeply about him. And so in their own way, they’re both trying to help him, and they realize they have to do that together.

Has Maggie’s experience defending Mickey and what she saw from the prosecution during this trial changed how she views her own job?

I think it inevitably has, and I think we will see what that means, hopefully, as we go forward. The great thing about the show is it gives us an opportunity to build on the characters in the books and develop those relationships further. And Michael always says that, too, that the readers of his books love the shows because it takes what they’re familiar with but then gives it to them in a whole new light in a way that it’s surprising.

There were quite a few moments shared between Mickey and Maggie this season. There’s something still there, but it’s the question of whether they should go there or not. What had you wanted to show when it comes to their relationship, and how do they feel about each other since it does feel like they’ll always be drawn to each other?

I think there’s a really powerful and enlightening scene between Maggie and Hayley after she leaves Mickey’s house in the car that I think gives you a real insight into the depth of feeling that she still has for him. And I think we all know the depth of feeling that he still has for her. So Maggie and Mickey are like Legal Siegel — you never say never.

Speaking of Legal, how is Mickey going forward? He’s not only dealing with Legal’s death and grieving, but he’s also facing the loss of that support, the person he turned to for legal advice, who turned up for him and was sitting there in the courtroom for him this season.

Yeah, I think that is going to weigh on him going forward in ways that are inevitably going to come to pass. I think back to the episode “Ghosts” in Season 3 where his dad [Jon Tenney] is sitting in the back of his car, and then Glory Days [Fiona Rene] is sitting in the back of his car. Legal has joined that pantheon of people that are always going to be part of Mickey’s life, and that he is never — somebody said once, you can never outrun your childhood, but you can never outrun your past for that matter.

I loved Izzy (Jazz Raycole) and Grace’s (Gigi Zumbado) relationship, and it feels like Izzy has really kind of settled at work and also kind of now in her personal life as well. Was that a goal for you this season for her?

Very much. That’s a character that started extremely unsettled, and that was part of the fun of that character. And I thought that story was really powerful in Season 1, the relationship between her and Mickey, the sobriety relationship, getting back on your feet kind of relationship. But at a certain point, somebody needs to be stable and it’s fun to make that person Izzy. Izzy has developed — even in Season 1 — since then into this character that has a really kind of sound head on her shoulders and keeps her feet firmly on the ground, and that was fun to play with. So many shows introduce a love interest only to have there be some crazy stuff happen or deceit or whatever, and we just thought it was fun to introduce somebody who actually was good.

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Lorna’s figuring out the kind of lawyer that she’s going to be, which I liked seeing this season with her. What do you envision when it comes to her clients? Is it the same thing that we saw this season, where it’s about what’s working?

Yeah, I think she’s feeling her way towards what she wants to do. Obviously, criminal defense at the moment is going to be part of that and continue to be part of that because that’s kind of how she was raised and where she is. But you can already see she’s branching out into other things, and Mickey has criminal defense pretty well covered. So, Lorna is free to branch out into other things and she’s always going to do it with kind of inimitable Lorna style.

You tested Lorna and Cisco’s (Angus Sampson) relationship a bit this season, but in a way where we could see both sides, and then it didn’t feel like this was going to break them. It just felt like something they had to get through. They had to talk to each other. Why was that the right time to do so, and what had you wanted to show there?

It’s the flip side of what I said about Izzy and Grace before; it’s nice to have someone stable and introduce a good person who’s good for somebody, but at the same time, drama needs conflict and drama needs sparks and this felt like a very natural conflict of sparks, that Cisco really is just trying to do his job, but the relationship between lawyer and investigator and the relationship between spouses is conflicting with one another, right? What the lawyer expects the investigator to do, the wife does not want the husband to do.

You brought back Lisa (Lana Parrilla) for the trial, which is in the book. Would you say that was the biggest curveball for Mickey when it came to the trial?

I think it was the biggest. I think it was the most fun and external curveball for Mickey, right? It was maybe the biggest and most fun curveball for the audience. She has such a dedicated fan base, and there’s her fan pages on social media pinging us saying, “Is Lisa going to be back?” I mean, people will go crazy. Her fan base especially will go crazy when they see that because they love her so much.

What are you excited about exploring going forward with Mickey and the other characters?

I think there’s a lot of room to develop these characters and there are I don’t want to say endless stories to tell with Mickey, but I think there are definitely more stories to tell with Mickey and you’ve hit upon some of them even in your questions, like Mickey and Maggie for example, that’s a big one. And what happens with them. And the answer to that is I think something we ultimately owe the audience and we’ll want to give them.

I’d like to see more Maggie and Cisco. The moment in the elevator was great.

And even the stuff they did in the motel when they were interviewing Emmanuelle Chriqui, I thought they were terrific together. One of the fun things to do in television shows is to imagine odd pairings of characters that you wouldn’t normally imagine and then build stories around them, and that was one of them. Maggie and Cisco don’t seem to have a lot in common, so let’s get them together.

The Lincoln Lawyer, Seasons 1-4, Streaming Now, Netflix