Matlock Reboot Images Reveal Kathy Bates’ Final Role & Her Supporting Cast
Warning! SPOILERS ahead for Matlock season 1 premiere.
The showrunner and executive producer of CBS’Matlockexplains the game-changing twist at the end of the series premiere. Kathy Bates headlines and executive produces thereboot of the Andy Griffith-led seriesof the same name, which focuses on Madeline “Matty” Matlock. A lawyer now in her seventies, Matty joins an impressive New York law firm. But despite her kind and seemingly unassuming personality, the debut episode reveals that Matty has an ulterior motive for returning to law: she wants to take down one of her co-workers and put them in jail, blaming them for the death of her daughter.
In an interview withDeadline, showrunner and executive producer Jennie Snyder Urman discussed the twist regarding Matty, which is revealed in the episode’s opening minutes. Matty makes reference to the television showMatlock, and it turns out that she used the Andy Griffith show as inspiration for her cover story. Urman explains that this was in part a result of the fact thatshe didn’t want the CBS show to just be a gender-flipped reboot. Because of this, the EP started thinking of reasons why Matty would have the Matlock name.
Urman also sheds light on Matty’s motivation, which is that her daughter died as a result of opioids and that the law firm hid documents that might’ve taken the drug off the market. In the quote below, the showrunner talks about the real-life inspiration for the twist. Urman also confirms that viewers will learn more about Madeline Kingston, which is Matty’s real name:
It was part of the original pitch. When I was thinking about what I would do if I were to adapt this title, I was like, what would be different? Of course, I was going to start with a female protagonist, but I didn’t want to just do a gender-swapped version that wasn’t interesting. So I started to think that maybe she isusingthe name Matlock. I gave myself sort of a challenge. I can continue to tell the audience they’re underestimating her but then they’re fooled at the end.
I knew I wanted her to have a spine of steel throughout the show, that it had real stakes, that there was something real and deep we could explore in terms of grief and loss and our responsibility to each other, the responsibility of the legal profession in terms of what is your responsibility to public health versus your job as a lawyer to not do something that would hurt your client.
I had read an article about a law firm that was sanctioned for hiding documents in the opioid crisis, and that stayed with me for a long time. I had read all of those books before Dopesick, and I remember I tried to get the rights early on, so that was all in my head at the same time. You never know what the soup of is going to be like, how the synapses are going to connect in your brain. Why would a woman like that want to go back into the law firm? What could be deep and meaningful enough? Then the story unfolded. So I pitched it, from beginning to end.
In the pilot, you really have to feel like you’re enjoying a fish-out-of-water comedy. And then all of a sudden, the ending comes and you’re surprised. Starting with episode two, you’re on the inside with her. So you get the privilege of knowing she’s on her secret mission. She’s a spy, basically. Is she going to get caught? Is she not going to get caught?
We start to expand the home life, and you start to learn more about who Madeline Kingston is. You start to learn more about her family, about her marriage, about her grandson, about her daughter. You’ll meet her daughter eventually in flashbacks and sort of go to that core, that moment when Matty decided that she has this plan. Is she going to get caught and excited when she outsmart someone, or worried when she doesn’t outsmart someone?
What The Twist Means For Matlock
There’s A Few Different Layers At Work
The changes in theMatlockreboot becomes clear in the show’s opening stretch when it’s revealed that the originalMatlockis a show that exists within the reboot’s universe. At first, it seems like this might be an opportunity for the series to get a little meta. The characters name-drop other classic shows, ranging fromCheerstoMacGyver, and it’s another way to point out how much older and out of practice Matty is than the rest of her peers.
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But the newMatlock –with its main castthat also includes Skye P. Marshall, Jason Ritter, David Del Rio, and Leah Lewis – twists that lightheartedness by the premiere’s end. Matty has chosen the Matlock moniker because it has a connection to her daughter, the same daughter who died as a result of opioids. This deeper connection, and this hidden motivation, means that it’s likely only a matter of time before Matty’s secret is threatened. This gives the CBS show momentum and a conflict that will carry the first season forward.
Our Take On The Matlock Twist
It’s Too Early To Give A Verdict
Elsbeth, another CBS procedural, takes a simpler approach thanMatlock. It features a new case every week, while also including a larger mystery and a secret identity for its titular character. But for most of season 1, the larger mystery ofElsbethdid not move forward or include surprising twists. It was largely limited to a few minutes at the end of the episode, which would incrementally push the story forward.
The legal drama led by Bates may have a better chance to balance the personal and the procedural. The premiere, which is written by Urman and directed by Kat Coiro, is about evenly split between a case involving a wrongly convicted man and establishing the stakes. If that balance holds, then the new version is off to a good start and serves as a positive forMatlockseason 2.
Matlockwill return to CBS with new episodes on Thursday, October 17 at 9 PM ET
