NOTE: this post contains spoilers for The Lincoln Lawyer season 2 part 1
If you’ve managed to watch the first five episodes of the new season of The Lincoln Lawyer, then you know the burning question is did Lisa (Lana Parrilla) kill Bondurant? When viewers first meet Lisa in the season, they come to know her as a restaurateur with a deep passion for preserving the status quo of her community and combatting gentrification. For her, the person taking aim at her neighborhood was scrupulous developer Mitchell Bondurant, hence her motivation to fuel the protests against him.
It was long into season 2 before Bondurant wound up dead and Lisa found herself being the sole suspect in his murder, needing Mickey (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo) to come to her rescue. But is Mickey fighting a losing battle with her case? Is Lisa actually guilty? Well, before we get answers to those questions with part 2 of the season, we decided to take a look at the evidence and offer our theories.
What evidence is there in the Bondurant case?
By the end of The Lincoln Lawyer season 2 episode 5, viewers learned a few crucial facts. First, prosecutor Andrea Freeman’s (Yaya DaCosta) star witness placing Lisa near the scene of the crime around the time of the murder was completely discredited in the preliminary hearing. Margo Schafer (Joanne Baron) didn’t make it through Mickey’s line of questioning before she doubted whether or not she saw Lisa at all that day around Bondurant’s offices.
However, Lisa later admitted to Mickey outside of court that despite him dismantling Margo as a credible witness, Lisa actually was in the vicinity of the crime scene on the day of the murder. Allegedly, the restaurateur was visiting a nearby food market and a parking space near Bondurant’s office was just too convenient to pass up.
The bombshell evidence in the prosecution’s case are, of course, the gardening gloves detectives found in Lisa’s shed that had a spec of Bondurant’s blood on them. So far, Lisa has been unable to provide an explanation for that.
Now what Lisa has working in her favor in terms of proving her innocence are the following: a murder weapon has not yet been recovered, Bondurant was hit on the top of his head and he’s significantly taller than Lisa, no one saw her actually murder the developer and Bondurant had a contentious business relationship with the Kazarian family, who happen to be tied to the Armenian mafia.
Other things to consider with the Bondurant murder case
Let’s revisit the Kazarian family, Bondurant and the Terrazo building. Bondurant was in a business deal with Alex Grant, aka Alex Kazarian, to develop the Terrazo building. However, in terms of ownership, Alex’s sister Ada is named as the building owner on paperwork. Furthermore, the sibling’s father Sasha is in prison as the head of an Armenian mafia organization.
Add to all this the fact that Bondurant was apparently blackmailing Alex and threatening to report the Kazarian family, and it sounds like there are other viable suspects in the homicide case.
We also have to think back to Cisco’s (Angus Sampson) revelation in The Lincoln Lawyer season 2 episode 2 that the Tijuana Cartel is actively moving into Los Angeles. Plus, Lisa’s ex-husband, who refuses to testify on her behalf, is currently living in Mexico. It’s unlikely that writers would mention any of this information if it isn’t going to come into play in a big way.
Who killed Bondurant?
We have two running theories here so bear with us. Our first guess is that the Kazarian family is actually responsible for the murder. They had the motive to want to see Bondurant dead. Given Lisa was a high-profile enemy of Bondurant, the Kazarian family just set her up to take the fall.
If this idea seems a little too on the nose, our second theory is that Lisa killed Bondurant as a member of the Tijuana Cartel. There’s a chance that she really does have pride in her neighborhood and is against gentrification, but what if Bondurant was really just standing in the way of the cartel expanding in Los Angeles?
If this theory rings true, it’s possible that there was a plan to kill Bondurant but set up the Kazarians for the crime to help kill two birds with one stone; however, something in the execution of the plan went wrong. Had things gone off without incident, the cartel could have gotten rid of a problem developer and also help eliminate a rival criminal organization.
Additionally, could the reason Lisa’s ex-husband has been so resistant to getting involved with her and her trial be because he knows how dangerous she really is as a member of the cartel? We don’t know the answer to this or if either one of our theories is correct, but we certainly plan to tune into the second half of the season to find out.
The Lincoln Lawer season 2 part 2 premieres on Netflix on August 3.
