Mickey, as you recall, was played by Matthew McConaughey in the 2011 movie. It's a tough act to follow, and while I assume Garcia-Rulfo is a perfectly adequate actor , he's the least compelling character here. Campbell's Maggie is driven and vulnerable, Newton is feisty and capable, and Sampson is appropriately menacing.
And that's without mentioning Jazz Raycole as Izzy, Mickey's new driver who shares some of her new boss' issues and probably gets the most backstory and best arc of the series. Or Elliott Gould, playing Mickey's dad's old law partner, dropping in all too briefly to offer some advice. does build some steam as it goes, but the flow of the story too closely resembles the weekly procedural format that was pitched to CBS.
The good news is — according to experts on such matters — the legal aspects of the show are pretty spot-on. The logistics of the sequences are accurate, and some of the best parts come from Mickey sharing trial wisdom with Izzy. Having said that, Mickey himself is as much a lucky sumbitch as he is a"good" lawyer, stumbling over clues or having his teenage daughter nonchalantly point out a key aspect to the Elliott case he totally whiffed on.
There's also the issue of his appearance. Perhaps the show is trying to convey Mickey's rough road to recovery by keeping him unshaven, in rumpled clothes, and with hair that looks like it was combed with a fork, but knowing several criminal defense lawyers, it's hard to believe any attorney in his position would try to rock the"hungover businessman" look throughout a high-profile murder trial.
Stranger things have happened, but based on a by-the-numbers first season and Netflix's own financial woes, it's hard to imaginegetting another shot. Had it aired on network TV as initially planned, it might be a different story, but the wealth of viewing alternatives on its own streaming service — to say nothing of all the others — doesn't bode well for its future.
Don't have Netflix, Hulu or other services like that.