The Lincoln Lawyer Season 4’s ending was about Mickey learning about the circumstances under which Sam was killed, and why he was framed for it. During what seemed like a routine inspection by Officer Collins, Sam’s body was found in the trunk of Mickey’s Lincoln, and he was sent straight to jail. Initially, Mickey and Lorna tag-teamed to take on the public prosecutor, Dana. But as the going got tougher, with Dana turning up the heat and Lorna facing severe burnout after handling Mickey’s case as well as Haller and Associates’ clients, Maggie stepped in. Over the course of the court case, it was established that Sam was shot in Mickey’s garage while he was at home, and his body was stashed in Mickey’s car. The prosecution alleged Mickey was going to bury Sam in the desert, but due to a missing license plate, Collins discovered the body. Other pieces of the puzzle involved Sam’s association with a member of an Armenian crime family, Alex, a company called Biogreen, and FBI Officers Vasquez and Ruth.
Now, even though the matter was getting complicated, and seeing Mickey cycle in and out of jail was taking a toll on Hayley’s soul, Maggie managed to convince Judge Stone to give Mickey a speedy trial. However, since Mickey was convinced that he was innocent, he decided to drag the trial to its full term and make sure that he got his clean chit, fair and square. During that period, he was unfairly put in solitary confinement, Legal passed away, Alex seemingly died by suicide, and Jeanine, Alex’s girlfriend, was unwilling to testify in court regarding everything she knew about Sam’s connection to Alex, Vasquez, and Ruth. To make things worse, when Mickey decided to get into the witness stand and tell his side of the tale so as to sway the jury’s opinion in his favor, he was essentially kidnapped by the police. What happened next? Let’s find out.
Spoiler Alert
Alex framed Mickey
Based on what I assume was a pretty short conversation between Ruth and Mickey, Sam was working with the FBI to expose a scam that was happening at Biogreen. He was hired by Alex (since he was impressed by the con jobs Sam pulled) to deliver biofuel for the company and bring in raw feedstock, which’d then be turned into biofuel. Except Sam never actually brought in any raw feedstock. He kept the barrels of biofuel in his truck as they were, and changed the labels on the containers from biofuel to feedstock and back again, which allowed the scamsters to bill the government several times for the same quantity of biofuel. Once they hit a satisfactory number, they’d probably do their actual job so that they didn’t set off any alarm bells. Since that helped save a lot of money on production, Alex’s family was happy with what he and Sam were doing.
Hence, they let them oversee the whole project without any kind of scrutiny. But since Sam was a scammer by nature, he forgot about his duty to the FBI and his “camaraderie” with Alex, and opened a shell company called Air-King, even spray-painted its name on the truck that he used to drive, and took a bite out of the proverbial pie, i.e., the subsidies that were supposed to go to Alex’s family. Alex found out about this and had Sam killed by his men. Now, after all that, Alex should have chopped up Sam’s body, liquefied it, or just buried him in a place where the FBI or the police could have never found him. Instead of doing so, Alex remembered his tryst with Mickey in Season 2—where he was forced to plead the Fifth, lose the Olympic contract, and sell his construction company—and, in order to get back at the Lincoln Lawyer, he stashed Sam’s body in his car.
Mickey Fooled The FBI
Mickey, being Mickey, in addition to the fact that he hadn’t killed one of his former clients, decided to fight for his freedom, which put a spotlight on Biogreen and Alex’s crime family. Alex’s family blamed Alex for this stupidity and had him killed. They made it look like the subpoena that Cisco had served to Alex was the last straw and he took his own life. Of course, Alex’s family members didn’t come forward to tell Judge Stone, or anyone who represented the law in any shape or form, that Mickey had been framed by Alex, because that’d raise questions about why Alex had Sam killed, and also expose the Biogreen scam. Surprisingly enough, that was the same reason why the FBI didn’t want to clear Mickey’s name, because they didn’t want Vasquez and Ruth’s names to come into the light for employing Sam to snoop on Alex and his family, because the officers could be accused of taking a cut of the money that Sam was skimming.
All of this was corroborated by Jeanine, who explained everything she knew about Sam and Alex’s relationship to Maggie and Cisco. Jeanine was too afraid to testify in court because she knew that if Alex’s family could kill one of their own so easily, they’d not flinch before taking her out. Since it was the season of scams, though, Mickey decided to pull a fast one on the FBI. Everyone on Mickey’s team knew that Jeanine wouldn’t testify, but the FBI wasn’t privy to that info. Hence, he got Izzy’s girlfriend, Grace, to dress up as Jeanine, show up in front of Ruth’s office, and had Lorna tell Ruth a bald-faced lie that Jeanine was on her way to the stand to tell the truth about what the FBI was doing, who actually killed Sam and Alex, and how Mickey was completely innocent. That was enough to make the FBI opt for an out-of-court settlement with Mickey with the help of DA Suarez and Stephen Tremblay, the special agent in charge of the LA field office.
Mickey Got The FBI To Bow Down
Much like the speedy trial, Mickey was offered another form of “get out of jail free” card where the DA would drop all the charges leveled against him if he chose to stay mum about the reason behind that, which was the FBI’s investigation into Biogreen and Jeanine’s safety. And just like how he refused to go for the speedy trial, he rejected that agreement, because it wouldn’t repair his reputation. Sure, on paper, he’d be declared innocent, but in the eyes of the public, his peers, and his own goddamn family, he’d be an alleged criminal who was set free on a technicality. Hence, Mickey wanted the jury to decide his fate in front of the press and the public, not behind closed doors. However, idealistic as that may be, the FBI and the DA couldn’t let that happen, which was why Suarez stated that he was willing to meet any demand that Mickey made. It seemed like Mickey was still in two minds at that moment, because he knew that he had the upper hand, and at the same time he felt that if he kept pushing for justice, in the truest sense, by letting the trial continue, he’d lose said upper hand. He had to do the smart thing, which doesn’t necessarily mean the right thing, and he chose to go for the agreement.
Mickey asked for two things: firstly, a statement from the DA’s office that exonerated him, which would be hand-delivered by Dana, and secondly, a proper investigation into Officer Collins, who was clearly on Alex or his family’s payroll and had been sent by Alex to find Sam’s body in Mickey’s car. Suarez gave his word on both of those demands, Judge Stone signed off on it, and Mickey was finally a free man again. I suppose the DA’s investigation into Collins’ corruption would stop at him merely working for Alex, because if it went further than that, it’d expose the FBI’s involvement, and that’d just bring everyone back to square one again. So, yeah, even though Mickey was able to taste freedom, I think this whole case was a great analysis of how the truth can be distorted if federal bodies are involved. I mean, it’s baffling how far those FBI agents were willing to go to either let an innocent individual rot in jail or watch the reputation that he had built over the course of decades crumble to dust. Mickey and his team’s expertise saved the day for him, but how many people could afford to fight like this? And it’s pointless to say that if you steer clear of the FBI, your chances of attracting the ire of the Bureau will drop to zero because if they want to come out of a botched investigation unscathed, and you are an irrelevant statistic on their radar, you are done, brother.
Mickey Was Saved By His Sister
Mickey was not a murder suspect anymore. He compelled Ruth to put Jeanine under the FBI’s protection in an undisclosed location; yeah, Cisco assumed they’d take her to Albuquerque (which might be a Better Call Saul reference), but we don’t know exactly where Jeanine will get to start the next chapter of her life. Mickey got to spend a nice family dinner with Hayley, Elena, and Maggie. Hayley and Maggie then proceeded to return to San Diego, albeit quite reluctantly, because it was obvious that they had started to feel like a family again and Maggie’s latest love interest, Jack, wasn’t exactly up to the mark. Whether or not Maggie will give up on that relationship and return to LA to give Mickey another chance is something that remains to be seen. Going back to the plot, Lorna became the face of Haller and Associates because of the sensational work that she had done while Mickey was fighting for his life and reputation, a moment that was celebrated by her, Cisco, Izzy, and Grace. Dana stayed true to her promise and delivered the statement that Mickey had asked for. Mickey even got his signature car back from the impound, and he thought about selling his house and moving elsewhere because it was on the radar of the Armenian mob and almost every law enforcement agency in existence.
Speaking of the Armenian mob, in the ending of The Lincoln Lawyer Season 4, after coming out of the grocery store, Mickey was attacked by a henchman from Alex’s family for bringing so much ruin upon them. He was saved by a woman, played by Cobie Smulders, who claimed that she was Mickey’s sister. The henchman was killed by Ruth and her crew, who were on the spot so quickly because they were tailing Mickey just to see if the Armenians would give him a free pass or try to kill him. Well, Ruth’s hunch turned out to be true, and, I suppose, it evened the scales a little bit, because the FBI was instrumental in turning Mickey’s life into a nightmare, but then they ended up saving his life as well. I expected this, because no show can take a hard stance against the Bureau; they have to do a bit of monkey-balancing to avoid attracting any unwanted attention. But, yes, Ruth wasn’t the only reason why Mickey didn’t catch a bullet in the head; his sister was the one who put him out of harm’s way. That said, who’s this sister? Where did she come from? What’s her name?
Mickey’s Sister Is A Mystery
Based on my limited knowledge about Mickey, Mickey has three half-sisters and a pretty famous half-brother, Harry Bosch. Now, Prime Video and Amazon Studios own the rights to Bosch. Hence, even if they wanted to, they can’t feature the character; no, not even if they recast Bosch. The makers of The Lincoln Lawyer have to wait until Amazon Studios decides not to renew their rights to Bosch or if Netflix can outbid Amazon Studios, which is highly plausible. Until then, we have to make do with Haller’s sister—half-sister, to be specific. Smulders’ character’s name didn’t appear in the main credits. I have scoured the internet and found a couple of reports saying that she’s called Allison. There’s a character called Allison in the closing credits for the dubbing artists. Well, whatever her name might be, I know this much for sure that Smulders will be showing up in the fifth season of the show, which has been greenlit by the way, and will be based on Michael Connelly’s Resurrection Walk.
In that novel, Mickey teamed up with Bosch to prove the innocence of a woman who had allegedly killed her husband, who was a deputy sheriff. I think the central plot will be the same, but Mickey’s sister will assist Mickey on the case instead of Bosch. I doubt she’s going to be a private investigator like Bosch, because that’ll seem like a blatant attempt at recasting the character that they don’t have the rights to. The lady did talk about her instincts kicking in as soon as she saw the Armenian henchman going for his gun, so it’s possible that she might be a former law enforcer or secret agent, which’ll certainly give Mickey some interesting insight into his fight against the sheriff’s department. I am sure Season 5 will dig into that while also delving into the complexities of Mickey and his sister’s dynamic and history. Well, at least that’s what I got from that ending. What are your thoughts on the same? Let me know in the comments section below.
