Based on the best-selling novels by Michael Connelly, The Lincoln Lawyer TV series follows Mickey Haller, played by Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, as he seeks justice for the underdog.

Season three finds Mickey investigating the murder of his former client, Glory Days. But as he digs deeper–and ends up representing her accused killer–Mickey becomes the target of a dangerous cartel… with deadly results.

Executive producer Ted Humprey recently spoke to me about Mickey’s emotional journey, higher stakes, the power of guilt and season four.

The Lincoln Lawyer season three is streaming now on Netflix.

Yaya DaCosta as Andrea Freemann, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo as Mickey Haller

When you have a case that runs over the course of an entire season, do you start with a beginning and an ending already in place before you even start breaking all the twists, turns and character moments? How does that work?

Ted Humphrey: “Generally speaking, it differs situation to situation. In this specific show, we are adapting books. Although we come up with a lot of stuff that is not in the books, and storylines that are not in the book, we changed things from the books.”

“But typically, what we will do is we will decide on what book we are going to adapt. There are certain temples in the books, in terms of the beginning, middle and end that we will plot out for the season in terms of where we think those things should happen. Then, you start to put the meat on the bone, so to speak.”

How important is it to present new evidence and curveballs that keep audiences guessing?

Humphrey: “It’s vitally important. It’s the lifeblood of the show and of these kinds of shows. There aren’t that many shows that are serialized the way that ours are. Obviously, when you are doing a show on network, or even not network TV… I am thinking of a show like Poker Face, that is not a network TV show, but nonetheless is more or less episodic.”

“There is a different show every week. Our show has one long story over the course of the season. There are some shows that live in the same kind of space that our show lives, that are serialized like that. It’s vitally important to throw the audience. It’s what keeps them watching. We build the show with that in mind.”

“For me, cliffhangers used to be kind of a dirty word because in traditional TV, I always felt cliffhangers were a little cheesy. It’s like the old Batman thing. At the end of the episode, Batman is being dangled over a pit of acid. But the show is called Batman. He’s not going away. He’s not going to die.”

“We don’t tend to have cliffhangers like, ‘Is our character going to die?’ Those are a little cheesy and a little forced. It’s more like, ‘How is he going to get out of this one? How is he going to get around this route that’s been thrown in place?’ Sometimes he does and sometimes he doesn’t. One of the great things about our cliffhangers is that they are real. Sometimes they are really curveballs that are very devastating to whatever Mickey is trying to do with the case.”

How did you land on kicking off this season with a flashback?

Humphrey: “That’s a good question. Let me take my mind back to that. I think in part, at the end of season two, we set up the essence of what would be the mystery of the season, which is the day of Glory Days… Mickey’s long-time client and somebody he cares about. I might hesitate to use the word ‘friend,’ but it’s someone he has invested in and somebody he cares about. We knew that we also had to introduce the character of Neil Bishop, who is played quite wonderfully by Holt McCallany, and is the main antagonist of the season. This is somebody that Mickey goes back a long ways with. In order to introduce that character effectively, we had to show what they go back to. That is in part how we hit upon using that flashback at the beginning. It kind of served dual or triple purpose. It served to show us what Mickey and Maggie were like back in the day, when they were together and things were good. It was this young, hopeful, full-of-promise person.”

“And this is something we invented for the show… The blue convertible is not in the books at all. It showed the moment where Mickey first found that car. I loved the fact that we used the Kings of Leon song in that flashback. There’s something delightful about a guy looking at a car and the music saying, ‘I could use somebody like you.’ It’s sort of making the point that the relationship with the car is one of the key relationships in his life. It then led, organically, into this court case with Bishop, who plays such a big part this season.”

Merrin Dungey as Judge Regina Turner, John Pirruccello as William Forsythe, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo as Mickey Haller

It’s safe to say that Mickey is a man on a mission this year. What did this case allow you to explore with our Lincoln Lawyer?

Humphrey: “It’s the most personal case that he’s had. This book is one of my favorites of all The Lincoln Lawyer books. Author Michael Connelly has said its one of his personal favourites, as well. For me, at least, that’s because of how emotional it is.”

“This is a case where Mickey feels responsible, in some ways, for what has happened to Gloria. He worries that situations that he put her in may have led to this. Although his client is a guy named Julian Lacosse, who he is actually representing in court. He needs to get to the bottom of this to make this right, to avenge Gloria’s death and, also, fix a problem that he feels he had a hand in perhaps creating. What it enabled us to do was really drill down on the emotion of the show. It isn’t just between him and his clients. It, then, resonates up to his family, to his daughter because of the relationship with Eddie, his driver this season, and what happens to Eddie and what that means to Hayley.”

“There is a wonderful line at the end of the book, the book is called Gods of Guilt and the last episode of the season, which I had the opportunity to direct, is called ‘The Gods of Guilt.’ In our show, the ‘Gods of Guilt’ typically refers to the jury. That’s something Mickey and other defense lawyers call a jury. But, as he makes clear near the end, in the case of this particular story, it really applies to all the people in his life that matter to him. They are his personal Gods of Guilt that he has to make his case before. That’s what this season is all about.”

Does that guilt weighing on him make him a better lawyer?

Humphrey: “I don’t know if it makes him a better lawyer. In some ways, it might make him a worse lawyer because he lets emotion and his desire to make this right cloud his judgment. But it probably makes him a more committed lawyer.”

“One of the interesting things about this character is on the surface, he talks a big game about being a cynical defense lawyer and how guilt and the system doesn’t matter to him. It’s all about, ‘We are being paid to do a job and that’s representing this client.’ He doesn’t really care if they are guilty. To some extent, that’s what defense lawyers have to do. But it’s very clear, throughout this series that Mickey cares a lot more than that, that underlying questions about right, wrong and justice really matter to him. That internal contradiction is one of the things that makes the character so interesting. That’s really brought to the forefront in this season.”

To coin a phrase, “This time it’s personal.” But it’s not only personal for Mickey this year. It is also for Andrea [Yaya DaCosta]. Why did you want to put two of your lawyers on that trajectory?

Humphrey: “Andrea is a character who is in the book, The Fifth Witness, which is the book we adapted for season two. In that book, she is what we made her this season, which is the prosecutor–his opponent–in a case. They don’t really have a personal relationship in the book series beyond that, but we love the character so much–and we love Yaya DaCosta’s portrayal of her so much–and the chemistry that the two of them have, that we felt we had to bring her back and invent a story for her and invent this ongoing relationship for them. It is one more example of how personal this season is for Mickey. She is not the prosecutor. She has a whole other story. But the personal ripples in the pond of this case extends beyond that.”

Manuel Garcia-Rulfo as Mickey Haller, Jazz Raycole as Izzy Letts, Becki Newton as Lorna Crane, Angus Sampson as Denis “Cisco” Wojciechowski

This is an ensemble cast and Mickey does have an inner circle. Can you tease what is in store for Izzy [Jazz Raycole], Lorna [Becki Newton] and Cisco [Angus Sampson]?

Humphrey: “Well, obviously, Lorna in season two is finishing law school, which is something we were setting up in season one. When you finish law school, there is something you must do, which is take the bar exam. So, we are going to see Lorna struggle with that this season and what that means to her potential career going forward and will that career be with Mickey in this firm or what that will look like.”

“Lorna, in the books, is something of a minor character. Becki does such a great job of the character, and she is so lovely to work with and audiences love, so we keep building more and more for her. She is a vital part of our show. Humour is one of our show’s big secret weapons. It might not be that secret really, but Lorna is always a big part of that.”

“Izzy, that is a character we completely invented for the show. She’s not in the books at all. It was probably a character that didn’t exist beyond season one, but we loved the performance so much. The audience loved the character and she added such a rich dimension to our world. We just thought, ‘No, no, no. We have to keep this character around.’”

“One of the great opportunities this show has given us to expand the world of the relationships in the books and create this great cast of characters around Mickey.”

“This season we will see Izzy struggling with what her dream has been, which is to go back to her life as a dancer. In real life, Jazz was a dancer before she took acting as a career. We kind of built on that and struggling with if that means having to give up this surrogate family that she’s created in Mickey’s law firm.”

“Cisco is the character of the three that has the most obvious plot, in the sense he is Mickey’s investigator, so there’s always something for the investigator to do. There are always things that Cisco has to be doing that are very relevant to the case and the plot. That interesting relationship with Lorna does come from the books, these opposites that attracted and got married. It enables us to build that character into something. It’s always fun to watch that relationship on the screen and these two very different people, who have come together. The two actors have built that relationship into something very compelling and believable.”

What kind of conversations have you had about a season four?

Humphrey: “We know what a season four would be and we set it up at the end of season three. We are completely prepared to bring season four to the screen. Every TV show is ultimately about the audience. As long as the audience wants to keep watching, we are really happy to keep making this show. We know exactly what season four would be. We are happy to dive into it. As long as there is that demand, we are there. We know even beyond season four where the show would go, but it’s all about the audience.”

Manuel Garcia-Rulfo as Mickey Haller, Devon Graye as Julian La Cosse

Images courtesy of Netflix.