The Lincoln Lawyer Season 2 Volume 2 Review: The Show Kicks Into High Gear | Part 2 Netflix
Cast: Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Neve Campbell, Becki Newton, Jazz Raycole
Creator: David E. Kelley and Ted Humphrey
Streaming Platform: Netflix
Filmyhype.com Ratings: 3.5/5 (three stars) [yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]
Finally, The Lincoln Lawyer Season 2 Volume 2 is now available to stream on Netflix. If the original title The Lincoln Lawyer keeps faith with the nomadic identity of the lawyer protagonist of the serial adaptation of Michael Connelly’s novels, Mickey Haller (played by Manuel Garcia-Rulfo), who works best in his car while moving from a courtroom on the other, The Lincoln Lawyer well expresses the other peculiar characteristic of the character: his being, in fact, a defense lawyer and not of the. This often means finding yourself having to take the side of the guilty because “anyone deserves reasonable doubt and a defense before the law”. Just like it happened in the first season with Trevor Elliott.
Not even a month after the debut of the first part, the last five episodes of the second season of Defense Attorney land on Netflix, the series inspired by the novels by Michael Connelly starring Los Angeles criminal lawyer Mickey Haller. In the course of this new chapter of the show, our maverick and idealistic Lincoln lawyer will find himself grappling with a difficult case to solve in which a woman – chef Lisa Trammell – very close to Mickey’s heart is being investigated for murder. In our review of The Lincoln Lawyer Season 2 Volume 2 we will see how, in these new episodes, the show finally gears up, developing what had remained only interesting ideas in the first part.
The Lincoln Lawyer Season 2 Volume 2 Review: The Story Plot
The Lincoln Lawyer Season 2 Volume 2 picks up on the cliffhanger that closed the first five episodes, with Mickey once again brutally beaten in a garage. He is rushed to the hospital by Izzy and is visited by friends and family, with his first ex-wife Maggie (Neve Campbell) and their teenage daughter Hayley flocking to his bedside. At that point, there is a plot twist and an about-face on Maggie’s storyline which, although not totally out of place in the general narrative economy of the show, is a good blow to the hearts of the spectators. This is also the season (or should we say the part) in which each of the characters tries to break away from Mickey and create their own identity without him: Izzy (Jazz Raycole) with his dance school to be inaugurated and his second ex-wife Lorna (Becki Newton) and Cisco (Angus Sampson) with their impending wedding, not before they’ve settled his loose ends with the biker gang once and for all.
As we have already said, the second season sees the lawyer Mickey Haller (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo) engaged in the defense of Lisa Trammell (Lana Parilla), a renowned chef with whom the man maintains a romantic relationship. The woman is accused of the murder of Mitchell Bondurant, a real estate magnate who had the intention of razing the entire neighborhood where both the restaurant and Lisa’s house are located. The second part of The Lincoln Lawyer Season 2 Volume 2 picks up right where we left off, with Lisa’s case getting more and more complicated: the prosecutor has withdrawn the offer to plea deal, which means that the prosecution could have in hand something big to trap the woman. Mickey then finds himself in the courtroom face to face with Andrea Freeman, the district attorney who repeatedly beat the man in court as well as the best friend of Maggie (Neve Campbell), our protagonist’s second ex-wife. Between mysterious witnesses, the intervention of the FBI, and a crime podcast on everyone’s lips, things won’t be easy for our Lincoln lawyer.
The Lincoln Lawyer Season 2 Volume 2 Review and Analysis
In this second part of The Lincoln Lawyer Season 2 Volume 2, we enter the heart of the action, freeing ourselves from that feeling of infinite expectation that we had with the previous five episodes and finally kicking into gear. The decision to divide the series into two parts was rather risky – even if partly justified by the cliffhanger with which the fifth episode ended – because it could have discouraged less loyal viewers. But the show is certainly at its best when it’s in court, and with the courtroom trial of Lisa Trammell, we rekindle interest in a story that was becoming a downward spiral. The “battle” without limits of blows between Mickey and the district attorney Andrea Freeman is certainly the master: In fact, defender and accuser will keep head-on until the end of the season to bring home the result. Although the series continues to have some structural problems – especially in choosing to always put too much iron on the fire – we hope that the third season of Defense Attorney will continue on the path marked by these last five episodes.
Even the secondary characters, who had seemed somewhat faded in the first part of this second season, find a bit of polish. Although the cornerstone of the narrative remains Michael Haller, played by a charismatic Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, both Lisa Trammell by Lana Parilla and Andrea Freeman by Yaya DaCosta find their own space, to develop and demonstrate that they can move on their legs. Specifically, Andrea’s character emerges particularly in these last five episodes, representing the real counterpart of our Lincoln lawyer and giving life to the most engaging scenes of the show.
The second part, even more than the first, focuses on the theme of gentrification in Los Angeles, and in this, it recalls another serial creature by David E. Kelley, father of the television defense lawyer, namely Goliath with Billy Bob Thornton. If the latter, however, was the defender of the outcasts and the unheard, Haller goes to the other side of the barricade with an important difference: he is not a shark but a lawyer good at his job, who puts the interests of his clients before everything. He also does it with Lisa, with whom he continues a fluctuating relationship and maintained on a professional and non-sentimental level, at least as long as he defends her. This is a safeguard that the charismatic lawyer tends to provide to all loved ones and against sharks out there, like Lisa’s friend who holds a true crime podcast, a ploy by the authors to wink at current events.
Between one twist and another, not always settled properly, and a new entry and a return, like Haller’s newfound mother, a decidedly eccentric and over-the-top woman, this second part serves to make a clean break with past. Now we need to look ahead, trying to re-propose a narrative scheme that could prove successful at this point. In the finale, which will answer all the outstanding questions, the probable horizontal case at the center of the third possible season (not yet officially ordered) is opened, which looks once again to the past of the protagonist and to characters we know from his family entourage and befriend them.
The entourage is increasingly the strength of the serial together with the charisma of its protagonist Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, determined to defend his clients at all costs: “I don’t have to believe you’re innocent”, Lincoln’s lawyer keeps repeating. Following her accident, the series does not forget the theme of addiction involving Haller and her driver, once again addressing the issue together with the girl’s role within the law firm. Let’s hope that at this point the series has found its place and can offer us the same horizontal procedural narrative scheme in the episodes to come, to build a solid narrative universe on TV for the character born from the pen of Michael Connelly, as had managed to make it to the cinema.
The Lincoln Lawyer Season 2 Volume 2 Review: The Last Words
The Lincoln Lawyer Season 2 Volume 2 gets to the heart of the complex murder case Mickey Haller is dealing with, finally putting the gear into gear and developing what had remained only interesting ideas in the first part. We tried to put the review of The Lincoln Lawyer Season 2 Volume 2 in order, just like the authors tried to do in the series, giving a more fluid structure to the story than in the first part. Some plot twists leave us a little perplexed even if we understand the need, and some twists are a bit redundant, but in the end, Mickey Haller continues to entertain us on TV. We grew fond of its colorful legal world and want more.
