Spoilers for Season 3 of The Lincoln Lawyer are forward! When you aren’t caught up, you possibly can stream the sequence with a Netflix subscription.
I used to be furious when Eddie died midway by means of Season 3 of The Lincoln Lawyer. Nevertheless, my dramatic response proves why that selection was such an excellent one. So, once I chatted with the Netflix hit’s co-showrunner Dailyn Rodriguez after the junior season premiered on the 2024 TV schedule, I needed to ask about this monumental second. And I’ve to confess, I agree together with her feedback about why they “nailed” this tragic storyline.
This story begins with Rodriguez telling me throughout an interview for CinemaBlend that they really made a change from the e-book The Gods of Guilt, which Season 3 is predicated on, as they turned Mickey’s older driver from the novel right into a youthful man. They did this for a bunch of causes, as you’ll quickly see. Nevertheless, certainly one of them stemmed from the concept of the character being linked to the lawyer and his household, because the showrunner instructed me:
We knew we did not need to kill Izzy. And within the e-book, there’s a driver that dies, and I got here into the room at some point with this concept for this character. I believed it could be attention-grabbing if there was a private connection between the driving force and Mickey and Maggie and Hayley to provide us one thing, as a result of what we would have liked to do is set up a personality that we actually appreciated and we actually cared about in a really quick time period, and that is actually onerous to do.
Properly, mission completed. The Lincoln Lawyer is certainly one of Netflix’s greatest reveals to binge due to its cliffhangers and its characters. In simply 5 episodes, I grew to adore Eddie, and the truth that he died on the finish of Episode 5 was so extremely tragic.
Rodriguez went on to inform me that that’s precisely what they needed. And so they did it by crafting a personality who was “type of like a younger, extra harmless Mickey.” The showrunner additionally instructed me that they needed Eddie to “upend stereotypes about Latinos” too. Explaining all this a bit additional, she stated:
So, I like the concept he’s masculine but female in all the nice methods. That he does crochet. To me, he feels very Gen Z. He is very like of a time and place, city Gen Z, very in contact together with his feelings and his emotions, and needs to be inventive. Additionally needs to maintain this vessel that’s his physique… So there’s a very masculine half about him, however there’s one thing very fashionable to him. And I really feel like you do not see – it is not an usually factor that you simply see in Latino characters, male, Latin characters.
Eddie was so gosh darn lovable, nonetheless, he additionally actually knew the best way to take care of Mickey and people he cherished. In that manner, he’s quite a bit just like the lawyer he drove round, and that commonality helped spotlight the juxtaposition between the 2 characters, as Rodriguez defined:
So I believed it could be attention-grabbing to have that type of character juxtapose in opposition to Mickey – who I feel is usually somewhat little bit of a bull in a china store – and have these two characters need to work together on a regular basis. And I feel he brings out a whole lot of the sweetness in Mickey, and a whole lot of, type of, the paternal components of Mickey’s persona, and he is an excellent comedian foil.
This season of The Lincoln Lawyer that aired on Netflix’s 2024 schedule did present Mickey in a extra susceptible place. His daughter wasn’t speaking to him, his case this season actually challenged him emotionally and mentally, and the dying of Eddie actually took a toll, as a result of he was such a real, pure and sort character.
Mickey and audiences alike fell in love with Eddie so quick, and that’s really what made his storyline and dying work so effectively. To that time, Dailyn Rodriguez instructed me why she thinks they actually “nailed” this storyline:
And I felt like if we may accomplish that, if we may do this in 5 episodes, and actually have us care about this character, then it could resonate when he dies. And I really feel like we have gotten a lot suggestions. So I feel we truly, I am very happy with this, as a result of I feel we did a very good job – the writers, Ted [Humphrey] and I actually like — I feel we might have nailed that one.
I need to say, I agree together with her. By the point I bought to the finish of The Lincoln Lawyer’s third season, I used to be nonetheless so unhappy about Eddie. Whereas I don’t like that feeling, and I take a little bit of subject with how he was grieved on the present, it does present the success of this storyline as they managed to make us care about this man in a matter of episodes.
Now, as we wait to see if The Lincoln Lawyer will get picked up for a fourth season, I’ll be considering this surprising but sensible choice to kill off Eddie much more. Whereas I’m upset about it, sure, I additionally perceive that that’s the specified response to a plot twist like this. So, I’d be reminisce to not admit that, yeah, Dailyn Rodriguez and her workforce actually did nail this arc.