Following its October 17 debut, The Lincoln Lawyer season 3 became a hit on Netflix, gaining 7 million views within the first four days (via Variety) and hitting the Top 10 list. The court drama’s success is thanks to The Lincoln Lawyer’s strong characters, unpredictable storyline, and perfect pacing. While some credit must go to the best-selling author who developed the world and many characters, showrunners Dailyn Rodriguez and Ted Humphrey also work hard to adapt the stories for the silver screen.
Both Humphrey and Rodriguez have extensive backgrounds in Hollywood, working as writers, producers, and showrunners. Humphrey previously served as the showrunner on Incorporated from 2016 to 2017 and Wisdom of the Crowd from 2017 to 2018. In addition to writing for Ugly Betty, starring America Ferrera, Rodriguez notably served as the showrunner and co-executive producer on the crime drama Queen of the South from 2017 to 2021.
While waiting for updates on the renewal status of The Lincoln Lawyer season 4, Screen Rant interviewed Dailyn Rodriguez about multiple parts of the show, including her process of adapting the novels, her experience writing a Latinx story, and what to expect if Netflix picks the show up for another season. Though she remained tight-lipped about spoilers, Rodriguez happily teased exciting things to come.
Rodriguez Strives To Modernize The Books Without Losing Their Essence
“Our challenge is to keep as much as we can of Michael’s books, and if we can’t, we at least want to keep the spirit of what was in Michael’s books.”
Screen Rant: I imagine there’s a lot of pressure adapting such a beloved book series. How do you and your co-showrunner decide what to keep and what to change from the books?
Dailyn Rodriguez: We do a couple things. One is we make sure that we sort of look at the book holistically when it was written and when we’re adapting it. So, for example, in season 2, in that book, which was The Fifth Witness, it took place right in 2008 during the housing crisis. We couldn’t replicate that. So, we tried to find a thing that sort of felt comparable and sort of kept the essence of what that was, and that’s why we came up with the whole idea of gentrification and a developer. So, we kept it in the world of real estate and the same kind of stakes of something like that. But that’s how we sort of adapted that.
The good news about the Gods of Guilt, which was season 3, is that one felt less of a time. That one felt more specific. Even though at the end of [The Law of Innocence], the pandemic starts rearing ahead towards the end of the book. So, we sort of went away from that. Which doesn’t matter, you don’t really need it. The things that we have to change is because his books have big time jumps between them, and we start – we do these cliffhangers. So, we start up pretty quickly. So, certain things we have to change that make sense to sort of adapt them in a more present time.
For example, in the book, Hayley is not speaking to Mickey because of something completely unrelated. Something happens before the book when he has a case and there’s a DUI and a guy gets out because he helps him get out, and that guy ends up killing somebody that’s the mother of a friend of hers. So that’s why you kept talking to him.
So we want to keep the essence of her not talking to him anymore. So, we change it to be able to keep that part of the book, but make it more integral to how we’re breaking the story. So, that’s sort of how we changed it. And also, we had to change certain things. We had to sort of reinvent the detective character and make him this new character to an extent. We couldn’t use Langford because of the way they had to use Langford in season one. So certain things we just have to shift, but our challenge is to keep as much as we can of Michael’s books, and if we can’t, we at least want to keep the spirit of what was in Michael’s books, if that makes sense.
Rodriguez Loves Getting To Show The Various Sides Of Latino Culture In The Lincoln Lawyer
“It’s very important that we show all aspects of Latinos and embrace that part of LA and not just Mexican.”
Screen Rant: How does it feel for you as a Latinx person to tell an authentically and unapologetically Latinx story in The Lincoln Lawyer?
Dailyn Rodriguez: It’s one of my favorite things about the show is that we’re able to tell not only a story about Mickey Haller being Latino and living in LA, but LA being a very Latinx city. It’s almost 50% Latino. And so, to me, it was very important, and we do it a lot in season 2. We also do it in season 3 because Michael Erbe is Afro-Latino and Yaya is Afro-Latina, and we have other characters that are Latino on the show.
To me, it’s very important that we show all aspects of Latinos and embrace that part of LA and not just Mexican. Everybody lives in LA, and whether they speak Spanish or they don’t speak Spanish, or they have an accent, or they don’t have an accent, do you know what I mean? All of it, because we’re not a monolith.
So to me, absolutely, and it’s really important to me to have him be this professional, extremely good at his job, smart man in Los Angeles and still keep – we call it Latinidad. His Latin-ness is so intact, but it’s not all that he is. He’s so much more than that. So, to me, it’s the way I feel like it’s the best way to sort of move forward in the way that we tell Latin stories. We’re just part of the American fabric, and we move through these communities in a specific way, but still as Americans.
Lorna And Mickey Both Have Big Challenges Ahead In The Lincoln Lawyer Season 4
“I don’t think it’s going to be good enough for him to get not guilty.”
Screen Rant: One of the big points in The Lincoln Lawyer season 3 was Lorna becoming a lawyer. What is her character arc going to look like now that she has that under her belt and opens those doors?
Dailyn Rodriguez: Yeah, I mean, I think the big thing, you saw how we end the season with Mickey. Mickey’s going to be accused of murder.
Screen Rant: I’m weirdly excited about that.
Dailyn Rodriguez: You and everybody else seems really excited about this. So yeah, season 4 is The Law of Innocence, and she’s his partner. So, this is the most stressful, biggest case of all their lives. And she’s a green lawyer. She’s green. So it’s just figuring out how much she can take on, what place she has in the role of co-counseling with him, and also keeping the business afloat while he can’t take any other clients in jail. You know what I mean? I think that you’re going to see a Lorna that has a lot of balls in the air and trying her best to keep all of those balls in the air and be successful at it. I think that’s where we’re going with her.
Screen Rant: Is Mickey going to confront the situation from behind bars, or is he going to get out? Can you tell me?
Dailyn Rodriguez: I can’t really tell you that. That’s a spoiler.
Screen Rant: On that note, how, as a character, is Mickey going to handle being accused of murder? He seems like a very just person, and that’s a very unjust situation.
Dailyn Rodriguez: I think he continues being who Mickey is. I don’t think it’s going to be good enough for him to get not guilty. He wants to be innocent. And how do you get that? How do you get the acknowledgment of innocence when he keeps telling people, “I can’t get you innocent; I can get you a not guilty”? How does Mickey get innocent?
I think that that’s the big thing he will have to confront in season 4 because, to him, it’s not going to be good enough to be not guilty because it’s his reputation. And, to him, everything is his reputation and how it affects his family, his coworkers, his friends, everybody. At the end of the day, everybody’s kind of dependent on him. So, it’s important for him to continue this reputation that he’s built as one of the best defense attorneys in Los Angeles.
The Lincoln Lawyer Showrunners Achieved Their Goal With Eddie’s Season 3 Death
“We had five episodes to create a character that everybody fell in love with, and then we pulled the rug out from under them.”
Screen Rant: Seeing the fan reactions to season 3, do you regret killing Eddie off? Because everybody loves him.
Dailyn Rodriguez: We did the job! We did it. I mean, it’s terrible, but I love it because we did what we needed to and what we set out to do. We had five episodes to create a character that everybody fell in love with, and then we pulled the rug out from under them.
And we had to do it because it’s a pivotal story point in the book. In the book, there’s a different reason why Hayley’s not talking to Mickey, so we needed to come up with something that was more personal and that made sense to the story. That’s why we created this brand new character that doesn’t exist in the book.
Also, sometimes I see him as a little bit of Mickey Jr., or if Mickey had more loving and caring parents. We really wanted to create a new kind of Latino Gen Z character, somebody that felt really modern and real to us. He’s a new kind of Latin man that I believe is out there, and that you don’t see very often on television. We were excited to bring that, and the actor who plays Eddie is kind of similar to the character, so it fits.
The Lincoln Lawyer Showrunners Have Exciting Plans For Season 4
“I just really hope we get a season 4 because I think people will love it.”
Screen Rant: Okay. At the end of The Lincoln Lawyer season 3. Andy seems very skeptical of the prosecutor’s office and her role in it. What can we expect going into season four with that trepidation that she has?
Dailyn Rodriguez: I think we’re going to zoom out in general from – I think the next season is a little bit of a minor continuation from the idea of a lot of sh*t is corrupt. Do you know what I mean? Yes. As Mickey is facing his own mortality and his own freedom and innocence, I think it’s a window into more of that. I can’t really speak to the specifics of Andrea, unfortunately.
Screen Rant: ScreenRant talked to Ted Humphrey about this, but can you share anything about your plan on how to handle Bosch’s absence?
Dailyn Rodriguez: Yeah, it’s just unfortunate because we don’t own that character. Netflix didn’t own the character, so we can’t do any crossovers. I would be giving a spoiler if I told you what we were going to do, but we definitely have an idea of how we can bring in someone else that could play the Bosch in a future season.
Also, we kind of are just giving Cisco more to do. We give the characters that we have a little bit more to do, and that sort of offsets some of the issues that we have with not being able to use Bosch, which is unfortunate. We would love to do that, but we can’t.
Screen Rant: Ted Humphrey spoke about Maggie, and Maggie’s role in Mickey’s life, describing her as kind of his north star. Is the show going to be leaning into more of that dynamic?
Dailyn Rodriguez: Yeah, I don’t think Mickey ever 100% gets over Maggie, and I think that that’s somebody that’s always in the back of his mind. And, I think that’s why it’s hard for him to completely give himself over in other relationships, because in the back of his head. Maggie is always there. So, I think very much I agree with him, and she is very much his north star.
And as the books continue, I mean, Maggie’s a really big part in the Law of Innocence and also in the Reversal, which is another book we have yet to do. We have three left so far. I think Michael might be writing another one, so she never goes away. She did a little bit in the season two because she doesn’t play a big part in that book, but Maggie never goes away 100% because she’s always, I think, part of his soul. And they have a child together, so it’s very hard for him to disentangle himself from that.
Screen Rant: Hayley in the books seems further along in her education with the law school aspect of it versus being younger in the Netflix series. How do you guys plan on adapting that piece of it where she was in law school in the book?
Yeah, I think that’s why we sort of had her already talking about taking college courses for season four, so we can try and push her forward a little bit faster. We don’t know yet what we’re going to do if we get a season 4 and 5, how we’re really going to work through that.
I think, ultimately, because of the way that we build these seasons and because we have these cliffhangers, I think it’s really hard for us to ever get to a place where she’s actually going to be a lawyer. I think we’d have to be on the show. We’d have to have 10 seasons of the show to really do it. So that’s stuff we’re really going to have to adjust from the novels of the way that we break the seasons. For sure.
Screen Rant: Is there anything else you’d like to share with us about The Lincoln Lawyer season 4?
Dailyn Rodriguez: Oh my God. I wish I could, but I would just be giving away spoilers. I just really hope we get a season 4 because I think people will love it. I think it’ll be fun to see Mickey have to defend himself and what goes into that, and it’s very much all hands on deck. So, the season is much more sort of wrapped around Mickey. Every season is about him making his case. But, he is his own client, so everything really is about Mickey. So, hopefully, we get to tell that story. I think it’s exciting.
About The Lincoln Lawyer Season 3
Mickey Haller (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo), an iconoclastic idealist, runs his law practice out of the back seat of his Lincoln, as he takes on cases big and small across the expansive city of Los Angeles. Based on the series of bestselling novels by renowned author Michael Connelly, the third season is based on the fifth book in The Lincoln Lawyer series, The Gods of Guilt
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