[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for all of The Lincoln Lawyer Season 3.”]
“It blew me away,” says Manuel Garcia-Rulfo of that shocking Lincoln Lawyer Season 3 ending.
Before that, Mickey was in a good place, ready to take a vacation even—after a rough season. “It just feels like this season, because it’s so personal to him, the stakes are a lot higher, even though it’s always the case with Mickey Haller, I think there’s always chaos and a lot of obstacles that he has to [face] in order to succeed,” Garcia-Rulfo says in the video interview above from when he stopped by TV Insider’s office. “That’s why he goes through that journey of wanting to quit because he knows he’s putting not just his life, but his family’s life in danger.”
Then came the ending, straight out of Michael Connelly‘s books: Mickey was pulled over and the dead body of his client, Sam Scales (Christopher Thornton), was found in his trunk. “It was crazy. But this season, the end of every episode felt like the end of a season,” Garcia Rulfo tells us of that. He’s looking forward to a potential fourth season to see what comes next, with a Mickey Haller under arrest. “He knows that it’s really bad because it’s in his trunk and he has no idea who did it. I mean, he could have some ideas who, but we don’t know who for certain. So it just gives me a lot, especially as an actor, to explore—to explore the side of him being accused and him being in the other side.”
At that moment, Mickey’s too in shock to even start figuring out what to do next, “but I do think that his brain is going to start to right away to see how to plan his defense,” the star adds.
Season 3 also introduced a new romance for Mickey, with his rival in the court in Season 2, Andrea (Yaya DaCosta); the relationship wasn’t meant to last. “He’s terrible at making choices when it comes to love,” Garcia-Rulfo admits. “Why not find a waitress or something? He has to go and go out with a lawyer, somebody that knows his ex [Neve Campbell‘s Maggie]. Where there’s chaos, that’s where he thrives.”
Watch the full video interview above for much more from Garcia-Rulfo on Mickey and Season 3 in general and his hopes for what could come in a potential fourth season.
The Lincoln Lawyer, Seasons 1-3, Streaming now, Netflix