The Lincoln Lawyer‘s co-showrunner Ted Humphrey addresses how they’ll handle Harry Bosch’s absence in season 4 following the way the season 3 finale sets up. Bosch and the show’s titular lawyer, Mickey Haller (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo), are half-brothers. With The Lincoln Lawyer season 3 finale ending up with Mickey being set up for a crime he doesn’t commit, the events are leading to the future season adapting The Law of Innocence, where Bosch will help Mickey in his defense. Separate from The Lincoln Lawyer, Bosch (Titus Welliver) has his own franchise with Bosch and Bosch: Legacy.
Humphrey told TV Insider that despite the character’s involvement in the book, Bosch is “not a possibility” for season 4, so they’ll have to “backfill the relationship between the two.” With many books in the series, they have “a lot of different wells to draw from” and they are looking into ways to work around his absence by combining “two and even three different books” or mixing characters around. Check out his comment below:
Well, the only thing I can say about that is that as we’ve discussed before, unfortunately, Bosch is not a possibility for us. And at this point, obviously if we were to ever were to be able to do that, we’d have to somehow backfill the relationship between the two of them. But that’s pie in the sky thinking anyway. Just like what we did in Season 3 with the character of Neil Bishop, who is, as you point out, Lankford in the books, Michael has given us in his books, and we have then expanded in the show this panoply of characters and situations for Mickey and it gives us a lot of different wells to draw from.
And they do this, I’ve noticed, in Bosch as well—there are so many Bosch books. We only have, I think there’s seven now Lincoln Lawyer books, but there are, I don’t know, 20 something Bosch books. And so they have so many books to work with that they’ve had seasons where they’ve combined two and even three different books into one season and they’ve mixed characters around and Mickey Haller and those books has become somebody else. So there are always ways to do that.
What His Comment Means For The Lincoln Lawyer Season 4
Season 4 Will Be Very Different From The Book
Despite having crossovers in their storylines, Harry Bosch will not be on Mickey’s defense team to help his half-brother clear his name. Since Bosch’s involvement plays a crucial part in the events of The Law of Innocence, his absence will be noticed. The showrunner’s comment confirms Bosch’s absence in season 4 and indicates that the show will have to be creative in its approach to find a workaround. It’s also likely that the show would offer a reasonable explanation for Bosch’s absence.
His comment also suggests the key ways season 4 will be different from the source material and the possibility for the season to adapt multiple books from The Lincoln Lawyer series. With Harry Bosch being the detective to carry out the investigation, his absence also means that another character might have to fulfill his role in the storyline. The showrunner’s comment adds uncertainty to the upcoming season’s cast and plot.
Our Take on The Lincoln Lawyer Season 4
Bosch’s Absence Raises The Stakes
With Bosch and Bosch: Legacy on Prime Video and Netflix behind The Lincoln Lawyer, sadly, Bosch will not be able to make an appearance in Mickey’s series due to the two shows being produced by competing studios. Having Bosch helping Mickey would not only bring the half-siblings closer, but he’d also make a valuable contribution to solving the mystery behind the murder.
Bosch’s shoes are hard to fill. Not being able to have him on the show also poses challenges for season 4 being able to live up to viewers’ expectations. On the other hand, Bosch’s absence also raises the stakes for Mickey following events in The Lincoln Lawyer season 3. Without his half-brother’s help, he’d need to defend himself and solve a murder.
