Matlock Boss Breaks Down Finale's Big Reveal, That Surprise Arrival, And If [Spoiler] Will Be Back For Season 2
The following contains major spoilers for the CBS' Matlock Season 1 finale.
Matlock's season-long whodunnit was solved in Thursday night's two-hour finale — Matty herself just doesn't know it quite yet.
In the course of helping Sarah (played by Leah Lewis) defend a client she took on without the firm's knowledge — oops! — newly minted Jacobson Moore partner Olympia (Skye P. Marshall) worked in concert with "Matty"/Madeline Kingston (Kathy Bates) to get to the bottom of how, exactly, Julian (Jason Ritter) 14 years ago came through with the money to buy their brownstone.
Ultimately, it came down to Olympia employing some of Matty's "tricks of the trade" to snow a bank officer and get her own eyes on the trust that Julian claims he had been given access to, by his mother, to lock down their dream home. Olympia (with an assist from Edwin as "Julian") pulls off the subterfuge, then excitedly phones Matty to declare, "There was no payout!," that Julian did get the money from the trust. And that she will head over to Matty's later with copies of everything.
But after Olympia hangs up, the bank officer asks if she also needs to check Julian's safe deposit box.... Curious, and maybe filled with some dread, Olympia accepts the offer. And inside, she finds the damning Welbrexa study.
No sooner does she have it in he clutches does Julian arrive (why/how?), and truth-telling time commences. He talks openly, and emotionally, about how he was just 26 at the time and desperate to prove himself to his father. Julian pleads that he should not be defined by his worst moment — nor should he be tarnished in their children's eyes — so there must be away to resolve this privately.
With that cliffhanger left hanging, we leave the safe deposit room to check in on Matty at home, anxiously awaiting Olympia's arrival. But when the doorbell rings, it is not her boss on her doorstep but a stranger (played by Sons of Anarchy's Niko Nicotera) who says that Aflie somehow tracked him down, and he may be the motherless kid's father!
TVLine spoke with Matlock showrunner Jennie Snyder Urman about the aforementioned twists, Billy's big news and more.
TVLINE | Did you consider any other endpoint for Season 1, other than Olivia finding the "smoking gun" and Julian begging for mercy?
No, not really. I mean, yes, as we were thinking about what we would do, there's obviously a lot of brainstorming and a lot of different avenues that you go down.... But once we happened upon that [Julian reveal], that felt like the right one in that we wanted to leave every character in the worst possible situation where they have a big decision to make — and the decision that they make will shoot the second season into a specific direction.
TVLINE | I was fully expecting that scene to end sooner. Like, Olympia finds the document, Julian walks in, she spins around... then fade to black. And then we're left wondering, "Oh, what's that conversation going to be like?"
I wanted every character to have their moment in the finale, where you learn more about them and where you really understand them. And the person we haven't had enough time to access in that way was Julian, and if he took the document. If you just saw at the end that he took the document, you're like, "Oh, no." But letting him talk his way through it and explain why he did what he did, and showing us that character's humanity, where he's like, "Don't let me be defined by the worst thing I ever did"....
And we have Jason Ritter, who is this beautiful actor who lets you access his emotional life so completely, and his vulnerability, so to get the audience to feel for him makes the dilemma way, way harder because there's a part of you that's like, "Yes, make it go away, save your family! What he's saying is true!" I wanted him to be able to plead his case, so that you know why it's such a hard decision for Olympia.
And Jason [Ritter].... I've been waiting for that scene with Jason, for him to explain what he did and who he is, and that yes, he's privileged in the world, but that doesn't mean his life was easy, because he's been battling his father upstream — and yet he knows that sounds really spoiled and privileged even as he's saying it. And just the complicated emotions that he's going through, that caused him to make this mistake. And he kept [the document], he kept it because it's his "telltale heart." He couldn't throw it away because he's reminding himself of the worst thing he ever did. That's how much guilt he carries. Accessing that gives us way more juice [heading into Season 2], and makes the decision way more harder with what will Olympia do.
TVLINE | I'm sitting here trying to think of what scenario unfolds where Olympia hears out Julian... Jacobson Moore stays intact... and Madeleine sticks around as Matlock.
[Snyder Urman is mum]
TVLINE | But you figured it out?
Yes. [Laughs] We have figured it out. We know what the second season is like, "soup to nuts." We just did a big pitch that took like an hour, taking the studio and network through every episode of the second season. We know where it ends, and we know what it launches for the third season. There are big problems, there are big challenges, and if you can find creative ways that are truthful and grounded to solve them, then we're in good dramatic space.
TVLINE | All I can come up with is: Olympia begs Madeleine, "Let's not throw Julian under the bus. Let's spend Season 2 getting the goods on Senior, because he's the real villain here."
I mean, that is definitely a smart take on what Olympia would want.
TVLINE | Are we going to get less Jason Ritter in Season 2?
Nope, you're going to get more.
TVLINE | Oh! Didn't Julian just quit the firm...?
He did just quit the firm. He did just quit the firm. Yes, there are going to be so many things that happen! So many things. [Laughs]
TVLINE | Did you ever think about having a patsy be the ultimate file-taker, like Shae or Elijah?
No, I felt like we that would be like letting us off the dramatic hook that we set up at the beginning. It felt like a way out.
TVLINE | Because a lot of our readers were thinking it was going to be Shae.
I know, and and we played with that. That was why she was placed there. You were supposed to think, "Oh, that's how they're going to get out of this." That was purposeful.
TVLINE | Will Season 2 pick up right where the finale left off? Or is it going to be "Six Months Later"?
No, no, no, it opens very, very tight tight tightly behind the events of the finale.
TVLINE | Alfie's possible father just showed up. Is that a new mystery for Madeline to solve?
It won't be a mystery; it's a DNA test, so she'll get a definitive answer about that....
TVLINE | So why was she giving him side-eye?
She is shocked. This guy has come up on her door, and if he knew Ellie at that time, the chances are high that he was an addict or is an addict still, and you have this the spectre of a father showing up out of the blue.... It throws her entire life, and Maddie's a character that thrives on control. Like, our whole season was built around this concept of her in control — she's steps ahead of the audience, she steps ahead of the characters, we're flashing back to what she knew and what we didn't know — and we're leaving her in the end out of control. She is emotionally blindsided by this person on her doorstep, and Olympia now has Information that Maddie doesn't have, so suddenly we have a character who had everything mapped out and under control whose life starts to become out of control. Seeing what Madeleine Matlock is like under that kind of pressure is going to be really interesting.
TVLINE | Billy's going to be a dad! Talk about that decision.
Yes, his ex-girlfriend [Claudia] is pregnant, so the first thing they're going to be discussing is whether she's going to have a baby or not have a baby, and based on that discussion, his life could take a turn. And David Del Rio (who plays Billy) is a new father, he has two under 2, and I've been watching him navigate new fatherhood. Everything always merges–
TVLINE | The same way that Eliza Bennett was actually very pregnant last week as Amy!
Exactly, exactly. She was having some Braxton Hicks when we were saying they were Braxton Hicks....
TVLINE | Oh, wow.
She was surrounded by mothers on stage, though. It was nice.
TVLINE | And then we had Simone talking to David Fumero's character at the end, about Sarah...
Sarah had this great victory and we root for her and she really brought our team together, and it was like the last thing that Matty had to kind of clean up at the law firm because she had crushed this girl's dream in order to protect her secret. But Sarah took the case, and you can't take a case in a giant law firm without going through the proper channels. There are conflict checks. It's as bad as it gets. I mean, she could have been representing the owner of the gym and Jacobson Moore could own the people who make the boxing gloves. You just can't do that, it's a fireable offense, so that's what's at stake.
TVLINE | Will we see Shae and Mrs. B next season?
For sure — and we'll introduce a few new fun characters to the firm.
TVLINE | Oh, that was my next question. Can you give a sense of one of the characters you plan to introduce?
We're going to get a little bit into the specific power structures of the firm. Senior's third and most-hated ex-wife becomes a character of significance.
TVLINE | Before we go, I had to point out that TVLine here is at 475 Fifth Avenue, so I have a hearty laugh every time you show Jacobson Moore's "450 5th Avenue" address — that's catty-corner from us. A bank, maybe? But otherwise, your Los Angeles version of New York is better than, say, Seinfeld's.
That is so funny!
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