Netflix The Lincoln Lawyer season 1 recap guide: Episodes 1 to 10

The Lincoln Lawyer episode 3 recap: Momentum

The third episode begins with Mickey arriving at the courthouse for another day at the office. This time he’s there to handle a lewd conduct charge and he swiftly gets the entire case thrown out. Before leaving, the judge notes that she’ll see him again that afternoon for another court case, People vs. Eli Wyms. The problem is, Jerry has nothing in his books or calendar about an “Eli Wyms.”

Across town, Maggie is in the middle of a hearing with her star witness, David Loresca (Anthony A. Kung), for a high-profile case she’s making against alleged human trafficker Angelo Soto (Reggie Lee). Afterward, she meets with Detective Lee Lankford (Jamie McShane), the cop helping her make the case and he tells her Soto is on a business trip to the Philippines. They need to be careful to get the indictment out today or he’ll flee.

Mickey interrupts their conversation to talk Hayley and her upcoming soccer game, it quickly becomes obvious that there is bad blood between him and Lankford.

Griggs intercepts Mickey upon exiting to accuse him of holding back information and to show him a photograph of an unknown man captured by a traffic camera outside Jerry’s building. Mickey doesn’t recognize him, but he tells Griggs to come by the office to ask Jerry’s old assistant.

At the office, Cisco shows Mickey security footage from outside Athena’s Temple showing Jerry accepting papers from another man. So, Jerry wasn’t gambling. But it’s still not clear what he was doing at the casino. They’ve also got other problems, like the fact Jerry’s investigator Bruce Carlin (Paul Rae) has gone MIA. Then Cisco surprises Mickey with a gun, which he stows in the desk. With all the possible shady people hanging around, Cisco recommends Mickey have one nearby, just in case.

Fast-forward to the Eli Wyms case. Eli (Mikal Vega) is a veteran and former sniper. He opened fire on cops, more than 90 rounds. Mickey is still confused by how Jerry ended up with this case, even more so because Jerry stuck him in a nearby mental hospital where he was pumped full of drugs. He’s too out of it to even talk to Mickey, so he gets a continuance on the case.

While looking through Jerry’s papers, Lorna finds a copy of a check for $25,000 written to Jan Rilz from a woman named Carol DuBois (Heather Mazur). Sensing more to the story, Lorna follows up. Jan would get money from other women he slept with, “investors,” for a supposed yoga retreat he was planning. It all sounds like a scam. But Lorna gets another name from Carol: Neema Shavar.

That night, Mickey attends a memorial service for Jerry at a local bar. There, he runs into Lankford again, who makes a snarky comment about a guy named Jesús Menedez doing time at Calipatria. It’s enough to make Mickey order a beer and a shot. Luckily, he doesn’t drink it and Izzy comes in to chat and help talk him down off the ledge.

We get a little more insight into the Lankford/Mickey relationship later when Maggie and Lankford meet to see Soto arrested. Mickey defended Jesús during a murder trial and Lankford believes Jesús was guilty of brutally killing a prostitute and Mickey plead him out (although he’s still in jail). Lankford was the supervisor of the cop on the case.

Mickey takes Trevor back to the Malibu house so he can walk Mickey through the day of the murders. He reveals that he knew Lara was having an affair, but he didn’t really care because he, too, had been unfaithful. Trevor knew their relationship was a mess, but he wanted to fight for their marriage.

At the office, Mickey contacts Cisco. Griggs never came by with the photo and Cisco didn’t have luck talking to his source at the LAPD when he tried to find out more about him. Pulling a late night, Mickey discovers a link between Trevor’s case and Eli Wyms. Eli was arrested just hours before Trevor. There must be something to that connection, why else would Jerry have taken that case?

On Mickey’s way out of the office, the guy from the photo confronts him in the dark parking garage and seems to try and attack Mickey, too. He sprints back to his office and calls Griggs, telling him to get there ASAP.