The Lincoln Lawyer season 3 recap

Manuel Garcia-Rulfo as Mickey Haller in episode 305 of The Lincoln Lawyer

(Image credit: Netflix)

He's the charismatic L.A criminal defence attorney with a dedicated fan-base, and Manuel Garcia-Rulfo's Mickey Haller is back on Netflix for The Lincoln Lawyer season 4.

Cruising the city and often working from the back seat of his chauffeur-driven Lincoln Navigator, fans have been eagerly awaiting one of TV's best layers to return after that season 3 cliff-hanger ending.

Mickey Haller is really up against it this time, as he's forced to work tirelessly to prove his innocence in the murder of a former client. This involves unravelling the client's final scam, and squaring up to the DA’s office and the FBI.

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The Lincoln Lawyer season 3 recap

Season 3 of the show is based on The Gods of Guilt novel in The Lincoln Lawyer book series, where Mickey defends Julian La Cosse Julian is accused of murdering his former client, escort Gloria 'Glory Days' Dayton..

Julian knows Gloria through his job of verifying identities of people who book escorts, and taking a cut of their profits.

When Gloria was late with a payment, Gloria and Julian had had a heated argument, but he hadn't been the one to kill her during this altercation - the real killer was corrupt Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) James De Marco.

Once De Marco found out Gloria's address, he paid her house a visit on the same night as Julian. After Julian had left, De Marco set fire to her abode - but why?

Manuel Garcia-Rulfo as Mickey Haller, Jazz Raycole as Izzy Letts, Becki Newton as Lorna Crane, Angus Sampson as Denis "Cisco" Wojciechowski in episode 303 of The Lincoln Lawyer

That's an interesting question, and here's the answer: It turns out De Marco had spent 10 years working with the Juárez cartel to cover up their crimes and fuel their agenda against their rival Tijuana cartel.

He'd pulled Gloria into his web of deceit after finding evidence to bring prostitution and drug possession charges against her - she was forced to work with him to avoid prison time.

With one of her clients being Hector Moya, a Tijuana cartel boss, De Marco gets Gloria to plant a gun on him previously used in a murder case, which results in Moya being sentenced to life in prison.

Realising he'd been set up, Moya's lawyer subpoena's Gloria to testify in court. When De Marco finds out about this, he covers his back by killing Gloria.

Not content with taking Gloria's life to cover his tracks, De Marco gets Neil Bishop involved in his wrongdoings. A former LAPD officer turned DA investigator, Bishop is broke after going through a messy divorce.

De Marco offers Bishop money to drop the case, which he agrees to. This also puts Bishop firmly in De Marco's pocket.

Cisco and Izzy set out to prove Bishop and De Marco are working together, setting up surveillance to catch them out. The pair are caught on camera planting evidence to discredit a fake witness De Marco has tricked Bishop into believing has incriminating evidence against the cartel.

Mickey shows Bishop the footage of him planting the evidence, and Bishop asks him not to bring it to court, instead agreeing to testify in Julian’s case.

Manuel Garcia-Rulfo as Mickey Haller, Gabriel Hogan as Officer Collins in episode 310 of The Lincoln Lawyer

When Bishop later takes the stand, he confesses to everything, admitting all the bad things he'd done were because De Marco had him under his control.

When asked if De Marco killed Gloria, Bishop relayed that De Marco had told him Gloria was already dead when he arrived at her house, and he'd lit the fire to burn her body and any link between them.

He also admitted he didn't actually believe this version of events. Crying in the stand when he'd finished testifying, Bishop shocked absolutely everyone by reaching for a hidden gun and ending his life by shooting himself.

De Marco gets an equally brutal ending - when he hears Bishop has sold him out, he makes a dash for it. But the Tijuana cartel track him down and hangs him.

With all suspects now deceased and Julian innocent, he gets a settlement for his trouble and Mickey looks like he might be able to step back and take a breath.

Except, of course he can't. Making his way home, Mickey is pulled over by the police, who find a dead body in the trunk, setting him for up for the legal challenge of his life in season 4.

But who as in the trunk? The body is none other than Mickey's former client from previous seasons, Sam Scales. Con artist Sam, once took money raised for underprivileged communities and spent it on himself.

Sam had been told by Mickey he'd end up dead one day, and having made that statement very publicly, it's now coming back to haunt him. Roll on seeing how Mickey will get himself out of this one in season 4.

All 10 episodes of The Lincoln Lawyer season 4 will be available to stream on Netflix from February 3.

Lucy is a multi-award nominated writer and blogger with seven years’ experience writing about entertainment, parenting and family life. Lucy worked as a freelance writer and journalist at the likes of PS and moms.com, before joining GoodtoKnow as an entertainment writer, and then as news editor. The pull to return to the world of television was strong, and she was delighted to take a position at woman&home to once again watch the best shows out there, and tell you why you should watch them too.

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