The Lincoln Lawyer (2022)

In spite some of the clumsy political commentary pokes through—those Kelley-ready components make this iteration of "The Lincoln Lawyer" a bingeable, highly enthralling piece of entertainment.

Punchy, clever, and entertaining.

It avoids treating its characters as quirky confections, and instead treats them as adults you might actually meet in the real world. ... It’s pretty good and frequently satisfying. That’s more than I can say about a lot of television.

"Lincoln" is so pleasing in its unpretentiousness. It's not trying to answer big questions, besides whether Mickey's biggest client is innocent. Garcia-Rulfo is a bit stiff at first as the charismatic lawyer, but he quickly grows on you.

This is a slick, easily digested and well-acted legal thriller featuring an outstanding ensemble cast and a juicy, lurid murder mystery that keeps us guessing throughout—not that we can’t see some of the twists coming a mile down the road. That’s even part of the fun of shows such as this one.

Some 10-episode shows seem stretched out, but “The Lincoln Lawyer” is fast-moving and packed with incident. Yet Mickey’s personal life is also well developed.

Even though the set-up is familiar and the dialogue is shopworn, The Lincoln Lawyer still works. It delivers likable characters who are easy to root for as they stand up for the unfairly accused. There's comfort to be had in this type of storytelling.

It has a sort of modesty — the cast delivers appealing, workmanlike performances that do exactly what they need to without overshadowing any other actor or element of the series. (That’s not to say that some don’t get some heated moments to play.) The twists are twisted enough to keep things interesting, if that’s what you watch for, but as with most if not all character-driven procedurals, it’s the characters that keep one coming back.