Netflix’s adaptation of Michael Connelly’s The Lincoln Lawyer novels ignores the first book and tells a different story. But which book is he adapting?
Warning: contains spoilers for The Lincoln Lawyer season 1.
from netflix The Lincoln Lawyer The television series adapts the second book by Mickey Haller, The brass verdict (2007), but why ignore book 1? The Lincoln Lawyer series of novels begins with a book of the same name and is written by Michael Connelly, the same author behind the the forest novels. While the author and production team stated that the series would be adapted The brass verdictthe truth is a bit more complicated.
Criminal defense attorney Michael “Mickey” Haller Jr. (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo) was first introduced in the 2005 novel. The Lincoln Lawyer. Working as part of the legal justice system machine, Haller helps clients escape unethical police work, but is also hired by a client named Louis Ross Roulet, who has been accused of brutally assaulting a sex worker named Reggie. Countryside. The story is related to an old Haller case in which the innocent Jesús Menéndez was sent to prison for life for the murder of another sex worker, Martha Rentería.
It has not been explicitly stated why the Netflix adaptation of The Lincoln Lawyer he did not adapt the original book of the same name, but there are logical reasons for the decision. 2005 The Lincoln Lawyer was already adapted into a well-received movie starring Matthew McConaughey in 2011, which means many people would already know the answers to the mysteries and the Netflix adaptation would have a hard time getting out of McConaughey’s shadow. Besides, Lincoln’s Lawyer Focusing on visceral depictions of violence against women might have been an easy option to avoid for Netflix execs hoping for something at least a little more familiar.
It would have been easy for the Netflix TV series of The Lincoln Lawyer to make a direct adaptation of The brass verdict, simply acknowledging that the events of the first book had already occurred. However, the series ignores the events of the first book, replacing Mickey Haller’s injury at the end of The Lincoln Lawyer with a surfing injury that leaves him in a similar place. This allows Netflix The Lincoln Lawyer to remove any potential connection to the 2011 film and establish itself as its own narrative.
This works particularly well in The Lincoln Lawyer TV series like Netflix actually combine many of the subplots from the original 2005 novel. This includes cases like Sam Scales and Harold “Hard Case” Casey, but more importantly Jesus Menendez. Divorced from her connection to Louis Ross Roulet in the Netflix adaptation of The Lincoln Lawyerthe Menéndez case is capable of configuring The Lincoln Lawyer season 2 with a suggestion that the second season could return to the main plot of the first book now that the series has established its world and characters.
The Lincoln Lawyer Season 1 is now available on Netflix.
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