Netflix Is Just Arbitrarily Dropping Midseason Finales Now

In May, I wrote that Suits might just be the best background noise in all of television. Background noise is important for those of us who are multitaskers, who like to do the laundry, or cook, or do minor home reconstruction while watching a television series that is lightly entertaining but not too demanding. Harlan Coben shows are good for this. The various mediocre spy series are perfect for this: FUBAR, The Night Guard, The Recruit. Honestly, 65 percent of Netflix’s originals are basically expensive background noise.

Lincoln Lawyer also perfectly fits the bill. It’s not dumb, but it doesn’t require our full attention, and when you do glance up from the bolognese you’re cooking, the cast is easy on the eyes. It is the most basic cable cast in all of streaming: Manuel Garcia-Rulfo from another of David Kelley’s streaming legal dramas, Goliath; Becki Newton from Ugly Betty; Jazz Raycole from Jericho; Angus Sampson from the Insidious movies; and Neve Campbell. It makes me feel like I’m watching TNT in 2003.

The second season, so far, is as easy to digest and forgettable as the first, which is not a strike against it. Mickey Haller, the Lincoln Lawyer himself — who is wealthy enough to work in an office instead of out of his car now, although he still (stupidly) keeps his files in the trunk — starts dating Lisa Trammell (Lana Parrilla), the chef of a fancy restaurant, and you’ll never believe it, but she is implicated in a murder. And Mickey takes the case, despite the fact that he slept with his client. But it’s OK because they ended it and decided not to sleep together again until the trial is over! And of course, Mickey’s judgment couldn’t possibly be compromised by a woman he believes is innocent despite the evidence against her.

In fact, he’s so caught up in the relationship he has with the woman he’s not sleeping with that he pisses off his first ex-wife, Maggie (Campbell) — whose role in the prosecutor’s office has been reduced because she got screwed over by Mickey last season — and his second ex-wife, Lorna (Newton), who serves as his overworked administrative assistant. Oh, and his driver is a former client because Mickey has no professional boundaries.

The lack of boundaries is part of his charm, much like his refusal to digitize all of his clients’ files onto a computer because he believes the cloud is apparently less secure than his trunk. His charm is also part of his charm, too, because Manuel Garcia-Rulfo is rather charming himself. It’s all rather breezy and harmless.

But also, what the hell? Netflix has been doing this thing lately where they’re breaking seasons up into two parts, as they did with Manifest, Ozark, and Stranger Things. I suspect that they realized the binge model was no longer the best way to keep a television title in the ether, but Reed Hastings probably has too much pride to admit that the model doesn’t work. So, they break a show up into two parts and air them about a month apart. Fine. Whatever.

But I don’t think that The Lincoln Lawyer was shot and filmed with this in mind because the first part ends somewhat arbitrarily after the fifth episode for no other reason than that it’s the middle-point in the season. In other words, Netflix decided to end it after episode five not because it’s a natural stopping point, but because it’s halfway through. The season opens with Mickey being punched in a parking lot before it flashes back to the events that led to the parking lot. The end of the fifth episode ends in that parking lot where Mickey is being punched. By who? We don’t know. Why? That’s not completely clear, either.

But it also doesn’t feel like a midseason finale or a proper half-season cliffhanger. It comes in the middle of his not-girlfriend’s murder trial. If I had to guess, Netflix asked the showrunner after the fact to shoot a 30-second intro scene to add at the beginning of the season so that it would feel like the half-season was being framed by this incident in the parking garage. Otherwise, if the viewer were actually very interested in the who and why of Mickey being beaten up in the parking garage in the opening scene, they’d feel frustrated that the half-season ends almost exactly where the season begins: With Mickey taking a punch from unexplained individuals.

Am I profoundly bothered by this? Not really. Is it irksome? A little. Mostly, though, it’s an excuse to ask Netflix to stop with the charade. If the streamer wants to sustain the life of one of its series, no one will begrudge them if they decide to release episodes once a week (or even twice a week). In fact, what was once novel is mostly annoying for those of us who keep up with multiple series. It’s frustrating to almost catch up on episodes for the six or seven shows I’m watching only to have Netflix drop 8 episodes of another series in my lap at once. And let me tell you, Ted Sarandos: If I have to cut one show for time, it’s not going to be the B+ series that I’m an episode behind on. It’s going to be the mediocre Netflix series that I wake up on a Friday morning eight episodes in debt to.

On the other hand, there’s always more room for entertaining mediocrity, no matter how it is released. The back half of Lincoln Lawyer season two will arrive on August 3rd.