Summary
The Lincoln Lawyer puts most of the “what was Jerry thinking” puzzle pieces together for a satisfying hour of streaming.
This recap of Netflix’s The Lincoln Lawyer season 1, episode 8, “The Magic Bullet Redux,” contains spoilers.
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The Lincoln Lawyer season 1, episode 8 recap
Mickey meets his favorite hooker, Cherry, at one of L.A.’s fine eateries. (This looks like the famous Dinah’s Family Restaurant that we have seen in The Big Lebowski and Nightcrawler). She finds Glory Days and leaves him some info on how to find her. When she leaves, Mick tells her to take care of herself. That usually means Cherry is not long for this world. But I’m a pessimist by nature.
Meanwhile, Haller heads to court to face Golantz because Stanton has not declared a mistrial. They call Laura’s best friend, Sonia Patel, to the stand. She tells the jury that Trevor cut her off from all her friends. (You often see this with controlling, abusive husbands). Her testimony is damning, but have no fear. Mickey Haller is about to do what he does best — charm the pants off the jury while destroying the witness. He quickly moved Patel from trusted witness to reasonable doubt because she tried to contact Trevor about a job multiple times.
Next up is the lab tech, who testifies that Trevor has a large amount of gunshot residue (GSR) on his hands and all over his body. No worries, because Haller has something out on him too. He brings evidence that the lab tech does shoddy work. He had his entire testimony thrown out in the Ruiz case because he failed to consider the victim could have gotten GSR from his job as an industrial engineer. Unfortunately, a team of Haller and Elliott was unable to find out the lab tech had the supervisor checking his work and signing off on all his work since the Ruiz case.
However, after staying up all night, Mickey has that magical moment. A silver bullet, magic if you will. The tape that Jerry put that damning video into evidence now makes sense on why he would do it. The footage shows Elliott in the police cruiser for an hour or so. But, the shooting where Eli Wyms fired at the cops the night before was on it as well. They took the car in so the spotlight could be fixed because Eli managed to hit that. They never cleaned it, though, because they needed back on the streets. Mickey calls a forensic expert. Dr. Arslanian, to the stand, a woman who has multiple degrees in almost everything. She testifies that the police returning over 90 rounds of fire would leave a massive amount of GSR all over the cruiser.
This is how Elliott got GSR on his body. Dr. Arslanian says so.
Of course, Mickey needs a villain too. He brings back Detective Kinder to talk about Anton Shavar. The police are now aware that Jan filed for a restraining order against Shavar. Even though Shavar was in Miami on the day of the murder, his employees were still in town, all armed to the teeth with guns that can pump hot lead into anyone. Either way, Shavar says he is not a dangerous man but a careful man. That’s when Mickey pulls out the tape of Shavar threatening Cisco’s life. The last time we see Shavar, he walks off the elevator that he rode thirteen floors down with. He is menacing, trying to show intimidation, and asks Haller if he considered how people, his employees mainly, rely on his good name before he dragged his name through the mud?
The ending
After all the good Mickey has done, it is still not good enough for Trevor. He wants to clear his good name by testifying, to help the court of public opinion. The conversation, though, is cut off when Izzy texts him. She was about to get high, and she reached out. She leaves with him, and he drives her home.
This Mickey is alright.
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