The Fifth Witness

Episode 9 of The Lincoln Lawyer season 2 picks up where we left off, with Mickey calling Lisa to the stand. In a flashback, we see him explaining the plan to Lisa and asking her to trust him.  Lisa does well and paints herself as a hardworking businesswoman fighting a billionaire bullying her. 

She also explains why she and Jeff separated. She claims she and Jeff fought over her dreams about the restaurant. Mickey also brings up Henry’s podcast and Lisa explains she was ordered to sound animated to make the listeners more invested. She clarifies she never stalked Bondurant, he had a habit of revealing his lifestyle on social media for everyone to see. This is how she knew where Bondurant packed his car. 

Lastly, she talks about Bondurant’s antics to get her to sell the property. By the end of her testimony, it seems like the jurors were sold on her Goliath vs David story. Mickey congratulates her and informs her they will use the weekend to prep her for Andy’s cross-examination. Mickey and Lorna, later discuss the cross-examination and come up with questions. Lorna informs him that she will use the case for her presentation and Mickey suggests she asks Siegal to vet her presentation.

Mickey heads home and finds his mom preparing for an audition. She is hoping to get a role in an upcoming series. His mom asks if Izzy can drive her to the audition. Mickey is reluctant to agree but in the end, he can’t say no to her. 

The case hearing resumes on Monday and Andy starts with her cross-examination of Lisa. It is a smooth ride until Jeff is brought up. Andy discovered that Jeff and Lisa are legally still married. Andy tries to paint Lisa as an abusive woman with a temper whose husband fled to safety never looking back. She questions if he was so scared to come back and file for a divorce. Lisa loses her cool and snaps at Andy. Lisa calls Jeff a piece of shit who was lucky to have her. Everyone is shocked by her outburst and Andy is pleased with herself.

The second witness to take the stand is one of Lisa’s workers, René. He testifies to her character calling her a good, reliable boss. However, Andy discredits him when she brings up his social media posts from four years ago. It turns out that René and Lisa fought a few times over her temper and he took to social media to announce he is quitting. Andy continues to paint Lisa as a woman who can’t control her temper and is capable of murder. 

Mickey is disappointed that they missed those social media posts. He then gets a call from Izzy informing him that his mom is driving her crazy with all her requests. Izzy lets him know she won’t be able to pick him up from court.

Meanwhile, Cisco works on getting a specialist to testify that Lisa couldn’t have killed Bondurant due to their height difference. Dr Arslanian is barely able to make it to court on time but, with Cisco’s help, she is able to testify. She brings a mannequin of Bondurant’s height. She proceeds to demonstrate how Lisa couldn’t have given Bondurant the deadly head wound.

However, Andy argues that Bondurant might have been looking at the ceiling at the time of the murder and uses the same mannequin to prove Lisa could have done it. This makes Mickey’s efforts to get the specialist futile.

They call it a day and head home. Mickey finds his mom crying because her agent dropped her. He comforts her and she starts to think that being dumped by her agent is a sign to spend more time with family. Mickey tries to encourage her to continue fighting for her dreams and even agrees to let her come see him in court. 

The following morning, Lorna makes her presentation to Siegal and explains how the case has been going. She starts with Mickey’s approach when Grant took the stand. Mickey starts by building Grant’s ego and making him believe he has nothing to worry about. He then switches tactics and links Grant to PanMedia.

Soon, they get to Bondurant and his threatening email. According to Grant, he did nothing wrong and Bondurant was reaching. Cisco is able to prove otherwise when he finds indirect evidence that Grant was bribing relevant officials to get approvals.  

Mickey brings up the target letter and links it to the Bondurant threatening email. He alludes to Bondurant being the reason the FBI started looking into Grant. However, Grant insists he has nothing to hide and the FBI has no evidence otherwise.

Things start getting interesting when Mickey brings up Grant’s real name and his dad. Grant maintains he has nothing to do with his dad’s mafia business but Mickey brings forth evidence. Andy tries to object but the judge agrees to let Mickey continue his line of questioning.

Mickey shows the court records of Grant visiting his dad in prison and immediately visiting his uncle’s restaurant. Grant’s uncle is suspected of still being in the mafia business and Mickey alludes to Grant being the intermediary between his uncle and dad. Grant’s lawyer asks for a short recess but the judge refuses. 

In the end, Mickey corners Grant with more evidence and gets him to admit his uncle runs a courier business known as Eagle Couriers. Mickey pushes Grant into a corner and he pleads the fifth. The media and the court are shocked by his move and the Judge calls for order and summons counsel to her chambers.

She warns Mickey that he is playing with fire but Mickey argues he never knew Grant will plead the fifth. The truth is Mickey knew exactly what he was doing but there is no evidence to prove so. The judge strikes Grant’s testimony but the damage is done. Andy has no proof that Mickey planned this to happen and Mickey won’t face any disciplinary action.  However, as Siegal points out Mickey still needs to connect Grant to the murder.

This is where Cisco comes in and testifies about what he found out while investigating the case. Cisco admits to following Grant and reveals that on the day of the murder, an Eagle Courier van was packed across the street. The van was there during the estimated time of Bondurant’s murder. This is a damning piece of evidence and gives doubt to the prosecutor’s claims that Lisa killed Bondurant. 

During recess, Vasquez shares his frustration with Mickey about Grant pleading the fifth. The FBI were unable to get the information they wanted and Mickey is officially on their bad side. After recess, Andy passes on cross-examining Cisco. The defense rests its case and there are no rebuttal witnesses. Andy asks to be allowed to give her closing statement, Mickey tries to object but Andy asks for only ten minutes. 

She asks the juror not to be fooled by Mickey’s tricks and likens him to a magician. She points out that Lisa’s fingerprints were on the murder weapon and Bondurant’s blood was found on her gloves. She argues Lisa had the means, opportunity and motive to kill Bondurant, unlike Grant. 

After Andy’s closing argument, they break for the next day and Lisa starts to freak out. Mickey tries to calm her down and she promises to send him some food later that night. 

Lorna, Cisco and Mickey pull an all-nighter and René delivers food to them. He sees a picture of Mr Kim and asks how he is involved in the case. He reveals that Mr Kim came by the restaurant on the day before Lisa’s arrest and claimed to be with the health department. He insisted on inspecting the restaurant. He even had access to the garage because the restaurant’s gas line runs through it. He showed up at lunch rush  hour when he knew they were too busy to walk around with him as he ‘inspects’

Mickey realizes the killer is Mr Kim who found out about Bondurant’s email. He was scared that the FBI will learn he was taking bribes from Grant. Only one question remains, did Grant order Mr Kim to kill Bondurant? Cisco leaves to look into it but finds out that Mr Kim is MIA. His wife reported him missing two days ago and no one has seen him since. 

Mickey worries that without Mr Kim, the judge won’t reopen the case. Remember, they rested their case and they need substantial evidence to get the judge to reopen it.

The Episode Review

We certainly didn’t see this twist coming!  Will they be able to find Mr Kim within the next few hours and present him to the court? At this point, it is safe to assume that Grant started cleaning up after he plead the fifth. Mr Kim is most likely dead and we know dead men tell no tales. Mickey, better have a plan!

Let us dive into the finale and see what bombshells await us!