TV Reviews: The Lincoln Lawyer Season 4; Under Salt Marsh
The Lincoln Lawyer has always been the legal equivalent of a beach read, but three episodes into Season 4, it’s practically translucent. It is about as light as drama gets without becoming a sitcom, or just too bland to watch. And that’s despite a story that kicks off immediately after the end of Season 3, with our LA lawyer Mickey Haller (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo) himself at the wrong end of a legal conspiracy. In fact we open with him trying to remain calm and hopeful in prison, having been arrested when a body was found in his boot; as he tries to piece it all together, of course, he’s also worried about his family and his business (a lawyer in prison does nothing for trade).
That’s all fine in theory, and could still work as an engaging if insignificant kind of drama. And it does have some of the old qualities: Garcia-Rulfo is charismatic in the lead role (and Neve Campbell too as his ex-wife Maggie), while Becki Newton does her level best to prevent her character Lorna from becoming the ditzy dayglo number two she would have been with a lesser performer. On the other hand, Angus Sampson is still distractingly bad as Cisco: picture Dr Hook muttering unintelligibly in his sleep.
But, three episodes in, this latest instalment is too much the easy, unthreatening, network-friendly watch. There’s a feeling that the makers are convinced that we’ll just keep watching anyway – so much so that episode three, which adds nothing but a pointless exercise in fake tension, could and should have been dropped altogether. But I suppose that wouldn’t fit the template, which must be filled regardless of content. It’s all right, but no more, and it needs to make a better case for its own existence.
Under Salt Marsh is on the opposite side of whatever coin The Lincoln Lawyer is on: far from LA, it’s a chilly, rainy, murky drama set in a small Welsh coastal town (the kind with dark secrets). Kelly Reilly stars as Jackie Ellis, a former detective turned schoolteacher, who discovers the body of one of her pupils; and Rafe Spall plays Detective Eric Bull, Jackie’s former partner, who returns to investigate the case. And as we slowly learn, there are still some raw emotions, some bitterness among the locals, from a previous case Bull was involved in in the area.
This is one of those slow-burn series, heavily draped in salt spray and secrets, gradually unpeeling as a once-in-a-lifetime storm approaches from the Atlantic. It is a wonderfully moody thing, with a real sense of an old, semi-wild location. Interestingly, neither of the main characters are terribly likeable, but they’re both interesting: Jackie prone to meddling and making bad decisions, Bull somewhat arrogant and emotionally stunted, both the case and their own relationship causing some tensions.
There are some stretches where nothing much is happening, and a few moments where the plot feels a little bogged down. But it’s an intentional slowness that lets you, not quite love the characters, but at least understand them a little – even to root for them, whatever damp, grey horrors they have yet to face.
