The Lincoln Lawyer season 4 ending explained: Who killed Sam and does Mickey go to prison?
If you’ve watched all 10 episodes of season 4, we break down everything that happened and clear up any unanswered questions
The Lincoln Lawyer shows no signs of slowing down, with season 4 being just as fantastic as the previous three, if not even more addictive.
Carrying on seamlessly from where it left off in season 3 where a body was found in the trunk of Mickey’s car, the latest season sees everyone’s favourite charismatic lawyer spend most of him time proving he didn’t kill the person, who turned out to be former client Sam Scales.
The Lincoln Lawyer season 4 ending explained
At the end of season 4, Mickeys ex-wife Maggie switches from her usual role as a criminal prosecutor to join his defence team in a bid to help him win his freedom.
They face up against the formidable Dana Berg, known as “Death Row Dana,” who is determined to find Mickey guilty of Sam’s murder.
Whiley Mickey’s team work tirelessly to find out what actually happened to Sam Scales, they uncover his involvement in multiple illegal schemes.
The team discover that Sam, using the alias Kirk Lennon, had recently procured a commercial driver’s license and established an LLC called AirKing Trucking.
The LLC has only one client named BioGreen, which professes to convert bio waste into biofuel. Known for his prolific involvement in scams, Sam’s final con had involved scamming the government out of biofuel subsidies.
But he wasn’t working alone. Back in season 2, Mickey defended Lisa Trammell, a woman accused of murdering rich developer, Mitchell Bondurant.
Mickey won her case by suggesting Lisa had been framed by construction company owner Alex Grant, who also goes by the name Alex Gazarian.
Alex was being investigated by the FBI for potential ties to the Armenian mob, but pled the fifth when asked to testify. This made him look really guilty and he lost out on a big construction deal because of it.
Believing Alex Gazarian could provide evidence about who has framed Mickey for Sam’s murder, Mickey gets Cisco on the case to track him down.
Unsurprisingly, because of Mickey’s involvement in him losing out on a major deal previously, Alex doesn’t look favourably on Mickey.
When Cisco is attacked by the Armenians during season 4, suspicion falls on Alex being behind the attack as retribution for the outcomes of the season 2 case.
Cisco’s attempts to get Alex to testify go south, when Alex is killed by the same men who attacked him.
Next in line to help solve what happened to Sam is Alex’s girlfriend, Jeanine. After all the attacks and murders, she’s too frightened to appear in court and refuses to testify.
When we previously said that Sam wasn’t working alone in his biofuel scam, the team later works out that Alex was actually running the BioGreen con with Sam, and that the company is owned by Jeanine.
Mickey believes that Alex was out for revenge against both himself and Sam, as he feels sure Sam had been acting as an FBI informant to land Alex in trouble for the BioGreen scam, while still holding a grudge about the events of season 2 – he’s sure Alex killed Sam, framing himself for it.
Who killed Sam in The Lincoln Lawyer?
With people who could help answer this question dead or hiding, it’s proving a tough question to answer. However, Mickey’s hunch was correct, and it was indeed Alex who had Sam killed.
Mickey had his suspicions about Sam’s involvement with the FBI confirmed by Agent Dawn Ruth, who had previously tried to intimidate Mickey at his home.
While revealing this big truth, she stood strong on the fact the circumstances behind Sam’s death would never be confirmed by the authorities in court, as it would compromise their investigation into the biofuel scam.
Agent Ruth explains the scale of the scam to Mickey, telling him some of the biggest organised crime groups in the country were making millions from it and they needed to be brought down.
Essentially, the FBI would rather throw Mickey under the bus and let him do jail time for a crime he didn’t commit, than jeopardise their investigation.
However, although he knows it was Alex that killed Sam, Mickey was wrong about the motive. Jeanine tells Cisco that Alex actually had no idea Sam had been an FBI informant.
What actually happened was that Alex had found out Sam had been stealing money from their biofuel operation and he was furious about it.
Proving Alex’s involvement in Sam’s death and clearing Mickey’s name, is a different matter entirely.
Does Mickey go to prison?
The odds are stacked against him and things aren’t looking good for Mickey, but he does manage to get the charges against him dropped.
We already know that Jeanine refuses to testify, but Mickey and his team come up with a plan to trick the FBI into thinking that she will appear in court and ruin their investigation.
In exchange for her silence, the FBI offer Jeanine protection and agree to drop the charges against Mickey in their desperation not to have their biofuel inquiry derailed.
Mickey asks for some extra conditions before he agrees to their offer. In the first instance, he wants a public statement from the DA’s office to be delivered by Dana, clearing his name of any crime.
Secondly, he wants Roy Collins, the officer who pulled him over and found Sam’s body in his trunk, to be investigated.
All appears well in Mickey’s world, and it finally seems like he can finally get a little peace. Except, a trip to the grocery store immediately places him in more peril.
After being thrown glances by a strange woman, she follows him to his car and shouts at him to “get down!”
Gunshots are heard and Agent Ruth arrives on the scene to tell Mickey he’s been under surveillance because they believe somebody could still be after him.
Mickey was moments away from being shot by the Armenians before the mystery woman had saved his life.
He asks the woman who she is, and her shocking response sets up season 5 perfectly: “I’m your sister.”
All four seasons of The Lincoln Lawyer are currently available to stream on Netflix with a subscription.
