Major spoilers for the finale of The Lincoln Lawyer Season 4 are ahead! If you are not caught up, you can stream the series with a Netflix subscription.
Well, my jaw was on the floor when Season 4 of The Lincoln Lawyer came to a close on Netflix’s 2026 schedule. I can say, with full confidence, that the last person I expected to show up was Cobie Smulders as Mickey’s sister. I also didn’t think this would all be revealed during a violent moment in a grocery store parking lot. However, that all really happened, and I asked the showrunner about this pivotal character’s introduction and the role she could play in Season 5.
Much like the end of The Lincoln Lawyer’s third season, Season 4 left us hanging on a steep and high cliff. While Mickey’s case had been totally solved, new problems have obviously come up with the introduction of his sister. Casting Cobie Smulders in that role makes it feel like a really big deal, too, as co-creator Ted Humphrey told me the following about adding her to the cast:
Cobie is somebody who can really command the screen and stand on her own two feet. And there's a lot of very compelling stories to tell to explain what that relationship is and where it's going, and what she's doing there, and why she chose this moment to approach him, you know? And all of that is stuff that hopefully the audience can't wait to see in a Season 5.
Well, I know I certainly can’t wait for Season 5 – which is happening, by the way. And while we wait, a bunch of questions about Smulders’ character keep popping into my head. The biggest one, though, was: Why did they decide to introduce her now? Well, I asked Humphrey that, and he said:
We've been on a run with Michael [Connelly's] books, and while we've rearranged the order of the books a little bit, we've basically crafted it into a pretty clear through line of Mickey's redemption, to Mickey flying a little too high, to Mickey getting knocked back by the sins of the past, to now, Mickey’s, you know, fight for his literally, his very life, right? And so we'd sort of taken that external Jeopardy, if you will, maybe not as far as it can go, but to a place where it felt like now it's time to go back to what we started with, which was personal stakes, right?
What better way to add personal stakes than to add a surprise family member? Humphrey went on to tell me that is addition is “expanding the palette of who [Mickey] is,” and it’s presenting new and unexpected challenges for the titular lawyer. On top of all that, it could make him think that the past he thought he understood “isn’t exactly what [he] thought it was.”
All around, the addition of Mickey’s sister sets the stage for a totally new story in The Lincoln Lawyer. So, I asked the co-creator what he was looking forward to exploring as they move into Season 5. In response, he said there are “so many things,” and then honed in on a few questions he has, saying:
We've left the audience with the question of, who is this person? Is this even real? I mean, the look on Mickey's face at the end of the season says it all, which is just, he's completely gobsmacked, right? So, where do we pick that up? And what story does this person have to tell that explains what she just told him? And then kind of where does it go from there?
Well, he’s certainly left me with a lot to think about. However, it was his last comments about the addition of the How I Met Your Mother star that really stuck with me. Teasing what’s to come in Season 5 through Mickey’s sibling, Humphrey said:
I can tell you that the main thrust of the story of the next season would be something that comes in through the vehicle of that character, right? There is a very much reason why she has approached him at this point, and that will form the basis of that story.
I assume that much like how the 2026 TV schedule’s season of The Lincoln Lawyer hinged on Season 3’s cliffhanger, which was Sam’s death, Season 5 will be mostly about these final few minutes. The appearance of this woman, who says she’s Mickey’s sister, was shocking and game-changing, and now I need to know what happens next.
Thankfully, The Lincoln Lawyer has already been renewed for Season 5, so we know we’ll get to see this story play out. In the meantime, I’ll be thinking about what the showrunner told me and the various questions he laid out for us to ponder.