“Talk about a cliff-hanger! People are going to flip, it’s so good,” says Manuel Garcia-Rulfo.

WOW. Anyone else finding themselves watching the last episode of The Lincoln Lawyer Season 3 with their hand over their mouth? It’s true that you never know what’s going to happen to our hero Mickey Haller (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo) in this series, just like you never know who around him is guilty, innocent, or somewhere in between — until the very end. “That’s why people are drawn to it so much,” Garcia-Rulfo tells Tudum. But this season? “Man, it’s another level,” he says.

Showrunners and executive producers Ted Humphrey and Dailyn Rodriguez think it’s their best one yet. The 10-episode narrative is based on Michael Connelly’s novel The Gods of Guilt (also the name of the Season 3 finale), the fifth in his hit series about a hotshot LA defense attorney with an irrepressible need to win, and a trademark fleet of Lincoln automobiles.

Those of you who’ve watched already will know it’s all about Mickey defending an innocent man, avenging the death of his friend and former client Gloria Dayton, aka Glory Days (Fiona Rene), and exposing a conspiracy of corruption in the justice system that goes all the way to the top.

“It’s personal,” says Rodriguez — and it’s twofold, Humphrey points out. “It’s Mickey trying to get to the bottom of who killed somebody he cared about, and at the same time, feeling like he’s really on the line representing a truly innocent client,” he says. “He’s got a double whammy of responsibility hanging over his head to get this one right.” And does he??

Without further ado and with insights from the showrunners and Garcia-Rulfo (ahem, Mickey) himself, let’s talk about this third installment’s final destination, plus the twisted routes we took to get there.

First of all, what does “gods of guilt” mean?

Multiple things. “The ‘gods of guilt’ in our world are usually what Mickey calls the jury,” Rodriguez explains. “But in this season, he’s talking about the people around you who keep you honest and force you to be accountable — in the past and present.”

Humphrey says this season is about Mickey coming to terms with his values and who he really wants to be. “What does he stand for?” Humphrey asks. “As a lawyer, as a father, as an ex-husband, as a person?”

To that end, Garcia-Rulfo says the guilt comes in handy. “We see guilt as negative, but I think it helps Mickey to put everything in balance,” he says. “Even though it’s a burden, he uses that as motivation to do what’s right.”

During one of this episode’s final scenes, Mickey and his team, consisting of Izzy (Jazz Raycole), Lorna (Becki Newton), and Cisco (Angus Sampson), raise a toast to both Julian La Cosse (Devon Graye) — their newly freed client wrongfully accused of murdering Glory Days — and the gods of guilt. “Not the jury,” Mickey clarifies. “The ones we carry around with us.”

Who is Julian La Cosse? And who really killed Glory Days?

Julian is an IT pimp of sorts, verifying the identities of people who book escorts, in an effort to keep the sex workers safe — while enjoying a 20% cut of their profits. He and Gloria were friends, but when she was late on a payment, he paid her a home visit and things got heated. Julian even went so far as to grab her neck to push her off him, but he left her very much alive. Her actual murderer was a corrupt Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent named James De Marco (Michael Irby). After De Marco sent his private investigator, Neil Bishop (Holt McCallany), to ascertain Gloria’s address, De Marco showed up shortly after Julian’s departure and set fire to Gloria’s place.

Whaaat!? Why did Agent De Marco kill Glory Days?

Get this — for over a decade, De Marco has been in cahoots with the Juárez cartel, covering up their crimes and joining in their vendetta against the rival Tijuana cartel. After De Marco busts Glory Days for prostitution and drug possession, she’s pulled into his schemes in order to stay out of jail. One of her clients happens to be a Tijuana cartel boss called Hector Moya (Arturo Del Puerto), so De Marco forces Gloria to plant a gun on Moya. This particular gun was associated with a triple homicide, and its discovery results in Moya being put in prison for life. But Moya knows he was set up and has his lawyer subpoena Gloria to testify about this. When De Marco realizes he’s at risk of being exposed, he silences Glory Days for good.

“We did some research into real-life corruption scandals in the DEA and other law enforcement agencies and tried to make it as realistic as possible,” says Humphrey. “De Marco exemplifies what Legal Siegel [Elliott Gould] tells Mickey — that criminals with badges are the worst kind of all.”

What’s the connection between De Marco and Bishop?

Ten years ago, Bishop was an LAPD officer investigating a double homicide that was the suspected work of the Juárez cartel. De Marco offers Bishop money to drop the case, which Bishop needs to afford his messy divorce. With a failing career (thanks in part to our boy Mickey, who made a display of Bishop’s incompetence in court back then) and a son to think about, Bishop accepts. De Marco has him in his pocket from that day forward.

“Bishop made a deal with the devil when he got into bed with De Marco,” says Rodriguez. “He opened this dirty can of worms and has no choice but to continue to work with him.”

To prove they’re still working together, Cisco and Izzy set up surveillance equipment in the house across the street from the one where those two murders took place the decade prior. Then, Mickey makes Bishop and De Marco think the owner may come forward and testify with new information incriminating the Juárez cartel. To discredit that potential witness, De Marco and Bishop meet at the home to plant cocaine in his freezer (RIP deep-dish pizza) — unaware their actions are caught on camera. But instead of introducing the footage in court, Mick shows it to Bishop privately. Bishop tells him not to show anyone else and agrees to testify in Julian’s case.

Alright, it’s time to talk about that scene. Why did Bishop commit suicide?

In the first of the finale’s two truly shocking twists, Bishop takes the stand and confesses everything: How he tracked Gloria down on Julian’s escort site, how he posed as a client and arranged a meeting at a hotel so he could follow Gloria home, how he texted De Marco her address so he could meet him there — and the fact that he did all of it at De Marco’s request because of the hold De Marco had on him.

Mickey asks Bishop if De Marco killed Gloria Dayton, and Bishop says he asked De Marco point-blank. “I didn’t want that on my conscience,” he says. But De Marco tells him she was already dead, and he only set the fire to destroy anything that could link them together.

“Did you believe him?” Haller asks.

“I wanted to,” Bishop replies.

“Let me ask you one more time,” Mickey tries again. “Did you believe him?”

“No. I did not,” Bishop admits.

Right after Mickey announces he has no further questions, Bishop remains on the stand in tears. Seemingly overwhelmed with guilt and regret, he leans over, pulls out a hidden gun, asks the courtroom to “tell my son I’m sorry,” and shoots himself.

What was it like filming that scene?

“It was a tremendous experience to work with Holt [who plays Bishop],” says Humphrey. “He is such a wonderfully understated actor.  Nothing is showy, but it’s all 100% real. He brought so much genuine pathos.”

Bishop’s courtroom scene is the longest in the show’s history, Humphrey tells Tudum. It took three days and an estimated 50 takes to shoot. “And every time was heartbreaking, even when you’d already seen it again and again,” he says. “If we’ve done our jobs right, hopefully audiences will be shocked and saddened by it, but also, on reflection, realize that it was inevitable.”

Garcia-Rulfo also praises McCallany’s performance. “That scene at the end was so powerful that I felt for him—me as an actor and Mickey too,” he says. “Mickey sees [Bishop] as a victim and feels a bit guilty to push him so far.”

Did Mickey push Bishop too far?

“I think Bishop had already made up his mind [about] what he was going to do when he took the stand,” Humphrey says. “In his mind, there was no way out for him. He had to answer for his sins. But in the end, he does the right thing: He tells the truth. He realizes that’s his only possible redemption.”

Who dies in The Lincoln Lawyer Season 3?

Warning: The body count is high and, in some cases, particularly gut-wrenching this season.

Glory Days: see above.
Neil Bishop: see above.
Deborah Glass (Rebekah Kennedy): Earlier in the season, prosecutor Andrea “Andy” Freemann (Yaya DaCosta) forgets to inform a client that her abusive ex-husband will be temporarily let out of jail to attend his grandmother’s funeral. As a result, the convict, Scott Glass, stakes out Deborah’s normal jogging route and murders her. A guilt-ridden Andy admits her mistake and is subsequently removed from the case.

Eddie Rojas (Allyn Moriyon): This one really hurts. At the top of the season, Eddie — a family friend and former babysitter for Mickey’s daughter, Hayley (Krista Warner) — finds himself in need of Mickey’s lawyer services. In an arrangement familiar to fans of the show, Eddie agrees to take Izzy’s place as Mick’s driver to work off his debt. He’s killed in a car accident seemingly targeting Mickey and set up by De Marco.
James De Marco: When De Marco hears from an accomplice in that courtroom that Bishop has taken the stand and his jig is up, he bolts. But the Tijuana cartel finds him and hangs him. Moya even mails Mickey’s office a picture of De Marco’s corpse with a snake around his neck (yikes), and promises to keep the Juárez cartel too busy to retaliate. “The idea is that the conflict is going to stretch on indefinitely into the future and, in a weird way, keep the players busy enough that Mickey is too far down their list of scores for them to bother settling,” says Humphrey.
Sam Scales (Christopher Thornton): And now for the finale’s second shocking twist! Mickey former and Lorna’s first official client is the final casualty of the season. More on that below.
Special mention: Julian De Cosse. During a prison transfer, Julian is stabbed by inmate Lalo Vasquez (Spencer Valenzuela), another name on the list of people being blackmailed by De Marco. Julian’s heart technically stops before the medical team is able to bring him back.

What happens to Julian?

Thankfully, Julian survives his attack and the charges against him are dropped. His partner, David (Wolé Parks), asks about recourse. Mickey is so disgusted with the widespread corruption, he debates abandoning his profession. But instead, he and Cisco — with some help from Andy — present the evidence of De Marco’s orchestrated attacks to newly appointed District Attorney Adam Suarez’s (Philip Anthony-Rodriguez) office and win. “Mickey is out for blood,” says Rodriguez. And the result is a settlement with “a lot of zeros,” as Lorna puts it.

“But it’s bittersweet,” says Garcia-Rulfo. “We won, and Mickey’s really happy because what they tried to do to Julian was so unjust, but a life was still lost.”

And Julian himself seemed to question his will to live at times throughout the season. “To some extent, ‘justice’ is pretty impossible for someone who’s been through what Julian has been through,” says Humphrey. “You can’t make it right, but you can make it more right, which is what Mickey is able to do. I’d like to think Julian rides off into the sunset with David in their RV to spend the rest of their life finding peace.”

Why does Mickey change his mind about quitting?

Hayley. They’d been estranged since she blamed her dad for Eddie’s death, but once she hears about the corruption Mickey is fighting on behalf of an innocent man, she shows up to his house with an apology and Thai food.

The fights between Mickey and Hayley were hard to film, according to Garcia-Rulfo. “Some part of me wanted to be a father, like, ‘Why are you blaming me? I saved Eddie. I gave him a job. You’re being a child,’ ” he says. “But of course she’s a teenager and all these emotional things have been building up because of Mickey’s career. Again, he feels guilty, so another part feels [like], ‘Oh, shit. I fucked up again and let my daughter down.’”

In the finale, Hayley tells Mickey he can’t quit because “the system will never work if people don’t make it work.” She also says she’s considering a career as a lawyer! But a prosecutor like her mom, not a defense attorney like her dad.

“She’s maybe trolling her dad a little bit when she says she wants to be a prosecutor,” says Rodriguez. But Garcia-Rulfo is here for it. “What else could she be?” he says. “She’s not going to be a doctor!”

Speaking of prosecutors, does Andy get her Scott Glass case back?

Towards the end of the episode, after a Mickey Haller pep talk, Andrea marches into Suarez’s office and demands he either return her to the case or fire her.

“Suarez would be an idiot not letting Andy back on the Scott Glass case,” says Rodriguez. “I’m sure her banishment to calendar duty is over.”

And the whole ordeal wasn’t without some valuable lessons for Andy, Humphrey adds. “Certain things she took for granted about how the system works and her role in it — which was basically to win and not ask questions — get upended,” he says. “In the end, she realizes that the system can turn on anyone. Even her.  She gets knocked down a peg, but she emerges from it with a keener sense of actual fairness and justice.”

Do Andy and Mickey end up together?

“Andy and Mickey are in a good place as friends, and we never say never to a possible romantic future when both are more ready for commitment,” Rodriguez says.

For his part, Garcia-Rulfo applauds how maturely Mickey and Andy were able to walk away from their relationship for the time being, but he isn’t sure about a continued love story. “The attraction was there, but I do think [his ex-wife] Maggie [Neve Campbell] is always going to be in the back of his mind,” he says. “She’s the love of his life. And even when he meets new people, I think he’s always feeling that he’s cheating on her. Even if he finds a girlfriend or whatever, I don’t think he’d ever let her go completely.”

What happens at the end of The Lincoln Lawyer Season 3?

At the aforementioned dinner, Mickey announces he’ll finally be taking a vacation, per Lorna’s advice. As he leaves the restaurant, the ghosts (er, manifestations of Mickey’s subconscious) of Gloria, Eddie, and Mickey Haller, Sr. (Jon Tenney) cheer him with drinks and smiles on their vindicated faces.

Cut to Mickey driving through the streets of LA in his most beloved powder-blue Lincoln Continental until he’s pulled over by an officer, who informs him that his license plate is missing. And what’s this? A substance that looks suspiciously like blood seems to be dripping from the back bumper. Despite Mickey’s protests, the office pops the trunk and — gasp — con man Sam Scales is shot dead inside! (“It’s cool that they keep bringing back characters that we’ve been with since the first season,” Garcia-Rulfo says.)

“As far as what it all means, hopefully we will be able to show you in Season 4,” says Humphrey.  “But clearly, the only thing Mickey could be thinking is, ‘WTF?’ ”

And what does the man behind Mickey think about the Season 3 ending? “Talk about a cliff-hanger!” Garcia-Rulfo says. “People are going to flip, it’s so good. You’re expecting the season to end with Mickey saying goodbye to his friends and driving off and then — boom. It’s a dead body in the trunk. I can’t wait to see how people are going to react.”

Stream all episodes of The Lincoln Lawyer Season 3 now.