The Lincoln Lawyer’s Spinoff Needs To Borrow 1 Thing From Bosch Playbook

Published Sep 6, 2026, 8:30 AM EDT

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I trust Dailyn Rodriguez and Ted Humphrey as showrunners, and Matthew J. Lieberman has been an executive producer since the start. Those three are a powerful team to take charge of the spinoff. Cobie Smulders is a great actor, and she’s already taken on a lead role in the crime show Stumptown, which I think is the perfect show to watch in anticipation of The Lincoln Lawyer season 5.

Plus, there’s so much to learn about Mickey Haller’s half-sister, especially since she cannot just be a femme version of Harry Bosch. A gender-swapped version of the character could be potentially legally dubious since Prime Video owns the rights to Bosch. She could very easily be a private investigator or an FBI agent, a career somewhat similar to Mickey Haller’s half-sibling without being a carbon copy. However, there’s a whole backstory and personal life to explore. That being said, I think The Lincoln Lawyer’s spinoff will need to follow the lead of the Bosch franchise when it comes to integrating the previous main character.

The Lincoln Lawyer’s Rumored Emi Spinoff Needs To Keep Mickey Haller Around

The Bosch franchise might have moved forward with a new main character, but it maintains its connection to the original. The final episode of Bosch: Legacy was a backdoor pilot for Ballard, which was mildly annoying but a way to create a connection between the original and the spinoff. I recommend that The Lincoln Lawyer not repeat the backdoor-pilot finale approach. Bosch fans deserved more closure than that, and so do The Lincoln Lawyer fans. However, they could definitely do an episode that ties the original and spinoff together.

Ballard season 1 featured three episodes with Harry Bosch, in which he helps her with an investigation. Now, Titus Welliver has confirmed that he appears in three more episodes of Ballard season 2. If The Lincoln Lawyer spinoff wants to succeed, it needs to keep Mickey Haller around, like Ballard kept Harry Bosch. This feels even more important in The Lincoln Lawyer than it did in Bosch for a few significant reasons.

​​​​​Firstly, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo is absolutely beloved, and he’s part of the reason why they watch the Netflix show in the first place. His version of Mickey Haller feels like a warm embrace, and it would be a shame to lose that. Additionally, Renee Ballard existed in the books, while Emi Finch is an entirely new character created out of necessity for the TV show. There will be more hesitation about watching the spinoff in this franchise since folks don’t know her.

Manuel Garcia-Rulfo’s Mickey Should Be More Involved Because Of The Familial Connection

While Harry Bosch’s presence in Ballard is a treat, it feels much more optional than it does mandatory. Harry Bosch and Renee Ballard are simply colleagues who worked together on a case. They have a semi-friendly dynamic, but they aren’t particularly close. They aren’t actually beholden to each other in any way, so it makes sense that he would only be around for a few episodes each season. They could easily phase Harry out of the story, and it wouldn’t actually hurt the plot. The effect would be external—fan disappointment at losing Titus Welliver—rather than internal.

This isn’t the case with Mickey Haller and The Lincoln Lawyer spinoff. The Lincoln Lawyer season 4’s ending introduces Emi, Mickey’s half-sister. They have a familial connection, and it’s clear that she’s interested in being in Mickey’s life. Otherwise, I don’t see a reason that she would be following Mickey around the grocery store.

Unless The Lincoln Lawyer season 5 decides to create some major rift between them, it would feel out of place for them to introduce Emi and Mickey only to separate them again. Manuel Garcia-Rulfo doesn’t have to be in every episode, by any means, but he should be around more often in The Lincoln Lawyer's spinoff than Titus Welliver is in Ballard.