Things weren’t always so messy for Mickey (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo). This is evident in the first 11 minutes of The Lincoln Lawyer Season 3, which you can check out above.

In a flashback set 15 years earlier, Mickey hits the surf to start his day. He’s blissfully married to Maggie (Neve Campbell), drives a humble red Volkswagen, and holds onto big dreams, like one day owning that classic blue Lincoln convertible. Later, he gets his client acquitted on a technicality before a disgruntled cop issues a foreboding warning that “somebody’s gonna end up dead” because of his courtroom antics. 

That brings us to the present day, with Mickey navigating a case that feels all too personal, in the new episodes premiering Oct. 17. His friend and former client, Glory Days (Fiona Rene), has been murdered, and his new client, Julian La Cosse (Devon Graye), is accused of killing her. 

Season 3 — based on The Gods of Guilt, the fifth book in Michael Connelly’s The Lincoln Lawyer series — finds Mickey working to resolve his friend’s untimely death while representing the guy believed to be responsible. Judging from the above clip, it’s not an easy position to be in. 

“That creates a dilemma for him,” co-showrunner and executive producer Ted Humphrey tells Tudum. “Normally, he wouldn’t want to represent a person accused of murdering somebody he cared about.” At some point, however, he becomes “convinced that this person did not do this” and that there’s more to the story. 

As co-showrunner and executive producer Dailyn Rodriguez puts it, “There’s a bigger conspiracy behind it.” Although Mickey is facing his toughest challenge yet, he’s no longer the “broken Mickey from Season 1.” 

Whereas the previous seasons were “about this guy finding his footing again and then maybe getting a little too big for his britches,” Humphrey notes, Season 3 follows “a person who's very much in control of his instrument but deciding how best he wants to use it for what I'm going to accomplish.”

See how the journey unfolds when all 10 episodes of The Lincoln Lawyer Season 3 debut on Netflix Oct. 17. 

Watch The Lincoln Lawyer Season 3 Trailer