‘The Lincoln Lawyer’ Season 3 Episode 2 Recap: Where French Dips Lead

“If the cartel wanted me dead, I’d be dead. We’d all be dead.” While the crew at Haller & Associates isn’t swayed by Mickey’s blasé attitude about the home invasion that turned his sweet pad upside down and deposited a chattering rattlesnake in his bedroom, he has a point about Hector “La Culebra” Moya and the cartel. The stunt was meant to scare him, not kill him. Scare him right off the Glory Days murder case. Which probably also means Julian La Cosse, the guy arrested for her murder, is somehow being framed. Mickey’s using his lawyer brain to visualize the long game. Which is the same thing he does later, in court on a different case. As a criminal defense attorney, there are ways to finagle a workable result, even if you’re defending a terrible person. Like inspiring your client, an avowed criminal, to attack you in the middle of a hearing. Mickey will take a few punches to the face and ruin his dress shirt if it gets him the mistrial that he wanted. 

“The bloody flag.” That’s what Mickey’s crafty old mentor David “Legal” Siegel (Elliott Gould) calls the tactic when Mickey and Eddie Rojas pick him up from the hospital. And get this, Mickey even had blood capsules in his mouth ready to burst. Hearing this from the driver’s seat, Eddie is incredulous. But it’s a hardball move from way back when Legal was still working with Mickey’s lawyer father, a famously hardball guy. “If you want to represent outlaws,” Siegel says to Eddie, “sometimes you gotta be one, too.” 

It’s one thing he couldn’t plan, but Mickey running into prosecutor Andrea “Andy” Freeman (Yaya DaCosta) outside the courthouse with his shirt all bloody is one way to make a new impression. “Why do so many people wanna take a swing at that face?” Andy asks with a smile, and it’s a nice continuation of the sparring that marked their interactions last season, during the Lisa Trammell case. Freeman recommends to Haller her personal bad day lifehack, which is a French dip and negroni from DTLA mainstay Cole’s. The Lincoln Lawyer just loves its reference points to the Los Angeles restaurant scene.

This show also loves plugging Haller’s reputation about town into its narrative. Cisco doesn’t fit in with the beautiful people lounging poolside at the Hollywood Roosevelt. And he strikes out with the manager when he tries to secure surveillance footage from the night Glory Days was gonna meet a client there. Which sets up an assist from Izzy Letts. In LA, all the bloggers on that hot celeb goss beat know exactly who Mickey Haller is, including Izz’s pal who meets her for coffee. He even name drops Mickey’s dalliances with Lisa Trammell. 

It’s not a huge thing, but it would probably be effective if Lincoln Lawyer did more of this, establishing its flashy TV lawyer in its version of a real-life Los Angeles setting. Haller’s face isn’t just on bus benches. We can imagine him and his cases appearing on the local evening news. But in the meantime, Mickey does make an appearance at Nobu in Malibu, and watches as a Glory Days contact drains his expense account on wagyu beef and seafood towers. At least she gave up a crucial tidbit between all of the orders of bubbly. Glory said if Mickey ever learned that she stayed in LA, that she never fled to Hawaii like her postcard read, then “it would all unravel.” What would all unravel? Glory didn’t mean her eventual murder. Something was going on before her demise. Mickey understands this case from the perspective of what he knows. But just like that rattlesnake in his bed, there are also many unknowns. And they’re slithering around just under the surface.       

In court, Haller meets William Forsythe (John Pirrucello), the prosecutor on Julian’s case, and Forsythe admits he’s a Haller fan boy. (See? Maybe he would’ve seen Mickey’s mug on the local news!) But the sweet buffoon act played up by the prosecutor with the drooping mustache is just a cover for some real shark moves before the judge. New charges have been added onto Julian’s docket – smoke inhalation that the county medical examiner says contributed to Glory’s death. As the man being held in suspicion of her murder, there is no way Mickey’s gonna be able to bond out Julian La Cosse anytime soon. Julian’s crushed; he’s terrified of jail. And David (Wolé Parks), Julian’s partner, is just as frustrated. As his man is sent back to jail to await what could be months of legal system maneuvering, David also says he thinks Julian is holding something back.

It’s a courtroom L for Mickey, but through Cisco and Izzy’s cajoling, they did secure the Roosevelt’s security footage. And when they track Glory’s movements on the night she died, they discover that an unknown man was tailing her the entire time. “The man in the hat” even followed her in his car as she drove away from the hotel. It will take more followup from Cisco, but it’s a nice get for Mickey after Julian’s arraignment went sideways.

That calls for a French dip from Cole’s, and Mickey and Eddie grab a booth by the window. People have been bickering about the sandwich’s origins for over 100 years, especially Cole’s and its rival in the dipped beef game, Phillipe’s. But for our purposes, the only argument that matters is the lighthearted one which breaks out between Mickey and a suddenly-appeared Andrea Freeman. It’s just like in Season 2, when they were trading blows during their final arguments. But this time around, Andy and Mickey’s banter is charged with something else. And we’re not talking about Cole’s au jus. 

Johnny Loftus (@glennganges) is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift.

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