Matty’s secret being discovered is only the beginning as Matlock plans to keep the surprises coming.
During the Thursday, April 3 episode, Sarah (Leah Lewis) is worried that Olympia (Skye P. Marshall) is planning to leave Jacobson Moore after she got help from a fellow attorney on the Johnson file. Sarah tried to get Matty (Kathy Bates) to find out more, to no avail. But the truth ultimately came out when Matty made the journey back home — only to run into Olympia.
The run-in revealed that Olympia was onto Matty’s lies for a while, which calls into question their friendship and Matty’s future at the firm. Luckily, Us Weekly caught up with showrunnerr Jennie Snyder Urman at PaleyFest to get a hint at what comes next.
“When we get to a new problem in storytelling, I really sit in the character’s emotion on how they would respond. I’m always surprised with what comes out as I think about it — like how they push through — or how each character tells me how they would react,” Urman, 49, told Us about dealing with onscreen challenges. “The more we dig into the human experience — and just the more interesting and surprising ways that people behave — it keeps coming to the forefront.”
Matlock threw viewers for a loop with that shocking premiere plot twist — but what comes next? Kathy Bates‘ character, Madeline “Matty” Matlock, was introduced during the sneak peek of the series, which aired on Sunday, September 22. Despite sharing the same last name as the iconic Matlock series from the ’80s, Matty appeared to […]
She continued: “I’m constantly surprised by the characters and what the writers’ room brings in. Also just how we can keep twisting the story and make it more. [It is all about] keeping it fresh and interesting.”
It doesn’t stop there after Matlock was renewed for a second season.
Kathy Bates as Madeline Matlock and Skye P. Marshall as Olympia Lawrence on ‘Matlock.’ Erik Voake/CBS
“The season 1 finale sets up everything. In season 2, you’ll get the answers that we’ve been promising,” Urman hinted. “It sets up something new. You’ll end up with great conflict between characters and a lot of different motivations come to a head. It leaves a lot of drama and fun to unpack in the second season.”
Matlock, which premiered in September 2024, follows a wealthy retired lawyer named Madeline Kingston (Bates) who pretends to be a poor widower named Matty Matlock to get a job at a firm. As it turns out, Matty thinks someone at the company is complicit in the opioid epidemic that resulted in her daughter’s death.
The plan to take down Jacobson Moore doesn’t exactly go as planned since Matty finds herself growing closer to Olympia (Marshall), Billy (David Del Rio), Sarah (Lewis) and more of her coworkers that don’t seem to be aware of the corruption at the firm.
After Matlock was renewed, director and executive producer Kat Coiro previewed how the show keeps building off the original twist.
“What’s so brilliant about the show and Jennie’s writing is that it’s very incremental and character-based. The twists have a lot to do with psychology rather than relying on big external factors or plot shifts,” Coiro explained in November 2024. “You get so invested in these characters that small revelations become really exciting.”
Coiro clarified that the CBS series isn’t relying on just one storytelling device.
“It’s easier to get away with that the more invested everybody becomes in the characters. Definitely the twist in the pilot was the biggest,” she noted. “Because you think you’re watching a pretty standard procedural about a fish out of water in a law firm. Then suddenly you introduce this story line that now has to carry two plots and two different sets of characters through every episode.”
Coiro praised the show’s writers’ room for finding ways to keep each episode feeling new, adding, “I think subtlety of the progression and the fact that it’s not moving forward at an incredibly rapid rate is part of what makes it sustainable.”
Matlock airs on CBS Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET and is currently streaming on Paramount+.
With reporting by Shar Jossell
