In The Lincoln Lawyer season 3 episode 7, “Relevance,” Mickey (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo) starts to make the case that Julian (Devon Graye) was framed for Glory Days’ (Fiona Rene) murder as part of a larger conspiracy. Unfortunately, Mickey runs into a major hiccup.
The Lincoln Lawyer recaps
Mickey is dealt another blow when Andrea (Yaya DaCosta) comes to him looking for some consoling, only for their conversation to lead to an argument, leaving the future of their romance in limbo. If there’s any bright side for Mickey, it’s the surprise discovery Cisco (Angus Sampson) and Izzy (Jazz Raycole) make in the wee hours of the night.
Here’s what happened in The Lincoln Lawyer season 3 episode 7.
Mickey’s errands
As Izzy drives Mickey to court, he says everything has to go perfectly today. He needs the judge to approve Agent De Marco (Michael Irby) testifying, but that won’t happen unless Mickey can prove De Marco is relevant to the case. So Mickey needs the testimonies of today’s witnesses to build a foundation that makes it necessary for the jury to hear De Marco’s version of events.
Lorna calls Mickey to tell him the judge pushed back the start time for the trial, but Mickey already knows. She wishes he would have relayed that to her, but before she can get too far chastising him, he tells her they have a client who she needs to represent at an arraignment hearing while he runs errands. The client is Daniel Varela. The name doesn’t ring a bell, but Mickey hangs up before Lorna can ask too many questions.
Izzy pulls up to Legal’s (Elliott Gould) assisted living home where he’s waiting with a nurse. Mickey speaks with the nurse, who claims Legal is being kicked out. She notes he’s refused to go to his rehab appointments, has been argumentative with the staff and threw a plate of cheesecake at his physical therapist. Mickey tells Legal he’ll have Izzy drop him off at his house after she drops Mickey off at the courthouse.
Lorna’s mystery client is…
Lorna shows up to meet her mystery client, who isn’t Daniel Varela but the firm’s routine swindler Sam Scales (Christopher Thornton), who Mickey has represented a few times and even used during The Lincoln Lawyer season 2 art gallery plot to help out in the Lisa Trammell case. Lorna isn’t happy to see Sam is her first official client as a lawyer, but asks him what he did to get arrested.
Sam was collecting money to buy grocery cards for striking workers. He thought it would be a way to give back. Things were going great and he managed to donate $100,000 in gift cards. Lorna inquires how much he actually raised, and he claims $300,000. Lorna scolds him for keeping $200,000 for himself.
Mickey dealt a mighty blow, while Lorna finds a creative way to win
Mickey calls Frank Valenzuela (Lombardo Boyar) to the stand, the process server who served him earlier this season. Frank confirms he served Glory Days a subpoena. When Mickey presses who hired Frank to serve it, Frank replies it was Sly Funaro Jr. (Christian Antidormi), who filed a habeas petition on Hector Moya’s (Arturo Del Puerto) behalf and believed Glory Days had information on Hector’s “unlawful imprisonment.” Frank does a good job planting a seed of suspicion for the jury.
Elsewhere, Lorna gets Izzy to sit in Sam’s courtroom and text her when it looks like the judge is about to get to Sam’s arraignment. Lorna heads to Mickey’s courtroom for the murder trial and is about to get on an elevator, but notices a long line of people with one of the elevators being out of service. So she commences to walk up several flights of stairs in heels.
An exhausted Lorna arrives to Julian’s trial room as Sly Jr. is on the stand. Mickey constantly has to prod him into sharing details of how he came to represent Hector and the connection between Glory Days and De Marco. His testimony is repeatedly objected to by Forsythe (John Pirruccello) as hearsay, which turns out to be part of Mickey’s plan. When the judge asks Mickey and Forsythe to approach the bench, Mickey agrees that a lot of this can be seen as hearsay, which is why it’s important to hear from De Marco himself. The judge is not willing to approve De Marco being called to the stand based on Sly’s testimony, but Mickey assures her his next witness will connect the dots.
When Lorna treks back to Sam’s courtroom the judge declares a 30-minute recess. The new attorney is tired of going up and down stairs due to the courthouse’s elevator problem, which now only has one working elevator for the entire building. In her exhaustion, she gets a brilliant idea. She walks onto the working elevator with a group of people and purposefully leans on her heel to break it off in the elevator doorway. The moment she does, the elevator becomes inoperable.
When Sam’s arraignment is back in session, Sam is not there. Lorna explains her client was taken back to a holding cell downstairs, but the deputy informed her Sam is unable to come up as he’s in a wheelchair and the elevators are all down. The judge offers to conduct the hearing in the basement to accommodate him, but Lorna points out that’s 11 flights of stairs. The prosecutor offers to postpone the hearing until tomorrow, but Lorna notes her client was arrested two days ago, and by law, unless a defendant waives time, he’s entitled to be arraigned within 48 hours. This prompts the judge to lean on the prosecutor to come to an agreement with Lorna. Ultimately, the district attorney’s office agrees to drop Sam’s chargers to a misdemeanor, and he’s given supervised probation and has to pay back the money he stole, a far cry from the three years in prison he was looking at.
Lorna makes it back upstairs in time to see Mickey question Glory Days’ former coworker and friend, Trina Trixxx (Tania Raymonde). Unlike before when Trina met with Mickey and Cisco, Trina now pretends never to have heard of De Marco. She claims she lied previously because Mickey was paying her rent. Mickey is irate at Trina lying, but keeps some of his composure. However, the judge tells Mickey given Trina’s testimony, he may not call De Marco as a witness. Without De Marco, Mickey’s defense is in trouble.
Andrea suffers a setback
While helping Andrea prepare for the Scott Glass (Ian Fisher) murder case, Vanessa (Chelsea M. Davis) can’t understand why Deborah (Rebekah Kennedy) didn’t change up her routine when her husband was temporarily released. Andrea confides in Vanessa she forgot to tell Deborah that Scott was getting released.
Andrea later shows up at Mickey’s house as he eats dinner with Legal. Her boss pulled her off the case because Vanessa went behind Andrea’s back and told him about her negligence, which he already knew about but feigned ignorance. Mickey is sorry to hear of Andrea’s troubles, but questions why Andrea would confide in her mentee when the DA’s office is cutthroat and political, full of people willing to stab you in the back to get ahead. She becomes furious with his reaction and abruptly leaves.
Andrea comes to find out the next day that Vanessa has been given the Glass case.
Mickey gets some good news
It’s late at night when Mickey receives calls from Cisco and Izzy. They both tell him the cameras they set up at Peter Sterghos’ (John Kapelos) house caught Bishop (Holt McCallany) and De Marco searching the property. The next day in Mickey’s office, Cisco plays the video of De Marco breaking into Peter’s back door while Bishop stands guard. While inside, De Marco puts cocaine in a pizza box in the freezer.
When Legal asks what this all means, Mickey explains he put Peter’s name on the witness list, as he owns the home across the street from the double homicide case that Bishop and De Marco worked on 10 years ago. Mickey hoped the duo would see Peter’s name and pay him a visit, thinking he witnessed something shady they did in the investigation of the homicide case.
Mickey thinks he has a smoking gun, as the DA’s investigator is on camera breaking into a defense witness’ home, with De Marco no less. Legal warns Mickey this is dangerous. He says criminals with badges are the worst kind of criminals. Mickey needs to be careful, and being careful isn’t Mickey’s strong suit.
The Lincoln Lawyer season 3 is now streaming on Netflix.