“Lincoln Lawyer”: facing an enemy that has badges

For a big-time attorney, Mickey Haller seems to be in perpetual jeopardy.
In the first three “Lincoln Lawyer” (shown here) seasons, thugs chased, threatened and beat him. He survived, with the help of brains, guts, two ex-wives and a biker.
But in this fourth season, those thugs have badges and subpoenas. Things get a lot more complicated.
The 10-part season just arrived on Netflix. It has a few flaws — some detours that are kind of empty stuffing, plus an ending that feels anti-climactic. Still, it’s a terrific story, with Mickey facing huge stakes and getting great help.
Mickey (played by Manuel Garcia-Ruffo) is a hybrid — Latino on his maternal side, lawyer on his paternal. He was young when his dad died, but his dad’s former law partner — David “Legal” Siegel, played by Elliot Gould, 87 — mentored him.
Once working out of the trunk of his Lincoln, Mickey now has a scrappy office, run mostly by his second ex-wife Lorna (Becki Newton) and her husband Cisco (Angus Sampson), an investigator who proudly reflectss his biker-gang roots, plus Izzy (Jazz Raycole) a dancer and ex-con.
The first ex-wife Maggie (Neve Campbell, shown here with Garcia-Ruffo) is a prosecutor in San Diego; their daughter, a senior in high school, lives in both places.
It’s a ragged life, complicated by the fact that Mickey has a theatrical style that exoses officials and annoys mobsters. That led to the beatings and then more: As the third season ended, a policeman pulled him over and found a body in the trunk. This was cause for suspicion.
When the new season starts, Mickey is in jail, his office is in tatters and the official world is against him.
That winds through 10 parts, which is roughly two more than the story can hold. There are several points — a scramble to get over the county line by midnight, for instance — that are pure stuffing.
But the story itself works beautifully. It stirs up the sort of chaos that Newton and Sampson thrive on … and the dead-serious moments that Campbell masters.
Garcia-Ruffo does both beautifully. This Lincoln lawyer is filled with equal amounts of joy and rage.
For much of this season, the Lincoln is impounded and the lawyer is jailed. Together or not, they’re impressive.