Prime Video’s 10/10 Crime-Procedural Masterpiece Shows The Lincoln Lawyer How It’s Done
Published Aug 29, 2026, 5:30 PM EDT
After joining Screen Rant in January 2025, Guy became a Senior Features Writer in March of the same year, and now specializes in features about classic TV shows. With several years' experience writing for and editing TV, film and music publications, his areas of expertise include a wide range of genres, from comedies, animated series, and crime dramas, to Westerns and political thrillers.
Netflix’s procedural drama The Lincoln Lawyer is returning for its fifth and final season in 2027, but that doesn’t have to be the end of the story for the streaming platform only Michael Connelly storyverse. Indeed, Prime Video has already set the perfect example for its streaming rival when it comes to expanding a single Connelly adaptation into a franchise.
12 years after Bosch began on the Amazon platform, it’s going stronger than ever thanks to an impressive police-procedural spinoff series starring Maggie Q. Ballard is based on Connelly’s Renée Ballard novels, which tie into the career of iconic LAPD homicide detective Harry Bosch.
Some of the author’s Ballard books are even better than his Bosch releases, although his first literary protagonist remains the most popular character he’s created, both onscreen and off it. Nevertheless, there’s no question that Renée Ballard brings something innovative to the franchise, and gives The Lincoln Lawyer’s production team plenty of food for thought.
Ahead of its second season, Ballard holds a perfect 100% score on the critical aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes, and was one of Prime Video’s most watched series of 2025. Meanwhile, The Lincoln Lawyer season 5 will acquaint us with a character who provides Netflix with a similarly enticing franchise expansion opportunity.
Prime Video’s Ballard Shows The Lincoln Lawyer How To Build A TV Franchise
The final episode of Prime Video’s sequel series Bosch: Legacy served as a backdoor pilot for Ballard, introducing Maggie Q’s police detective into the franchise, and establishing Titus Welliver’s Harry Bosch as her mentor. What makes Ballard work so well is that its title character is the total opposite of Bosch in many ways.
They’re both singularly brilliant homicide investigators with somewhat unorthodox approaches to solving their cases. But Ballard is incomparably more open with her emotions than Welliver’s character, outwardly empathizing with victims, and using more abstract puzzle-solving methods to identify perpetrators.
She’s also complemented by an investigation team who clearly exist in the same world as Bosch’s Jerry Edgar, Grace Billets, and Irvin Irving, but bring something different to the table in their own right. John Carroll Lynch’s Thomas Laffont, and Courtney Taylor’s Samira Parker, in particular, breathe fresh life into the franchise.
Ballard’s success is a reminder of just how good Bosch is as a fictional crime-solving universe. Yet, it also strikes the right balance between building on its parent series, and forging its own storytelling path. The team behind Netflix’s The Lincoln Lawyer should take note, especially if the show’s prospective spinoff goes ahead.
The Lincoln Lawyer’s Cobie Smulders Spinoff Could Be The Next Ballard
Image via NetflixIt could well be that the legal drama which topped Netflix’s viewing charts in 2024 is already emulating Bosch and Ballard as we speak. According to reports, there is likely a spinoff of The Lincoln Lawyer starring Cobie Smulders on the way. Smulders first appeared in the closing moments of the show’s fourth season.
Her brief cameo revealed that she’s playing Mickey Haller’s sister, Emi Finch. We should expect Finch to play a prominent role in the fifth and final season of the series. She appears to have a background in crime investigation of some kind, though her profession hasn’t yet been divulged.
It’s important to note that Emi isn’t a character from Michael Connelly’s books, even if Mickey Haller is said to have two half-sisters, who remain nameless. Instead, she’s been created by the writers of the TV adaptation, in lieu of Harry Bosch playing a recurring role in the series.
In a sense, this gives The Lincoln Lawyer even more freedom than Bosch when expanding its franchise. In any case, it’s certainly following Ballard’s lead in soft-launching a spinoff fronted by a strong female lead with a penchant for investigating crimes.
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Ballard
Release Date July 9, 2025
Network Prime Video
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Maggie Q
Detective Renée Ballard
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Courtney Taylor
Samira Parker
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The Lincoln Lawyer
8/10
Release Date 2022 - 2027-00-00
Network Netflix
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Manuel Garcia-Rulfo
Mickey Haller
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