'Luke Cage' Icon Is Officially Back in Business at CBS With New Look at Upcoming 'Lincoln Lawyer' Replacement [Exclusive]

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Mike Colter being escorted out of work with a box of his belongings in Cupertino Image via CBS

Published Sep 24, 2026, 10:00 AM EDT

Ryan O'Rourke is a Senior News Writer at Collider with a specific interest in all things adult animation, video game adaptations, and the work of Mike Flanagan. He is also an experienced baseball writer with over six years of articles between multiple outlets, most notably FanSided's CubbiesCrib. Whether it's taking in a baseball game, a new season of Futurama or Castlevania: Nocturne, or playing the latest From Software title, he is always finding ways to show his fandom. When it comes to gaming and anything that takes inspiration from it, he is deeply opinionated on what's going on. Outside of entertainment, he's a graduate of Eureka College with a Bachelor's in Communication where he honed his craft as a writer. Between The IV Leader at Illinois Valley Community College and The Pegasus at Eureka, he spent the majority of his college career publishing articles on everything from politics to campus happenings and, of course, entertainment for the student body. Those principles he learned covering the 2020 election, Palestine, and so much more are brought here to Collider, where he has gleefully written on everything from the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes to Nathan Lane baby-birding sewer boys.

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Next year, Mike Colter will finally slip back into the impenetrable skin of Luke Cage and reunite with his fellow Defenders in the third and final season of Daredevil: Born Again. Before that, though, he has another date with the Kings of CBS. After breaking out as Harlem's greatest hero in his eponymous Netflix Marvel series, The Good Wife creators Michelle and Robert King tapped Colter as one of the leads of their 2019 supernatural horror drama Evil, a partnership that went well across four acclaimed seasons between the Eye network and Paramount+. Their latest team-up is now just around the corner, but this time, the star will be taking on the boogeymen of Silicon Valley rather than actual demons, and Collider can share an exclusive look.

Premiering on October 8, right after Season 4 of the Kings' other hit, Elsbeth, Cupertino unfolds in the titular city at the center of California's tech hub. There, lawyer Michael Price (Colter) is jobless and cheated out of his valuable stock options after being wrongfully ousted from a booming tech start-up. Fortunately, he's not alone. He joins forces with fellow kicked-to-the-curb attorney Olivia Siffre (Rachel Keller) to form a law firm to fight battles that others wouldn't dare and take on the tech giants that believe they can act with impunity and take advantage of whomever they please. The premiere will see the two begin their David vs. Goliath legal battle with a little help from Michael's former assistant, Christy Palladino (Ella Stiller), but after that, they'll take on their first client.

Our exclusive images come from Episode 2, "Vik & Bo," and highlight a few of the other key players who will help get Michael and Olivia's firm soaring. One shot highlights their present situation, consisting of a makeshift office in the shell of a building where the very columns are used to keep notes for themselves, showing they have a long way to go to the top. They get a foothold courtesy of Vik Malhotra, played by Twisters actor Nik Dodani. Vik is a Silicon Valley coder being thrown under the bus after an errant drone killed an onlooker during an elaborate display. Michael and Olivia choose to defend him, even heading to the disheveled man's apartment to help prepare for his day in court. Clients are one thing, but the firm needs money, and the duo finds it in the spurned ex-wife of a tech billionaire, Natalia Boutella. Girls5Eva star Busy Philipps embodies Boutella in our last image, showing her meeting with Price and Siffre to talk business, though she looks a little skeptical that these two have what it takes to challenge the likes of Google or OpenAI.

Collider Exclusive · Villain Personality Quiz Which Criminal Mastermind Would Be Your Nemesis? Lecter · Joker · Moriarty · Chigurh

Four of the finest criminal minds ever put on screen. One of them would look at you and see something worth their time. Eight questions decide which one comes for you, why they picked you, and what they would want when they arrived.

🍷Lecter

🃏Joker

♟️Moriarty

🪙Chigurh

MEET YOUR NEMESIS →

01

What would a criminal mastermind notice about you first? Great villains choose their opponents carefully. Something about you got their attention.

AMy manners, and everything I am careful not to say. BThat I still believe people are basically decent. CThat I am clever, and quietly enjoy proving it. DThat I handle things myself, and always have.

NEXT QUESTION →

02

How do they make first contact? The introduction tells you everything about what is coming next.

AA polite letter. Beautiful handwriting. Quietly wrong. BSomething on fire, with a message left beside it. CA puzzle, left where only I would look. DNo contact. Just the aftermath, and a coin.

NEXT QUESTION →

03

What do you actually believe about right and wrong? Every nemesis is really an argument about the thing you believe most.

AThere are lines. Mine are private and absolute. BRules are the only thing keeping us from being animals. CMorality is a system, and systems can be solved. DThings happen. Most of it was never up to me.

NEXT QUESTION →

04

What finally gets under your skin? Everybody has a pressure point. Finding yours is the whole plan.

ABeing seen clearly by somebody I cannot read. BWatching good people do something ugly. CLosing to someone who was simply better prepared. DHaving no move left that changes anything.

NEXT QUESTION →

05

They have made their move. How do you fight back? This is the part of the film where the audience finds out who you are.

ACarefully, and never where they expect to be touched. BLoudly. I would rather lose than play their game. CWith a better plan. I can out-think this. DDirectly, once, with whatever is closest to hand.

NEXT QUESTION →

06

What would they use against you? A good villain never brings a weapon you have not already handed them.

AMy privacy. I have kept far too much to myself. BMy conscience. I will not cross the line they want. CMy ego. I cannot resist a worthy opponent. DMy certainty that I can handle it alone.

NEXT QUESTION →

07

What do they actually want from you? The money is never the point. Something else always is.

ATo understand me better than anyone ever has. BTo prove I am no better than they are. CTo finally be beaten by someone worth the trouble. DNothing at all. I stepped into the wrong path.

NEXT QUESTION →

08

How does it end between the two of you? Eight questions in, this is the one that decides who comes for you.

AA conversation I will be replaying for years. BA choice forced on me that has no clean answer. COne final move, and the better mind wins. DA coin in the air, and nothing I can say.

REVEAL MY NEMESIS →

The Case File Is Complete Your Nemesis Is…

Four criminal masterminds. One of them was always going to be yours. Here is who comes for you, why they picked you out of everyone available, and what they want from the encounter.

Hannibal Lecter

Your nemesis does not want to beat you. He wants to know you completely, and he is patient enough to wait for it. The frightening part is how good the conversation is.

  • Lecter is the most dangerous kind of opponent: the one who finds you interesting. He never raises his voice, because he has never needed to.
  • You keep a great deal to yourself and you are careful about what you show. That reserve is exactly the door he would knock on.
  • The films understood something other thrillers missed. The horror is not the violence. It is being perfectly understood by the wrong person.
  • He would be unfailingly polite about all of it. That is the worst part.

The Joker

Your nemesis is not after money, territory or revenge. He is after a demonstration, and you are the person he has chosen to prove his point on.

  • The Joker only picks opponents who believe in something. Your decency is not a defence against him. It is the entire reason he showed up.
  • He has no plan you can predict and nothing you can take away, which removes every tool you would normally reach for.
  • His whole argument is that you are one bad day away from being him, and you would spend the rest of your life proving him wrong.
  • He would call it a magic trick. You would call it the worst night of your life.

Moriarty

Your nemesis respects you, which sounds flattering until you work out what it means. He chose you because nobody else was worth his time.

  • Moriarty is the original criminal mastermind, the template every later one borrows from: a mind the equal of the hero's, pointed the wrong way.
  • You enjoy being the cleverest person in the room. He is counting on exactly that, and he has already built the room.
  • This is the rare nemesis who would be genuinely disappointed if you lost badly. He needs the game to be worth playing.
  • It ends the way these things always end. Two people, one problem, and only one way down.

Anton Chigurh

Your nemesis has no personal interest in you whatsoever, and that is precisely what makes him unsurvivable. You are not a rival. You are a stop on the way.

  • Chigurh does not negotiate, gloat or explain. He arrives, he asks one question, and the answer was decided long before you opened your mouth.
  • You trust yourself to handle things. He is the one problem in the world that has no interest in how capable you are.
  • No Country for Old Men rewrote the screen villain by removing the thing audiences quietly rely on: the sense that talking might work.
  • Call it. He will wait.

↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ

'Cupertino' Brings in Two Familiar Guest Stars for Episode 2

Episode 2 also gives the fledgling firm its first big lead through a potential new whistleblower client that Christy first works to vet. Between whatever information they have to provide and a potential influx of cash from Natalia, they may end up with enough to get on the tech titans' radars. Cupertino, like Elsbeth, isn't wasting any time bringing in guest stars either. After Joe Morton and Steven Pasquale join the premiere, "Vik & Bo'" will welcome two names familiar to the Kings — Rob McClure and Evan Handler. The former has appeared in all three of Elsbeth, Evil, and The Good Fight, while the latter, best known for their time on Sex and the City and Californication, also appeared in the Christine Baranski and Sarah Steele-led Good Wife spin-off.

Cupertino Episode 2 will air on CBS on October 15 after the series premiere on October 8. Check out our exclusive images in the gallery above.

cupertino-upcoming-tv-show-logo-placeholder.jpg

Showrunner Michelle King, Robert King

Directors Michelle King, Robert King

Writers Michelle King, Robert King

Cast

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