The Lincoln Lawyer's Lisa Fate Avoids Repeating Season 1's Cliche (But Fails A Crucial Twist In Mick
The aftermath of Lisa's trial includes a big change from the books, leading The Lincoln Lawyer season 2 to ignore an important twist for Mickey.
Warning! This article contains SPOILERS for The Lincoln Lawyer season 2!
Summary
- The Lincoln Lawyer season 2 changes Lisa's guilt, avoiding the repetition of season 1 and introducing a new twist for Mickey's future.
- The departure from the source material prevents redundancy in Mickey's cases, but also misses out on an exciting career change for him in season 3.
- In the book, Mickey announces he's running for LA District Attorney after Lisa's trial. However, The Lincoln Lawyer omits this twist.
Netflix’s The Lincoln Lawyer season 2 makes a change to Lisa’s fate that thankfully avoids being too similar to season 1’s case, but also keeps the show from introducing an important twist about Mickey’s future. The Lincoln Lawyer season 2 adapts The Fifth Witness, the fourth novel in Michael Connelly’s series about defense attorney Mickey Haller. However, the TV show takes some liberties in putting the book story on screen, including the aftermath of Lisa Trammell’s trial verdict in regard to the truth of her guilt and how this realization impacts Mickey.
In The Lincoln Lawyer season 2’s ending, Mickey wins his case as Lisa receives a “not guilty” verdict, with the evidence later showing that Walter Kim actually killed Mitchell Bondurant. However, like many of his other cases, Mickey is still defending a woman guilty of murder, as he discovers after the trial that Lisa murdered her husband Jeff Trammell. Still, The Lincoln Lawyer season 2 suggests that Lisa had no direct role in Bondurant’s murder, meaning Mickey was technically defending an innocent client. While this departure from the source material led to the series avoiding redundancy in Mickey’s cases, it also had an unfortunate side effect in setting up The Lincoln Lawyer season 3’s story.
The Lincoln Lawyer Season 2 Changing Lisa's Guilt Avoids Repeating Trevor Elliott's Ending
In The Fifth Witness book, Mickey discovers that Lisa actually was guilty of killing Mitchell Bondurant. After this realization, the titular lawyer devised a way to still bring her to justice by getting her arrested for Jeff Trammell’s murder. Had The Lincoln Lawyer followed the book’s version of Lisa’s guilt, then season 2 would have been far too similar to season 1’s story. In The Lincoln Lawyer season 1, Mickey defended Trevor Elliott, who was accused of killing his wife and her lover.
In the end, Mickey similarly found out that Trevor was actually guilty after getting him a “not guilty” trial verdict. Having the same outcome with Lisa in The Lincoln Lawyer season 2 would have been redundant for the series, inevitably leading audiences to expect that all of Mickey’s clients will turn out to be guilty of the crime they’re on trial for even if the jury awards a “not guilty” verdict. Still, Mickey winning a case for a woman innocent of the crime he’s defending her for kept The Lincoln Lawyer from introducing one of the most shocking twists in The Fifth Witness book.
Lisa's Innocence Meant The Lincoln Lawyer Season 2 Left Out Mickey's Exciting Career Twist
Whereas the shocking twist ending in The Lincoln Lawyer season 2 is Glory Days’ murder, the unexpected final event in The Fifth Witness is Mickey Haller’s career change announcement. In the book, Mickey was disturbed by Lisa’s indifference to the fact that she killed Mitchell Bondurant, leading him to tip off the police about Jeff’s body being buried in her garden. Lisa then called Mickey begging for him to defend her in the inevitable trial for her husband’s murder, but Mickey refused and instead informed her that he was running for Los Angeles District Attorney so that he wouldn’t have to defend cruel murderers like herself.
Mickey defending guilty clients has been a significant dilemma for him throughout The Lincoln Lawyer, with characters like Trevor Elliott, Russell Lawson, and Lisa Trammell being the three biggest examples of remorseless killers. As such, Mickey leaving his position as a defense attorney to pursue a role as LA’s District Attorney would have set up an exciting storyline for The Lincoln Lawyer season 3, while also putting him on the same legal side as his ex-wife Maggie. While it’s possible that defending Glory Days’ accused killer in The Lincoln Lawyer season 3 will still send him on this path, the end of season 2 needed this more optimistic emotional beat.
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