With over 260 million hours viewed in its first four weeks on the platform, The Lincoln Lawyer was always going to secure a second season renewal from Netflix, especially when street-level crime thrillers always fare substantially better than their fantastical counterparts in that arena.
However, did the reboot of the Matthew McConaughey original that was adapted from Michael Connelly’s literary series really need to be the latest of the streaming service’s in-house originals to have its latest run of episodes split in two and released weeks apart? Based on the latest bout of online eye-rolling emerging from subscribers everywhere, the answer is most definitely not.
It’s a transparently artificial way to bump up any show’s viewing figures that’s been regarded by the general public as the bastard child born out of wedlock from the standard weekly model and the on-demand era’s preference for binge-watching, and all it does it let everybody know from the first scene of the opening episode that there isn’t going to be a resolution by the time the first half has been devoured.
That being said, you can’t argue with the results, which means it’s a formula Netflix won’t be abandoning anytime soon. Per FlixPatrol, The Lincoln Lawyer has returned with a vengeance to litigate a Top 10 spot in 83 countries around the world, even though it hasn’t managed to dislodge The Witcher from the overall number one slot, an ironic fate considering Henry Cavill’s penultimate stint as Geralt of Rivia is also landing in two volumes.