This ‘Lincoln Lawyer’ Replacement Is the Perfect Weekend Binge Ahead of Season 2
Taylor Vollman is a contributor at Collider. She has long quipped, “T.V. is my name, TV is my game.” Fortuitous initials aside, at the heart of a tired joke is a simple truth — she has a lifelong passion for television. And along with it, an affinity for movies, music and pop culture.
In a childhood time capsule, she had listed Friends, PB&J Otter, and Days of Our Lives among her favorite shows. But her tastes have not narrowed with age. Her viewing habits span TV Land classics, network hits, buzzy reality shows and streamer critical darlings.
Hoping to merge this passion with her love of writing, Taylor earned a bachelor’s in media arts and design with a minor in film studies from James Madison University. After working in marketing for years, she wanted to sharpen her skills and went on to graduate with a master’s in journalism from Georgetown University. Taylor has since pursued entertainment writing and reporting.
From the backseat of his Lincoln, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo has won over viewers as the titular character in Netflix’s The Lincoln Lawyer. The series was based on the novels by Michael Connelly and previously adapted into the film of the same name, starring Matthew McConaughey. The streaming service recently announced its upcoming fifth season will be its last, though a Cobie Smulders-led spin-off is in the works.
As fans bide their time until The Lincoln Lawyer returns, USA Network has the perfect legal drama substitute. One of the network’s two scripted series, The Rainmaker is similarly a book-to-screen adaptation. Based on John Grisham’s 1995 novel of the same name, The Rainmaker was previously adapted into the Francis Ford Coppola-directed film starring a young Matt Damon. The crime series would be easy to binge-watch, with only 10 episodes in its first season, before Season 2 premieres on October 16.
What Is ‘The Rainmaker’ About?
The Rainmaker follows Rudy Baylor (Milo Callaghan), an idealistic young lawyer representing a grieving mother trying to find justice. Milo easily fits the young Damon archetype. With his wealthy girlfriend Sarah Plankmore (Madison Iseman), he gets hired by the prestigious law firm Tinley Britt right out of law school. But he gets fired on his first day after butting heads with the firm’s managing partner, Leo F. Drummond (John Slattery). Without other options, he joins Jocelyn “Bruiser” Stone (Lana Parrilla) and her “para-lawyer” Deck Shifflet (P.J. Byrne) at the ambulance chasing firm J. Lyman Stone and Associates. Deck does more than the average paralegal, having gone to law school but continually failing the bar exam. The trio represent Dot Black (Karen Bryson), who believes her son’s death was a cover-up by Great Benefit Hospital Systems. The case causes them to cross paths with a serial killer and pits J. Lyman Stone and Associates against Tinley Britt, including Sarah.
Callaghan teased the “insane” new season while speaking with TVInsider. “Everything we loved about making the first season, but bigger and better,” he explained. “We’re going to learn a lot more about these people and their lives before Rudy came to J Lyman Stone. We’re going to meet a few new faces, reconnect with a few old ones. Wherever we smell injustice, there’s room for a fight.”
In the new season, J. Lyman Stone and Associates will represent a 12-year-old juvenile delinquent whose case could unearth a bigger injustice and Bruiser’s baseball coach ex-husband whose life is in danger. They will also spar with a new high-powered, and potentially murderous lawyer played by Merle Dandridge. Richard Kind and Austin Nichols also join the cast. The Rainmaker debuted in 2025, developed for the small screen by Jason Richman and Michael Seitzman.
‘The Rainmaker’ Is the Natural Follow-Up to ‘The Lincoln Lawyer’
The Rainmaker is the natural follow-up to The Lincoln Lawyer. The shows share a similar tone — following stories of redemption, featuring rag-tag teams using unorthodox methods, and putting their leading men in dangerous situations. Plus, these book-to-screen adaptions followed parallel paths, first hitting theaters before being television shows.
On paper, Rudy and The Lincoln Lawyer’s leading man, Mickey Haller (Garcia-Rulfo) don’t share many similarities. One lives in Charleston, South Carolina while the other is driving around sunny California. Rudy is a first-year lawyer who has just moved out of his mother’s house and is still haunted by the death of his older brother. Mickey is a twice-divorced dad and recovering addict. But they share many of the same principles — a deep tie to their family and a dedication to representing the disenfranchised. As Bruiser explained to Rudy, “The ones on the Statue of Liberty — the tired, poor, the huddled masses. Those same people are our clients now. And if you think you’re better than them, you’re not. You are them.”
The Lincoln Lawyer fans will also recognize a familiar face. Parrilla stars as the no-nonsense Bruiser on The Rainmaker, Rudy’s boss with a tough exterior that belies her empathetic heart. She previously played Lisa Trammell in Season 2 of The Lincoln Lawyer, Mickey’s client-turned-love interest. Both characters must contend with the men of their lives, whether fathers or husbands.
From Suits to Law and Order, there is no shortage of legal dramas. But for fans of The Lincoln Lawyer trying to capture that same feeling, The Rainmaker is the obvious choice. While one show is nearing its end, the other is just beginning. Its leading men might be at different stages of their lives, but they share similar convictions. Plus, there’s still time to catch up before The Rainmaker returns for its second season. It can be streamed on Peacock and the USA Network app.
KioskNews shows a cleaned-up reading view extracted from the publisher’s page — the original always lives on their site, not ours.