Where do you want to see a big beast? Cornered, in the fight for his life and you want to see the tricks he would get up to, to get himself out of the tight bind. Micky Haller was in the fight for his life, and this season revealed the man behind the name, behind the bus ads, behind the Lincolns, and behind the swagger.
Mickey has been framed for murder of Sam Scales, you remember Sam the conman; well, he ended up dead in Haller’s booth, and the suave street-smart lawyer he was arrested for the murder and thrown in jail because of it. We actually see the Lincoln lawyer down on his luck and doubting himself and the smarts that is his go to. People needed to remind him of whom he is and where he has come from because he is Mickey Fucking Haller. Everyone rallies round Mickey to save him, Lorna, Cisco, Izzy, McFierce… I have never loved a man and his ex-wife coming together more and it is obvious these two knuckleheads still love each other BUT part of me wants them to get it right this time, or whenever they get it together.
This season sees Mickey on the ropes and the return of some favourite baddies from the past Ms Aslanian, Lisa Tremmell, Alex Gazarian… I mean these are Haller hall of famers. And I enjoyed seeing the expertise of Ms Aslanian on the stand; she is one of my favourite mini characters and we had to say goodbye to Legal Segal which was so sad but such an apt way to say goodbye. He got to have a sandwich, ride the bus and give legal advice to both Lorna and Mickey and there was a peace there in the farewell.
This season revealed the best of the characters, because they were in the dugout fighting for their lives, whatever that means, but it brought the best of the characters and actors to the fore, no one was a side character, even though in the shadow of the Haller’s shine they are side characters but their stories are fully fleshed out. Izzy gets the girl, Lorna gets her cases, McFierce gets to show her chops, Cisco is up to Cisco things, even his mama gets her time to shine.
The writing was incredibly precise; dialogue, cinematography, Los Angeles even the FBI come off looking okay in this. But I have to go into the character of Haller, there was a crisp desperation there, as played by the actor a tightness in the corner that he’d been boxed into, the unravelling of the man himself outside of the Lincoln, in the glare of the press but the vulnerability is there, he is a man falling apart before our eyes and yet he has to keep it together. I’d never seen anything Manuel Garcia Rulfo has been in, but he was perfectly cast in this, so pristinely and perfectly cast down to a science. He does more than enough yet it is not too much and in the cracks that reveals the deep wounds of this injustice, he emerges a better man than most.
There is a moment in the last episode when the judge has to apologise to him for the grave injustice and he looks so sad that he has been made to suffer this and in the way he suffered it. And it’s that look that gets me every time.
Best season yet and you should watch it. And I still maintain it is a series better than the books because there is a resolution that is absent in the books and I get where Micheal Connelly is coming from, he is trying to mimic real life because the justice system typically sucks and is unfair but this is fiction and we need to believe that the system is not so crappy hence the resolution and continuation in the TV series is appreciated and elevates this better than the books.