Another Netflix hit series returns with a 100% critics’ score

Netflix is on a tear as 2024 draws to a close, with another of its biggest series having just returned for a new season and debuted with a perfect 100% critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes.

That would be The Lincoln Lawyer, the streamer’s adaptation of Michael Connelly’s book series about a resourceful lawyer who runs his L.A. practice from the back seat of a Lincoln. The highly anticipated third season of the show, starring Manuel Garcia-Rulfo as the charismatic protagonist Mickey Haller, not only racked up a perfect Rotten Tomatoes score almost immediately; it’s also the #1 Netflix show in the US at the moment (and, even better, there’s no splitting the season into two parts this time around, so you can binge in one go all of Mickey’s new antics inside and outside the courtroom).

That showing, by the way, follows the return of another major Netflix series just a few days prior, Outer Banks, the new season of which was likewise much-anticipated and debuted to a 100% critics’ score.

Season 3 of The Lincoln Lawyer, meanwhile, is based on the fifth book in Connelly’s Lincoln Lawyer series, titled The Gods of Guilt. The plot is built around a text that Mickey gets, which reads: “Call me ASAP — 187.” That number is a reference to the California penal code covering murder, and it turns out that the victim is a former client of Mickey’s — a sex worker he thought he’d rescued and set on a better path.

Each new season of The Lincoln Lawyer has quickly racked up tens of millions of viewers upon its release, one of several reasons why it seems pretty certain that a blockbuster fourth quarter is in store for Netflix.

The end-of-year period, for example, will also feature the long-awaited return of Squid Game as well as star-studded new dramas like Black Doves — plus two major live events, the rescheduled Mike Tyson-Jake Paul boxing match on Nov. 15, as well as two Christmas Day NFL games. They’ll be between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Pittsburgh Steelers, and the Baltimore Ravens versus the Houston Texans.