[Spoiler Alert] So the finale of The Lincoln Lawyer Season 4 eventually reveals the person responsible for Sam Scales’ murder, and the reason why they tried to frame Mickey Haller for his client’s death. In the previous season, Mickey was defending a client, Lisa Trammell, who was charged with the murder of Mitchell Bondurant, and it was during this investigation that Alex Grant’s name first showed up. Alex, whose real surname turned out to be “Gazarian,” was the son of Sasha Gazarian, head of an Armenian crime family. He had close ties with the victim, which made Mickey and his team suspect that Alex might be involved in Bondurant’s death, and therefore they served him with a subpoena forcing him to testify in court. However, as soon as Alex arrived in court, Mickey tried to paint him as Mitchell’s murderer by raising misleading questions, leaving Alex no other option but to plead the Fifth Amendment. Well, that was actually what Mickey wanted. He knew he wouldn’t be able to make Alex confess anything in court, but if he plead the fifth, then it would put enough reasonable doubt in the minds of the jury that Alex could be involved in Mitchell’s death. So, long story short, Mickey had added one more enemy to his never-ending list, and Alex was waiting for the right moment to exact revenge from the Lincoln lawyer.
In season 4, Alex’s longtime girlfriend, Jeanine Ferrigno, informed Mickey’s co-counsel, Maggie, and his investigator, Cisco, that it was through Mickey that he’d met Sam Scales. In the previous season, Mickey had set up a fake website with Sam’s help to bring Alex out of hiding so he could serve him a subpoena, and even though Alex was quite furious with the whole scam, he did partner up with Sam to use his skills to pull off a fraud. The United States government was giving subsidies to all the eligible biofuel refinery companies, and Alex wanted Sam’s help to run the Biogreen operation. As per an EPA specialist, Dr. Schultz, the government was giving a subsidy on each barrel leaving the refinery, and therefore, in order to increase the output, Sam would change the labels on the barrels coming in and out of the facility to make the government bleed money. Things were running smoothly until Alex found out that Sam had been scamming the scammers. He had set up his own shell company to steal money from Alex’s company. These funds were supposed to be going to Alex’s family, and even though Alex might have wanted to talk to Sam about the fraud, he couldn’t do much once his family got wind of it. So, what I believe might have happened is that Alex’s family had asked him to get rid of the rat who dared bite them in the back. Alex was well aware of the fact that it was because of Sam that Biogreen had become a successful venture, but he couldn’t go against his family, and therefore was forced to deliver what was expected of him.
Alex confronted Sam to tell him that his time was up, and even before he could justify his actions, the Gazarians’ hitman injected him with a drug. So what I believe could have happened is that this hitman, whose identity was never revealed in the show or the book, would have taken Sam to an undisclosed location to shoot him twice with a gun similar to the one Mickey had. And later, he fired a shot in Mickey’s garage with the same weapon to make the authorities suspect that Mickey shot Sam in his garage and cleaned up the crime scene after loading Sam’s body into his car trunk. Later, when Mickey took out his car, LAPD patrol cop Collins, who was likely on Alex’s payroll, arrested Mickey for Sam’s murder. However, in all this mess, you might still be wondering why Alex was running away from his family, and why they sent a hitman after Alex to get rid of him.
As it turns out, the mystery behind Alex’s death is more complicated than Sam Scales’ murder. I believe the Armenian crime family had asked Alex to simply get rid of Sam without making any noise, but Alex, bent on taking revenge on the Lincoln lawyer, tried to frame him for Sam’s murder. In short, he screwed up. Alex’s family might have sent men to keep an eye on him so he wouldn’t mess up any further. This likely was the reason why these Armenian mobsters roughed up Cisco outside the hotel after he followed Jeanine to Alex’s location. They wanted Cisco and his boss to stay away from Alex, so they wouldn’t embroil him in another legal case. If Alex had opened his mouth in court, he wouldn’t have just exposed himself, he would have taken down the entire family with him. But Cisco eventually served a subpoena to Alex, and a moment later, the thugs showed up at his hotel room and threw Alex out of the window, killing him on the spot. It’s probable that the Armenian hitman had seen the subpoena in Alex’s room and tipped off the head of the family, who made the hard call and asked his men to finish Alex off to avoid a scandal. In short, the Armenian crime family wanted to bury the fraud so that it wouldn’t lead the FBI straight to their doorstep, but Alex’s itch for vendetta put their entire organization at risk. Hence, in the end, they didn’t have any other option but to get rid of silence to contain the damage. They sent the same hitman to take down Mickey in the ending sequence, but thankfully Agent Ruth arrived on time, and saved Mickey’s life. However, the question here is: will the Armenian mobsters stop anytime soon? Will they target Mickey again holding him responsible for Alex’s death? Well, it’s possible but I think before these mobsters will make another move, the FBI with Jeanine’s help, will crack down on the Biogreen operation and arrest the higher-ups of the Armenian family involved in the operation. But that’s a tale for another day. The fourth season ends with Cisco handing Jeanine to FBI custody, and hopefully she’ll be safe wherever they keep her.
