‘The Lincoln Lawyer’ Bosses Preview Mickey’s ‘Most Personal’ Case Yet

Mickey Haller’s (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo) going to be tested in The Lincoln Lawyer Season 3 as he takes on his most personal case yet: His client, Julian La Cosse (Devon Graye), is on trial for the murder of his friend, Gloria Dayton (Fiona Rene).

The series is based on Michael Connelly’s novels, and Season 3 is a “quite close” adaptation of The Gods of Guilt, according to co-showrunner Dailyn Rodriguez. Speaking for herself and co-showrunner Ted Humphrey, she added, “We both think that this is Michael’s best Lincoln Lawyer book, and we really felt like we wanted to make it shine.”

Below, Humphry and Rodriguez preview Mickey’s case.

This case is described as Mickey’s most difficult yet. What makes that true?

Ted Humphrey: I think that, first of all, of the cases that we’ve done on TV, this is the most personal for him. This is a case in which somebody he really cared about and believed that he had helped in some way is the victim. And in a weird way, even though she’s gone and there is another client, and we care about that person also, but in a personal way for Mickey, I think she’s the client. And I also think the level of conspiracy and shady things that Mickey has to get to the bottom of to solve this case are as or darker than they’ve ever been.

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What can you say about the investigation into what happened to Glory Days? 

Dailyn Rodriguez: I will say that what’s interesting about the investigation is that it starts getting him to question, who are the good guys and who are the bad guys? Sometimes the people that we trust the most, whether it be the police department, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the government, the district attorney, all these people that are elected and hired to take care of the community, sometimes they’re corrupted. And I think that that is not something that Mickey didn’t know, but I don’t think that Mickey knew to what extent. Does that make sense, Ted?

Humphrey: Yeah. Every season we have done some version of Mickey versus the system. I mean, in some ways this whole man’s life is Mickey versus the system, but this is the most that he’s ever gone up against the entire system and is really questioning whether the foundations of the entire system are rotted at the core.

How is he handling everything?

Ted: It’s tough.

Rodriguez: I think Mickey’s an emotional guy and he takes things personally and I think the thing that keeps him grounded is the people around him and the characters around him that allow him to be emotional, but they still keep him on track. I think that’s what Lorna [Becki Newton] does and Cisco [Angus Sampson] does, and Izzy [Jazz Raycole] and Maggie [Neve Campbell] and Hayley [Krista Warner]. These are the characters that can bring him back to reality and bring him back to a more grounded place sometimes because I think he’s somebody that really can get lost in the case, can lose himself in the case, can lose himself in defending his client. And I think that this case particularly is like that because so personal.

Humphrey: The other problem with this case for Mickey is as he gets into it, he can’t shake this nagging feeling that he may in some way be responsible as well. That part of how he dealt with Glory Days and her situation in the past may have led to this. And so that just makes it that much more personal and that much more difficult for him to deal with.

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For the two major cases in the first two seasons, his client was guilty of at least something. What, if anything, makes this one different? Can he trust Julian more than he should have trusted his previous clients?

Humphrey: That’s something he’s got to find his way to over the course of the season.

Mickey’s going to be facing off with a new character, Forsythe [John Pirruccello], in court on this case. And according to his description, he seems unthreatening, but then once the trial begins, it’s clear nothing is as it seems. What does that mean for Mickey’s approach to the case?

Rodriguez: I think he figures out pretty quickly that he is a wolf in sheep’s clothing and he realizes that he has to be just as ruthless with this guy as he was with Andrea Freeman [Yaya DaCosta] and Golantz [Michael Graziadei] before. For Mickey, they’re the enemy, so he’s going to treat him like the enemy any which way he can.

The Lincoln Lawyer, Season 3, Thursday, October 17, Netflix