Sunny California
"The Lincoln Lawyer" is TV comfort food for a difficult winter.
Even by the season’s standards, the winter of 2026 has been unusually gloomy. The news is alarming (will we have free elections?), bleak (Minneapolis), or bizarre (the Epstein files, Greenland). A mid-Atlantic blizzard accompanied by sleet turned snowdrifts into “snowcrete” that required days of backbreaking labor to clear. Spring training is about to start, but the Washington Post has decided its subscribers don’t care.
This doesn’t seem like the time to immerse oneself in a grim Nordic crime drama whose color palette ranges from brown to gray and where everyone is unhappy. Netflix offers a diverting alternative.
It’s always sunny in Mickey Haller’s Los Angeles. Traffic jams? Rare. Smog? Wildfires? Nope and nope. Neighborhoods overrun by gang violence? Perhaps. But you really don’t see them.
Haller is the central character in “The Lincoln Lawyer,” a four-season love letter to the City of Angels. For that reason alone, it’s eminently watchable. Viewers are treated to an idealized 21st-century vision of our second-biggest city that is delightful to behold.
Haller (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo) is a successful and famous defense attorney whose nickname comes from his taste for the luxury vehicles in which he drives around town. His personal fleet includes a 1963 Continental convertible and two town cars, according to Curbside Classic’s Tom Halter.
Haller’s life is complicated, to say the least. Twice divorced, he maintains friendly relations with both former spouses (and employs one). He works hard to maintain a good relationship with his high-school-age daughter. He hires a former client as a driver. Like Haller, Izzy (Jazz Raycole) is a recovering drug addict. They come to depend on each other to stay sober.
Izzy eventually becomes Haller’s office manager, where she bonds with Haller’s ex-wife Lorna (Becki Newton) and Lorna’s husband, a reformed biker gang member (Angus Sampson) who acts as Haller’s investigator. Also in the mix is prosecutor, ex-wife No. 1 and occasional love interest, Maggie McPherson (Neve Campbell). Elliot Gould has a recurring role as Haller’s legal mentor.
Got all that?
Cagey, good-hearted, and passionate about the law, Haller provides the glue that holds this motley collection of personalities together. His clients routinely face long odds in court, but through clever advocacy and shenanigans that sometimes push the ethical envelope, he manages to win acquittals. The license plate on one of his Lincolns says it all: “NT GUILTY.”
Before my lawyer friends howl, I’ll stipulate that it isn’t a realistic portrayal of criminal law. But that’s not the point. “The Lincoln Lawyer” isn’t a legal procedural like, say, “Law & Order.” It’s a story about good people trying to do the right thing — and often succeeding.
That certainly seems unrealistic in this day and age, but, as John Fogerty sings, “don’t you wish it was true?” For an hour at a time (unless you binge), you find yourself in a world where it is.
It’s dramatic (plenty of cliffhangers) without being serious. It’s sweet but just shy of saccharine. It’s often funny without being cruel. The main characters are likable. In the depths of this depressing winter, “The Lincoln Lawyer” serves up the TV equivalent of comfort food, and it hits the spot.
I concur with your assessment of The Lincoln Lawyer. I've been a watcher from the outset and throughly enjoy its plot gymnastics. Even with the challenges, pain, and setbacks the characters endure, you know that in the end, the good guys will prevail. Even with the dark elements that color the series, there is a sweetness about it reflected in the connection and support the characters give each other. A wholly different show that also provides much needed succor in our dark days is the PBS Masterpiece series, "All Creatures Great and Small." If you haven't seen it, I urge you to start at the beginning and savor the dreamy English countryside setting, the charms of the village of Darrowby and its surrounding dales, and the distinctive and engaging characters (and animals) who populate this idyllic place. Perhaps what it depicts is fantasy, a place and time that never existed as shown. But who cares? The sweetness and sincerity of the show make it a thoroughly satisfying bit of escapism. Enjoy!