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In an unexpected twist of television fate, Cobie Smulders has managed to make a splash by guest-starring on not one, but two different shows in the same week of February 2026. While it may seem like a rare occurrence, it’s certainly a memorable one for fans of the talented actress.
Just a day after reprising her role as Sofi on Apple TV’s Shrinking, where she plays the romantic interest of Jason Segel’s character, Jimmy, Smulders made a surprise appearance on The Lincoln Lawyer. Her role in this Netflix sensation had been shrouded in secrecy, generating much anticipation among viewers.
Warning: Spoilers for The Lincoln Lawyer Season 4 below.
Back in June 2025, Variety had announced Smulders’ addition to the cast of the widely acclaimed legal drama, but details about her character were kept tightly under wraps. Now, with her debut, the veil has been lifted.
Fans are eager to know more about her character on The Lincoln Lawyer. Questions abound: who exactly does Cobie Smulders portray? Will she be returning for Season 5? And how does her character, Allison, connect to Manuel Garcia-Rulfo’s Mickey Haller and the original Lincoln Lawyer novels by Michael Connelly? Stay tuned as we delve into these intriguing revelations.
Who Is Cobie Smulders On The Lincoln Lawyer? Everything To Know About Mickey’s Sister, Allison
After Mickey fights for his life and successfully restores his reputation in Season 4, the finale finds him restoring his peace. With minutes to spare in the finale, they lawyer heads to the grocery store to get what he needs to make dinner and makes eyes with a beautiful woman in the produce section. With his life settling down again and Maggie (Neve Campbell) back home in San Diego, it seems, for a few seconds, like a new romance could be blossoming for Mickey. (Grocery store meet cutes are very rom-com worthy!) Sadly, while the connection between Mickey and the mystery woman is instantaneous, Mickey heads to his car without introducing himself. Turns out, he didn’t have to!
The woman, played by Smulders, chased after him in the parking lot and said, “Hey. This is weird but you’re Mickey Haller, right?” Mickey confirmed, but before he could catch her name, she screamed “GET DOWN!” and the two ducked behind a car as shots were fired. Within seconds, the FBI was on the scene. They were following Mickey because they had reason to believe he was still a target. And he was! The Armenians tried to take him out, but Allison saved his life.
“What just happened? How’d you learn to do that?” Mickey asked Allison. “I don’t know. The guy was eyeballing you, and then he reached into his jacket, and I guess my instincts kicked in,” she replied. When Mickey questioned her instincts and her identity, she dropped the bomb, saying, “Oh, uh…actually, I’m your sister.” TWIST!!!
Is Mickey’s Sister Connected To Bosch? Cobie Smulders’ Lincoln Lawyer Character Explained
Fans of Connelly’s books and Bosch have been waiting to see if Mickey would encounter a long lost sibling at some point during The Lincoln Lawyer, and it seems we have our answer! In the books, Mickey’s half-brother is Harry Bosch, but since Bosch is a Prime Video series and The Lincoln Lawyer is a Netflix original, an official crossover becomes tricky. So Smulders’ character is a creative way to expand Mickey’s world and family, while keeping some of the sibling parallels that fans of the book loved so much. Plus, with Mickey losing his father figure in Season 4, he could use another family member in his corner.
Since we just met Allison, Smulders is set to return in The Lincoln Lawyer Season 5, which is inspired by Book 7 in Connelly’s series, Resurrection Walk. In the book, Mickey teams up with his half-brother to tackle new cases. So it seems like Allison will stepping in as she gets to know her brother better.
In an interview with ScreenRant, The Lincoln Lawyer‘s co-showrunner and co-creator Ted Humphrey shared what fans can expect from Smulders’ character in Season 5 and what her presence means for Mickey.
“…Now that [Mickey’s] free of that, he’s got to take stock of who he is, and what he wants, and how has this all changed him? And suddenly, this completely unseen free radical floats into this situation. And we felt that it was important to do it from a personal angle and not from just another case or somebody gets murdered or something like that. We’ve sort of seen that. And so we felt it was really important,” Humphrey said. “We’ve knocked this guy for a loop professionally, now let’s knock him personally, and make him question everything about who he is or what he thought he knew about himself.”
There’s also a question of whether or not Allison is telling the truth about her relationship to Mickey. “First of all, who is this person? Is she even telling the truth? If she is, what does that mean? And also why now? Why come to him now at this moment? I will tell you there is an answer to that, and it will form the basis of the way we unravel all this and the story that we tell in Season 5,” Humphrey told the outlet.
And yes, for those wondering, the addition of Smulders’ character definitely seems Bosch-inspired — even if we can’t see a crossover because the shows exist on different platforms.
“So what Bosch has done throughout that series is create other characters to take the place of Mickey. And we did that in season 1 with Detective Griggs, who is wonderful, who we’d love to find a way to bring back,” Humphrey explained. “But there are some stories that we want to tell that require somebody inside the tent, if you will. A closer person. And so it felt like not an opportunity to just do that with a different person, but an opportunity to create new stories, but use that template.”
So there you have it, Lincoln Lawyer fans. Cobie Smulders is here to stay — at least for Season 5! And we can’t wait to see what the series has in store for her and Mickey. Stay tuned for more Season 5 premiere date and casting info, along with more Lincoln Lawyer Season 4 coverage from Decider.
The Lincoln Lawyer Season 4 is now streaming on Netflix.